Does Mitt Romney have a full-body halo, or is this just bad Photoshopping? Was Romney even there, or is this a copy & paste job gone awry? I think we should be told ;)
It’s the only way he can appear to be brighter than concrete.
I heard that he was once stopped in his car by the police and found to be carrying his pet dog in a box strapped onto the roof of his car. I don't live in the US, but if I did and this is true, then he wouldn't be getting my vote.
Dave
I think there are more compelling reasons not to vote for him than that? :(There are plenty of reasons not to vote for either of the two main candidates.
There are plenty of reasons not to vote for either of the two main candidates.You don't have to vote (assuming you are a gringo). Here in Australia, we would be legally compelled to make a choice, or face a fine for not doing so. I actually think that is a good thing, that works well for us, but I do very occasionally perform an act of deliberate civil disobedience, and pay the fine. And sometimes I just forget, and pay the fine.
I think there are more compelling reasons not to vote for him than that? :(
Pox on 'em all I say >:(
Interesting to see how many opinions Europeans have on American elections.Antipodeans too, no doubt. The outcome has the potential to affect us too. We hope our American friends choose wisely.
Interesting to see how many opinions Europeans have on American elections.
America rules the world...or at least it tries to?
Russ in the UK the BBC news - usually neutral bias - he is portrayed as definitely right wing and gaff prone with few redeeming features. Lampooned for his faults whereas Obama gets an easy ride from them. As to ruling the world I saw recently on the BBC from Obama that he and America wanted to lead the world, same as rules in my book. Obviously the coverage in the UK is a lot less and probably biased towards the Democrats. :-\
The race boils down to democracy vs. socialism...
Most of the Western world is running in the socialist direction, including the US;
The race boils down to democracy vs. socialism. Very simple choice for anyone paying attention.
The race boils down to democracy vs. socialism. Very simple choice for anyone paying attention.
The right word is "capitalism."
Nope ... "ism"s are the problem. Until you stop repeating 'ism'-based pablum, nothing can be discussed at all.
The right word is "capitalism." Without that we're all in deep doo-doo.
... But I don't think "democracy" is the right word. Our own brilliant founders were scared to death of democracy, and the French revolution made clear the reasons to be afraid of it. At the moment we're seeing democracy at work in Iraq. The right word is "capitalism."...
Okay, Slobodan, what, exactly, do you think JPM "owed" the "public" other than to pull together disparate and scattered, inefficient bits and pieces to create things like GE and US Steel, both of which have contributed immensely to a US where we live with running water and electricity and take both for granted? It'd be interesting to hear a response on that from alphabet soup, up above, too.
... electricity...
There you go. I knew it.
he owed protection from expropriation for starters... and if you think that his wealth could buy a force to stop that on his own w/o buying a public then just look across Bering strait for an example of what happens if you have too many hoi polloi that you owe nothing.
For that you have to be grateful to my compatriot, not JPM.
... People are blind and see only what suits them at the time.
Sorry, Alphabet, I haven't the foggiest idea what you just said.
Presumably this is something everyone but you suffers from
You're right, Slobodan, but JPM was one of the "robber barons" who produced what was necessary to make it widespread instead of confined to the very wealthy.and that was possible only because of the society where he was born
You're right, Slobodan, but JPM was one of the "robber barons" who produced what was necessary...
... Nowadays the "public" wants the government to look out for it...
The reason the US got where it got is because the "public" was, for the most part, able and willing to look out for itself. Unfortunately, we've lost a lot of that. Nowadays the "public" wants the government to look out for it. The change represents a terrible loss.
The pathetic part of Romney's recent comments is that they indicate he actually believes the lies that underpin his party's rhetoric!
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3505
Since I do not like either Romney or Obamy, I wish to keep this even. The pathetic part of Obama's recent comments is that they indicate he actually believes the lies that underpin his party's rhetoric! He seems to really believe that the economy in America is better now than when he started with his hope and change.
Well ... your argument has symmetry, but no substance.
Output was in freefall and the financial system was on the verge of total collapse ... there is very little hard data that that would support the argument that the US economy is in worse shape now than in January 2009.
Try again! You'll can find something to criticize Obama for if you think about it ... my big critique of Obama is from the left ... I think we missed a once in a lifetime opportunity to regulate the assholes in the financial sector who play craps with our national credit. We also should have given debt relief to homeowners and not just the banks.
If the employers fail to take on new employees then it is hard for any government to force them unless the government hands out large bribes for doing so? In the UK it has been estimated that large firms have about £800 billion in their accounts that should and could be spent to kick start the economy. They will have to start spending at the same time because a handful don't want to in case the economy continues to dive, meaning they will lose their spending capital. At the end of the day it isn't the government that runs society but the private holders of wealth who will spend when it suits them to make profits for their own greed and not the overall good of the people. >:(
So I guess the US Department of Labor statistics are of no substance. The backbone of the economy is jobs. Google the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate. It is higher now than in 2009.
I'm not from the US ... I can say with confidence that it was not a bit like the US of A.hmmm... how do you know ? I know for example because I have two passports - one red and one blue... so I can compare because I actually live/lived and not as a tourist.
Well ... unemployment peaked in October 2009 and has been falling since ... not sure what you think that shows.
It did rise during the course of 2009, but that can't be blamed on the brand new administration.
Well ... unemployment peaked in October 2009 and has been falling since ... not sure what you think that shows.
It did rise during the course of 2009, but that can't be blamed on the brand new administration.
Jeremy who's thoroughly absorbed the US mainstream media propaganda.
... Maybe I just missed the socialistic ones so far.
... the US mainstream media propaganda...
I only have one passport to boast but I used to live in the US for a while and go there occasionally. But I must admit that I haven't been to all 50 states. Maybe I just missed the socialistic ones so far.
that is the point - you are not actually even a permanent resident, you were a temp visitor at best on some non immigrant visa, so as we say - do not mix tourism and immigration.
I am confused here. The "mainstream media" is often portrayed as liberal, "liking Obama," left-leaning, etc. Isn't, however, the Fox News actually the most popular one, so much so that:
- Fox News has the 10 most viewed cable TV news shows (as of Dec 2009).
- Fox News mean prime-time viewing figures are triple that of MSNBC, and double that of CNN, and exceed the total ratings of CNN, MSNBC and CNBC combined.
- In 2006, more than half the people watching cable news were watching Fox News
If anything, it looks like that if the American people are exposed to propaganda, it would be the right-wing one, no? Or, perhaps, because they are "fair and balanced," they can not be considered right-wing?
Oh, and zuchinnis are courgettes, except in Italy, basil isn't pronounced bay-zil, and oregano isn't pronounced or-egg-an-o. Just saying. ;)
You do realise that from a European perspective, the US 'liberal left' is our centre right (at best), and your right wing is our fascistic right. The Tea Party are just barking mad. When we hear Obama referred to as a socialist, socialists just laugh - they simply wouldn't vote for someone so right-wing.
Oh, and zuchinnis are courgettes, except in Italy, basil isn't pronounced bay-zil, and oregano isn't pronounced or-egg-an-o. Just saying. ;)
Hi Bill,
I am somewhat grieved that the lusciously smoky aubergine did not get a run in your linguistic list.
Quote Rob
Stamper, you live in a dream.
Unquote
Rob the next time you are out for lunch - a lot of people can't afford it - just think about how the nightmare you support has brought the economic world to it's knees and yet you want the same nightmare to try and repair it? There wasn't one socialist, communist or left leaning person who caused the nightmare. The entrepreneurs you worship must take ALL of the blame. :'(
Rob, what silver spoon are you referring to?[full disclosure, I was born and raised in the USA. I've worked in more than 40 countries. I've lived in Europe for a decade, China and Japan for five years and call Australia home.]
Hi Jennifer,
"Rob, what silver spoon are you referring to?"
The one that most of our Brit left refers to every time that a well-educated guy gets into power; then, it becomes class warfare about them 'n' us and all that sort of stuff that is the standard, pop-up item in the socialist argument library. That everyone has the same voting rights is somehow lost in that brand of argument, and the projection is that, somehow, were you to go to Oxbridge, you'd rule the world. To show it ain't necessarily so, I enclose the following item where my granddaughter, Francesca, and her buddy scored the best results in this UK-wide contest in Law, two Scottish students beating the best of England on English Law. I liked that.
And, Chris, talk about going out on a limb. . . Keep watching, my friend, you're going to be astonished in the very near future.
I challenge any of you come up with an example of a socialist success -- a nation whose people are or have been free and prosperous under socialism.
Sorry, but this has gone so far over the hill that I had to. . .
For Jennifer: Where did I say that democracy and socialism are mutually exclusive? I said two things on that general subject (1) pure democracy is scary and can be deadly as the French demonstrated after their revolution, and (2) capitalism and socialism (communism being nothing but socialism on steroids) are mutually exclusive.
... Democracy and socialism are not mutually exclusive ...
I went back through the thread and I couldn't find a post where you directly compared socialise as exclusive to democracy. But take a look at your last post, equating socialism with North Korea. I haven't spent a lot of time in Korea, but my understanding is that it's driven mostly by the syndicates (There's a word I'm looking for but I've lost it). Frankly, at a local level China is incredibly democratic and non-socialist. Libertarian to the core. If anything, they are struggling for something more socialist. It's a country of capitalists.
Countries such as Australia would be considered Socialist by your standard. I assure you, it's still a Democracy. Your views and perspective are clear.
Norway. According to your (American) definition of socialism it definitely is. Albeit Norway is lucky to have plenty of oil and natural gas. Denmark and Sweden are doing fairly well, too.
EDIT: How could I forget Switzerland. Even if you take away the foreign money, the still have an incredibly high productivity.
I think short of someone shooting the pres or a military coup (always a possibility), the numbers aren't there for the Twit.
The most illuminating comparison between socialism and capitalism, by the way, is in north and south Korea. Both halves are populated by the same race of intelligent, productive people. The results are on display for anyone with eyes to see.
What would you like me to . . .do?
Pay attention.
With your statement on Australia you've again confused socialism and democracy as somehow antagonistic. Australia and Canada both are democracies, and like Canada, Australia has been in and out of socialism. At the moment, Australia seems to be in and Canada, thank the Lord, seems to be out.
North Korea is socialist. The state owns the means of production. That's the definition of socialism.Depends whether you're using Humpty-Dumpty's lexicon or not. Where does the idea of the state owning the means of production come from? Maybe you could explain.
... Socialist propaganda always has pictured Naziism as right-wing, but Nazi is a contraction of "Nationalsozialismus," which translates as "national socialism," which is exactly what it was.That'll explain why Hitler sent socialists to the death camps. Thanks for clearing that up for us.
I specifically didn't include China in my list of socialist countries.Which is good, because it's largely a state capitalist system, just like the Soviet Union was (once it moved away from the degenerate workers' state, having never actually achieved communism)
A pox on both your houses!
Depends whether you're using Humpty-Dumpty's lexicon or not. Where does the idea of the state owning the means of production come from? Maybe you could explain.
That'll explain why Hitler sent socialists to the death camps. Thanks for clearing that up for us.
You might try the dictionary, Bill. Any dictionary.
Glad to do it. The socialists he sent to death camps were Russian communists.
Do you actually believe that the Nazis weren't socialists? Check the definition again in your dictionary. Any dictionary.
I wonder if the line is not being somewhat blurred between 'Socialist' and 'Social Welfare'? I don't recall Australia ever having been a Socialist state and I have lived here all my life with the exception of brief interludes in the UK.
Particularly since the Hawke/Keating era of the 80s and 90s all of the formerly State owned corporations and utilities have been privatised and remain so.
EDIT: Oh, I suppose I should point out that Hawke and Keating were Labour Prime Ministers - from the left.
I expect a full quote. Is Socialism equivalent to Racism?
and to a lesser extent Russia fairly soon after the revolution.it was never 100% the case, RSL, in Russia... and more over "soon" after the revolution... not even soon after the end of the civil war... unless you are talking about mass manufacturing and things that require actually some form of factory to be manufactured
You might try the dictionary, Bill. Any dictionary.Ah, so nothing technical then, like a text on political theory or something. Jut a dictionary.
Glad to do it. The socialists he sent to death camps were Russian communists.And German socialists.
Do you actually believe that the Nazis weren't socialists? Check the definition again in your dictionary. Any dictionary.Again, not exactly a technical source.
Ah, so nothing technical then, like a text on political theory or something. Jut a dictionary.
And German socialists.
Again, not exactly a technical source.
Anyway, can you understand the difference between the socialist idea of workers controlling the means of production, and the state doing so? And can you imagine how the workers might control the means of production without democracy? Do you understand the difference between democracy & oligarchy & plutocracy? Socialism & state capitalism?
Anyway, what any of this has to do with crappy Republican Party Photoshopping I don't quite understand.
it was never 100% the case, RSL, in Russia... and more over "soon" after the revolution... not even soon after the end of the civil war... unless you are talking about mass manufacturing and things that require actually some form of factory to be manufactured
... there's never been a case in history where "workers" actually controlled the means of production...
Your comparisons remain interesting. Despite being a democracy, I think South Korea exhibits socialist characteristics you'd despise as well. The "Race" of folks living in Korea share a lot of genetics, ethnicity and spirituality of those around the region, including Japan and a few other countries. What's happening in North Korea has little to do with socialism.
What's the calibre of your favourite handgun again?
What does technology have to do with it? It's the meaning of the word. It's like the word "human," Bill, it's a word. It has a specific definition, which one ordinarily finds in a dictionary.A common misconception, that dictionaries define words - they don't, they describe common usage
... I gave you a reference to the meaning of "Nazi:" Any dictionary or any encyclopedia ...Well, it might be illuminating to see what Hitler thought the term meant, in the context of the Nazi party. He objected to its use, but when he took over the party, decided to keep it, but chose to define it to suit his own ends. 'Socialist' was taken to refer to a commitment to the community or volk, not socialism in the sense that it had been used in the Paris Commune, or 18th century Britain, or even by Marx or Engels. You want sources, try Christopher McNab's book on the Third Reich.
... You're certainly entitled to your own ideas and biases, but you're not entitled to your own definitions of common words.Quite. Neither are you. But there is a world of difference between common usuage and informed, expert usuage. North Korea considers itself democratic - everyone votes, and the vote for the Glorious Leader, or else. But in the People's Republic, that's defined as democracy. I don't know about you, but that's not how I'd define it.
... It's a theory that's been around for a long time, at least since Marx expounded the labor theory of value in Das Kapital, but there's never been a case in history where "workers" actually controlled the means of production.Every co-operative fits the bill. Not that workers controlling means of production is all there is to socialism, and it doesn't necessarily require such a thing for a system to be socialist. Whether it is market socialism, municipal socialism, social democracy, details vary, but the guiding principle is of greater equality of opportunity, participation in decision-making and so on. But you're right, there's never been a properly communist (according to Marx, that's a post-socialist) state. The Paris Commune probably came closest, but that was put down. Communist states have only ever been communist in name only, never communally governed, but rather totalitarian dictatorships.
... For production to take place you need somebody in charge. That can be somebody who wants to produce something worthwhile and make a buck, or it can be a commissar who wants to control people ...Something of a false dichotomy. But enough with the politics, eh?
You're right, Walter, but it happens again and again -- not just about politics, about anything controversial.
But from what I've seen in the past we all stay friends. One or two exceptions, including dalethorn, whom I mentioned in another post. Dale just plain lost it. If I get some time I'll go back and find a couple of his final posts before he was thrust into the darkness.
Russ seems to be very good at attacking left leaning systems. To my mind it is a smokescreen. I would like him to try and defend the idiots, who are all capitalist and have brought most of the "advanced" countries to their knees through incompetence and greed. What would he do about the American bankers who started this crisis? Let them get on with repairing the system in the sure knowledge that it will happen again within the next twenty years or does he have a radical solution that will let us all prosper without any more crisis? ::)
... the banks were forced by a left-wing government to lend to people who didn't qualify for loans ...
The financial world doesn't have any ears because they are consumed by greed. As to tangoing then it was the bankers responsibility not to lend to people who can't repay. Do you lend to everyone who asks you for something? No you make a decision on suitability.
You're right, Walter, but it happens again and again -- not just about politics, about anything controversial.
But from what I've seen in the past we all stay friends. One or two exceptions, including dalethorn, whom I mentioned in another post. Dale just plain lost it. If I get some time I'll go back and find a couple of his final posts before he was thrust into the darkness.
but the root problem was a left-wing government mandate. I know the propaganda you read will never tell you about that, but if you do a bit of digging you can find the truth.
Which left-wing government was that? The Republicrats & Democans are both right-wing parties. So did Hugo Chevez have that much influence on the US banking industry? Or was it all Castro's fault?
Hi Bill, Your post raises the question: what are you chairman of? Could it be the local Communist cell?
... both outfits are set up in such a way that any profits they make belong to their shareholders and any losses they take belong to the taxpayers...
Russ ... If you believe its was the ratings agencies steering the banks wrong, I believe you've got that backwards. I worked at S&P for five years ... Nothing to do with Ratings, but I was there. If anyone was doing the steering in that relationship, it was the banks and other issuers from what I could see. I used to be a banker, too ... I've seen the inside of both sides of that equation.
... We have blown zillions ... helping others...
It shall be noted that countries do not help other countries, especially not out of the goodness of their (collective) heart... ever. Countries invest in protecting their national interest. They do, occasionally, engage in PR, mostly to mask the former.
Banks
We also should have given debt relief to homeowners and not just the banks.
What about us poor slobs who worked hard, and paid off our montage? Now i get to pay for some else's too?
Doesn't look anything like an egg, does it?
At the great risk of beating this dead horse, I just wanted to add one comment. A couple of contributors to this thread mentioned the irresponsible behaviour of individual mortgage borrowers. There is no doubt that many of these people took ridiculous risks when signing up for these mortgages, but to suggest that the world's financial troubles were caused by this behaviour is a little hard to swallow. Many deregulatory steps were taken over the years that set the stage for all of this to happen. It's politicians who passed those legislations but it was all done because of the lobbying by the financial industry. The revolving door between Wall Street and Washington (and other places) is incestuous, at best. When I read that it was government action that was at the root cause of the collapse, I can only laugh. It was financiers from Wall street who held the jobs in the various government departments that gave rise to the changes in legislation. We ended up with deregulation in the financial markets because the people in those sectors wanted new ways to make a buck. The change in financial regulation that made it possible for mortgage brokers to sign up unqualified borrowers is only the last link in the chain. It was insanity to allow them to offload the risk in the manner that it was done. They handed the keys to the vault over to snake oil salesmen. To blame the financial un-sophisticates at the bottom of the pyramid for signing up for mortgages they could not afford, using catchwords like personal responsibility, is a very easy but unconvincing way of avoiding the really huge stinking elephant in the room.
To blame the financial un-sophisticates at the bottom of the pyramid for signing up for mortgages they could not afford, using catchwords like personal responsibility, is a very easy but unconvincing way of avoiding the really huge stinking elephant in the room.
That seems a rather incongruous argument to me. I'm under the impression that democracy and freedom is all about empowering people, and giving them the opportunity to make their own decisions that affect their well-being and their future.
You seem to be implying that a people who have been given the formidable right to personally own firearms on the understanding that such firearms will be used responsibly, should not be held responsible for agreeing to unaffordable loans. I'm getting scared already.
I agree with Bryan Connor that both parties are to blame.
In the UK Gordon Brown the PM and former chancellor could have regulated the banks but chose not to.
There are two really huge stinking elephants in the room. Those who were irresponsible in offering clients something that they should have known was not affordable, and those who bought something that they should have known was not affordable. There was probably carelessness on both sides.
In the strict sense that both parties acted stupidly, I would agree as well. But if you mean to imply that both parties are comparably responsible for the GFC, that's where we would part company, I'm afraid. A semi-employed twit who takes out a $750,000 mortgage to buy a monster home on whose payments he will never be able to afford is an act so spectacularly stupid it's beggars belief, and I am unable to have sympathy for the self-imposed aggravation that results from it. But that guy does NOT have lunch with central bankers, he did NOT sit at the AIG board meetings, and he did NOT lobby for the financial industry deregulation that allowed snake oil salesmen to sell his mortgage to another party after pocketing the transaction fees, while not caring about the disposition of that loan. That's irresponsibility of another order. Those actions, enabled by people who all knew better, created the climate for the GFC (among other things, I'm sure, I'm no expert). I don't think it makes sense to compare their actions. The guy who bought the house was just a small-time moron. The guys who enabled the entire house of cards all drank the same kool-aid probably because they were all hoping to line their pockets with transaction fees in one form or another.
For all those who prefer to blame the "little guy," let see the following parallel:
Say a guy in a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck stops you on the street and starts peddling a certain "wonder drug" or vitamin or whatever. Most reasonable people would be suspicious and probably refuse, assuming he is what he looks like, a quack doctor. Very few would fall for it, but there will be some. And of course, they would have only themselves to blame.
But lets assume the next day you go visit your family doctor, and to your surprise, he starts peddling the same. Most reasonable people would shake their heads in disbelief that the doctor they knew for years has stooped so low. At this point, a few more people might fall for it. And again, they would have only themselves to blame.
But then, next week, you go to a hospital, and to your astonishment, you see every doctor there is peddling the same thing. At this point you start to wonder are you going crazy or the world is. You come home, turn on a TV and see every TV station, every anchor, every pundit, even Surgeon General is talking about it, promoting it. You finally realize it must be you, and decide to give in and go for it. And you would be in a good company, you think, as every friend, every neighbor, every in-law, everyone you ever met even is telling you the same thing: they are doing it.
You see where I am going with this parallel: can you really blame the little guy for this mass delusion? Was there ever anyone to stand up and warn everybody, especially the little guy, that this must be a lunacy? Any pundit? Any politician? Any Republican or any Democrat? Anyone?
Nope ... missing the point entirely.
What was the problem was the unregulated "shadow" banking system where the markets for instruments like "credit default swaps" grew exponentially and totally unregulated ... because they were neither securities nor insurance products ... (yeah, right.)
Mortgage excess was and is real, but that's not the real issue that sent the world's financial system into a tailspin.
I think that you are missing the point entirely.
Um, no. But that's ok.
Um, yes. But that's ok. We agree to disagree.
What do you THINK we disagree about? I get the impression you haven't actually understood (or perhaps even read) anything I have written.
I haven't really weighed into the debate you've been having about borrowers and lenders and at whose feet one should lay blame for the financial crisis .... Because ...
I've been trying to point out that bad loans at the retail level were not actually the cause of the crisis.
Is that what you disagree with me about or are you just trying to be cute and clever?
Maybe I was missing your point, but I have not missed my point.Finally, this discussion has provided me with a wonderful quotation to take out of context! ;D
Most would certainly agree that spending beyond one's means, in general and over a prolonged period, is certainly not prudent, smart and responsible. And, on an individual level, it would be hard not to agree with it. But, and this is a big one, when the whole nation does that, as Americans do, is it still only a matter of individual responsibility? When it is considered un-American and unpatriotic not to "shop till you drop," "keep up with the Joneses," buy newer, bigger, better. When "spend, spend, spend" is considered as patriotic as apple pie, is it still just a matter of individual responsibility? Oftentimes, what is common sensical and individually responsible behavior is not necessarily the most beneficial for the group/system as a whole (for theoretical underpinning, see the work of the Nobel Prize Laureate John Nash - or see the movie The Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe)
The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellioius children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21:
You are wrong. All Americans do not believe that it is unpatriotic to shop till you drop. All Americans do not try to "keep up with the Joneses"...
...Now, if you can produce facts to back up your statement that when the entire population of the nation known as the USA spends beyond their means, in general and over a prolonged period of time, I will give you credit...
As an antidote to the political bickering & arguing ;) , I wonder whether this is something we can all agree is just deeply, deeply stupid, offensive, and something that should guarantee this politician (Charlie Fuqua) never gets to be much more than a foot-note in the history of failed political careers
Arkansas Times (http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/10/08/republican-candidate-fuqua-endorses-death-penalty-for-rebellious-children)
Happy to oblige, Bryan!
Let's see what kind of evidence you would accept. How about anecdotal, just for a warm-up:
“Americans seem to have the feeling that it is wimpish to save,” said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor’s in New York. From the article "U.S. savings rate hits lowest level since 1933" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11098797/ns/business-stocks_and_economy/t/us-savings-rate-hits-lowest-level/#.UHSRWI6QtZE)
Ok, I get it, you do not like anecdotal evidence. So lets try an international comparison, where Americans historically have the lowest savings rates among peer countries, as per OECD (see the attachment International below, source here (http://www.gfmag.com/tools/global-database/economic-data/10396-household-saving-rates.html#axzz28q08mqaC)).
I see now how sitting in Germany might have given you a distorted perspective on savings though ;-)
Actually, given that different reports use different sources and methodology, it is interesting to note that a respectable U.S. source indicates a negative savings rate in 2005 and 2006 (meaning households spent more than they earned). See the attachment Negative below (as per this article (http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/sav/20060308a1.asp))
Do I hear you saying: "Wait a sec, you can not consider two years to be 'prolonged period of time'"? Fair enough. So lets look at another indicator, again from a respectable U.S. source (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, as per this article (http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2011/el2011-01.pdf) - see the attachment Debt below):
"U.S. household leverage, as measured by the ratio of debt to disposable income, reached an all-time high of 130% in 2007." Meaning American household debt was 30% higher than income. In other words, American households owe more than they earn. The trend started in the 21st century and lasts to this day. i.e. 10-12 years. That is a "prolonged period of time" in my view. Most reasonable people would agree that you should not owe/spend more than you earn (i.e., live beyond your means), as any difference would ultimately have to come from the family heirloom (i.e., savings).
Yes, America lives on credit (and runs on Dunkin').
Do you need more proof?
(The previous statements in this paragraph are only sarcasm)And, unfortunately, a good illustration of the usual impact of sarcasm on the credibility of its perpetrator. I was going to suggest that you gentlemen could maybe agree on the proposition that the USA leads the world in both public and private indebtedness, but brief research suggested that isn't actually true, at least on some measures. Maybe we could get back to photography, a love for which I am sure we all have in common.
And, unfortunately, a good illustration of the usual impact of sarcasm on the credibility of its perpetrator. I was going to suggest that you gentlemen could maybe agree on the proposition that the USA leads the world in both public and private indebtedness, but brief research suggested that isn't actually true, at least on some measures. Maybe we could get back to photography, a love for which I am sure we all have in common.
Yes, America lives on credit (and runs on Dunkin').
Do you need more proof?
. I believe that Slobodan is only trolling and I was weak (stupid) enough to take his bait. For that, I apologize.
What's with all the drama queens on the forum these days
What's with all the drama queens on the forum these days?
Slobodan is having a conversation about the topic at hand ... He's an economist, not a troll. I also have a professional and academic background in finance and economics.
You are certainly allowed to participate, but you might want to study up a bit before you start throwing such phrases around like: "you are wrong".
. . . the 'curse of savings'.
While for each individual household savings make sense right now, in aggregate this drop in consumption and rise in savings is holding back aggregate demand.
This is why it makes sense to run deficits and support aggregate demand with fiscal stimulus.
We can either borrow to feed the goose that lays golden eggs, or we can eat it.
So, you agree with Slobodan? You think that all Americans spend more than they earn? You think that all Americans believe that shop until you drop is a sign of patriotism?
Well, that's J.M Keynes's theory. And it's been disproven over and over again. That "curse" represents capital, which is what, over time, raises productivity and the whole economy. On the other hand if the velocity of that huge stock of funny money Bernanke's created ever gets high we're all going to need wheelbarrows full of money to buy our groceries.
So, you agree with Slobodan? You think that all Americans spend more than they earn? You think that all Americans believe that shop until you drop is a sign of patriotism?
I'm not sure what proof you think you have that (all else equal) increased savings does not reduce consumption and therefore reduces aggregate demand.
You are again repeating the Casandra calls of the republican party over the last several years ... it is as if reality was not happening in front of your eyes.
I think you are playing childish games with words while we are trying to have a discussion.
Can you please stop this nonsense of a straw-man argument, putting words in my mouth and misquoting me? Can you please point out my quote that uses the phrase "ALL Americans," especially in the sense that you use it, meaning "each and every one"?Copied from your original post:
... I believe that Slobodan is only trolling and I was weak (stupid) enough to take his bait. For that, I apologize.
I see now how sitting in Germany might have given you a distorted perspective on savings though ;-)
In any case, my beef is with Keynes's idea that government spending can jack up an economy. It's a ridiculous idea prima facie. The government has no money. Every dollar it spends comes from the taxpayer, the guy who represents the real economy. If I take a buck from Peter and give it to Paul the transfer doesn't jolt the economy. Furthermore, since Paul is destitute and Peter isn't, it's pretty clear that Peter has a better clue about how to spend a buck than has Paul.
Ah ... but timing is everything.
... The whole nation- what is the definition of whole? Maybe I am missing the point here. Your entire statement in the above quote seems to lump all Americans into the same group. All Americans do not belong to the same group unless you are speaking of the fact that they are Americans or that they are humans..."
1 [ attrib. ] all of; entire : he spent the whole day walking | she wasn't telling the whole truth
• used to emphasize a large extent or number : whole shelves in libraries are devoted to the subject
Yes, you are (missing the point). But I am sure you are "not missing your own point" ;D
Btw, you couldn't produce my quote with "ALL Americans" in it. The closest you got is "the whole nation," which I used as a synonym for Americans. The word "whole" in that phrase certainly does not mean "each and every" member of that nation.
However, not being a native English speaker, I often reach for a dictionary (I am sure that you, as an English teacher, would appreciate that). So, here is the meaning of the adjective "whole," as per a dictionary (bold mine):
So, Professor, emphasizing a large extent or a large number of something does not, and I repeat, does not mean "each and every." It is a simple case of non sequitur.
But forget dictionary for a moment. Lets see the common usage of the word "American," in journalism, politics, statistics etc.
For example, this: Americans to spend $370 million on pet costumes (http://www.14news.com/story/19781529/americans-to-spend-370-million-on-pet-costumes) Does, it mean, Professor, that each and every American is going to spend on pet costumes???
Or this: Are Chinese Telecoms Firms Really Spying on Americans? (http://world.time.com/2012/10/09/are-chinese-telecoms-firms-really-spying-on-americans/#ixzz28v2ooyvj) Does it mean, Professor, they are spying on ALL Americans, EACH and EVERY one?
Or, speaking about Americans and spending: Americans plan to spend record $8 billion on Halloween (http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2012/oct/10/americans-plan-spend-record-8-billion-halloween-ar-2680809/)
Or this: Americans consume 320,500,000 gallons of gasoline per day (http://Americans consume 320,500,000 gallons of gasoline per day) Does it mean, Professor, that each and every American drives every day (or drives at all)?
Do you really need any more lectures on the proper usage of English words from a lowly East European?
... I sincerely hope that we can move on past this.
Could somebody please post a photo of a lighthouse, taken with a D800?
I won't dispute that, Jeremy, but what we're seeing isn't just a quick, temporary operation to avoid catastrophe. After two humongous bailouts with funny money that mostly went to outfits like Solyndra -- in other words, down the drain -- we're now up to which QE? And the current QE, according to Bernanke is ongoing with no end in sight. This fiasco fits Einstein's definition of insanity: Bernanke and company are doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
... But there is already evidence comin' in, so we won't really have to wait long ...
Yeah, that's what's scary. . . The evidence is pretty damning.
... What's your take on the multiplier?
What? This is a photography forum.
You started it. ;) :D
The fiscal multiplier during such times might be as high as 1.5-1.7 ... Not the 0.5 as many people believed.
See the IMF's recent World Economic Outlook.
Jeremy, there IS no "fiscal multiplier." If there were, our economy would be booming to the point of explosion by now. It amazes me how people who were taught Keynes's theories in school can't seem to shake the multiplier theory in spite of the evidence directly in front of their eyes. It's an academic abstraction that sounds so good nobody wants to admit it's wrong. It's a freebie, and everybody loves freebies. All sorts of con-men have made their fortunes on that principle. Some of them are in the IMF.
Oh dear, you're doing what psychologists call "projection" Jeremy. It's a dysfunction often found on the political left. It seems to go along with an inability to distinguish observable fact from theory.
... I even once saw a woman with a T-shirt that said: on the front: "Minot, North Dakota isn't the end of the earth," and on the back: "But you can see it from there."
€500 per month? No doubt that employee will need significant government (taxpayer) benefits to top-up a wage that won't even cover a month's rent, let alone anything more. Then the Spanish equivalent of the Daily Hate Mail will complain about benefit scroungers costing the country a fortune.
Being an obsolete socialist, I see it as a state hand-out to business, cutting business costs, maximising employer profits. More privatisation of profit, socialisation of debt. Which is pretty much how we got where we are now.
... No doubt that employee will need significant government (taxpayer) benefits to top-up a wage that won't even cover a month's rent, let alone anything more...
... there is no way that a political attitude can ever be changed by exposure to the realities of life – it’s something that comes from background and is borne out in the way that experience is interpreted...
In soft sciences, there are often numerous variables that might have an influence on some variable of interest, and many of those variables either may be non-quantifiable or may be quantifiable but difficult to obtain data on; but further, even with plentiful data, it may be difficult to disentangle the effects of such a large number of variables. In contrast, typically in the hard sciences there are only a few, readily identified, causative variables, making it easier to infer specific causative effects.
... Were you laughing at the plight of the job applicants or commiserating with them? Probably the former ...
I think at this point we should distinguish between the 'hard' and the 'soft' sciences. Physcis is a hard science. Economics is definitely a soft science. And so is Anthropogenic Climate Change.
The issue of climate change is quite clear-cut - it's happening. Overall global warming is an indisputable fact.
Thing is with the Medieval Warming Period, ice core samples & botanical records indicate that globally (as opposed to locally in Europe), overall temperatures decreased slightly.
The upsurge in overall global temperatures is the fastest & most pronounced we've seen so far
I don't believe there is any consistent, overall change to climate that applies over the entire globe simultaneously.So far as I'm aware, that's not what scientists are claiming, so a bit of a strawman argument. Overall global warming is a fact, the science suggests that rise in global temperatures is faster than at any time in the last few million years at least. The impact of that rise is a disruption in climates around the globe. No one is suggesting an overall climate change, everywhere, but climate changes as various systems respond to rising temperatures averaged across the world.
Of course, when climate scientists occasionally make such statements in line with your quote above, they are probably advised by the media experts in charge, not to tell the truth, or it may cause people to think for themselves and undermine the cause of climate-change-alarmism.Do you have an evidence that scientists are being advised by these 'media experts in charge'? Sounds all a bit 'conspiracy theory' to me. Scientists tend to publish in peer-reviewed academic journals, opening their data & subsequent interpretation to review, testing & rebuttal. Your slur, because the suggestion that scientists are deliberately lying about the data is just that, seems to have little basis in fact, unless you've got some evidence.
The evidence is right in front of you Bill. All you have to do is compare what Jeremy's saying against economic conditions in both Europe and the US. If Jeremy were able to respond to new information he'd realize that pumping funny money into our economies, rather than improving them is trashing them. "New information" to Jeremy would be the observable fact that there's no such thing as a Keynesian "multiplier." I can't comment on the significance of his "political ideology," but I think the situation speaks for itself.
So far as I'm aware, that's not what scientists are claiming, so a bit of a strawman argument. Overall global warming is a fact, the science suggests that rise in global temperatures is faster than at any time in the last few million years at least. The impact of that rise is a disruption in climates around the globe. No one is suggesting an overall climate change, everywhere, but climate changes as various systems respond to rising temperatures averaged across the world.
Do you have an evidence that scientists are being advised by these 'media experts in charge'? Sounds all a bit 'conspiracy theory' to me. Scientists tend to publish in peer-reviewed academic journals, opening their data & subsequent interpretation to review, testing & rebuttal. Your slur, because the suggestion that scientists are deliberately lying about the data is just that, seems to have little basis in fact, unless you've got some evidence.
As for climate-change alarmism, the current unprecedented melting of Arctic sea-ice, the withdrawal of alpine glaciers, and the like, really aren't fantasy. They should alarm us all.
... I'm the layperson who hears the politicised reports of the findings and who uses his nous, with a bit of help from research on the internet, to make sense of the summarised and biased statements on such matters. I don't have the skill nor time, to examine all the scientific papers in all the 30-odd scientific disciplines involved in climate science ...
... Climate and sea levels have always been changing. Statements that such changes are more rapid as a result of our CO2 emissions, than at any period in the past, are simply not scientifically established, nor scientifically proved.
So, a self-confessed layperson, lacking the skill & time to examine the scientific papers across a range of disciplines, but able to state that current climate changes & CO2 emissions are not scientifically shown to be related. OK.
Do you have an evidence that scientists are being advised by these 'media experts in charge'? Sounds all a bit 'conspiracy theory' to me.
So, a self-confessed layperson, lacking the skill & time to examine the scientific papers across a range of disciplines, but able to state that current climate changes & CO2 emissions are not scientifically shown to be related. OK.
How about a right-wing funded climate scientist who held that position ... and then changed his mind ... ???
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?_r=3&pagewanted=all&
It’s a scientist’s duty to be properly skeptical. I still find that much, if not most, of what is attributed to climate change is speculative, exaggerated or just plain wrong. I’ve analyzed some of the most alarmist claims, and my skepticism about them hasn’t changed.
Hurricane Katrina cannot be attributed to global warming. The number of hurricanes hitting the United States has been going down, not up; likewise for intense tornadoes. Polar bears aren’t dying from receding ice, and the Himalayan glaciers aren’t going to melt by 2035. And it’s possible that we are currently no warmer than we were a thousand years ago, during the “Medieval Warm Period” or “Medieval Optimum,” an interval of warm conditions known from historical records and indirect evidence like tree rings. And the recent warm spell in the United States happens to be more than offset by cooling elsewhere in the world, so its link to “global” warming is weaker than tenuous.
Fine, Russ. If you can play "I know you are, but what am I?" ... So can I.
I'm not a "member" of anything. I am most definitely NOT a Republican, but I don't really tow the line for the Democrats either. My underlying philosophy is one of compassion. I believe a society is an extended family. We take care of each other, because compassion is love and love is all we got. Those of us who are lucky enough to succeed well beyond our needs have a choice ... We can share a bit, or we can pretend we actually deserve every bit of fortune and fuck the rest of y'all.
You, however, are nothing more than a mouthpiece for a specific political agenda called the Republican Party.
Sad part is ... Like Romney, you seem to have been repeating the mantras and half-truths so long you have forgotten the cynical basis for you platform and actually believe the bullshit.
I have far more respect for Republicans who know they are selfish sons of bitches.
With regards to your rant about theories, etc ... I find it to be even less interesting than the discussion about what is the definition of art.
The experience of the nations experimenting with austerity is pretty clear - to me and many others.
The leverage of fiscal policy during financial crises is big.
A few posts back I asked Russ for his thoughts on beating the crisis which unfortunately he didn't reply to.
Leftists can't distinguish between tax rates and tax revenue ...
... the socialist European economy ...
Just. Too. Funny.
Why do I, every time I hear Republicans crying over the fate of small businesses and farmers, or middle-class in general, think of... crocodile tears?
... immoral and corrupting...
On a side note, does it mean that our right-wing friends think that ALL taxes are "immoral and corrupting"? O,r perhaps, only taxes for national defense are "moral"?
And your views are a perfect invitation for a friendly "meeting of the minds."This is elementary stuff. There are many treatises on the difference between government functions to enable 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' versus re-distribution. Try 'The Road To Serfdom' if you're at a loss. The high tax and the low tax positions aren't equal and opposite. One presumes to use my money for your preferred causes, the other wants to leave you and me alone as far as possible. It follows that the burden of proof falls on the high tax position. The practical outcome of the low tax postion is that charity (a beautiful word in its pure sense) is voluntary. Yes, involuntary 'charity' is immoral and corrupting.
EDIT: On a side note, does it mean that our right-wing friends think that ALL taxes are "immoral and corrupting"? O,r perhaps, only taxes for national defense are "moral"?
That's why we broke away and fought the Revolutionary war: so we could decide for ourselves which side to drive on without causing highway mayhem.Well, I'll be watching the election from US territory where they drive on the left:
This is elementary stuff. There are many treatises on the difference between government functions to enable 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' versus re-distribution. Try 'The Road To Serfdom' if you're at a loss. The high tax and the low tax positions aren't equal and opposite. One presumes to use my money for your preferred causes, the other wants to leave you and me alone as far as possible. It follows that the burden of proof falls on the high tax position. The practical outcome of the low tax postion is that charity (a beautiful word in its pure sense) is voluntary. Yes, involuntary 'charity' is immoral and corrupting.
I love how you invoke morality as if somehow that instantly makes you right.Non-sequitur. Whence do you deduce an objection to a publicly funded fire service?
If your house catches fire, put it out yourself. I wouldn't want your moral compass to be damaged by your neighbor's 'involuntary charity'.
Non-sequitur. Whence do you deduce an objection to a publicly funded fire service?
You said that taxes are "immoral," no?
These debates are usually sterile. Maybe that's because if social democrats can't see that compulsory charity with other people's money is immoral and corrupting all round, then there's no rationale for a meeting of the minds.
Gee, man, I can read, no need to repost what you already wrote. Your sentence implied a simple equation: taxes = compulsory charity = immoral and corrupting.No. For example I'd support a tax for elementary logic exams for citizens to pass to earn the right to vote.
No. For example I'd support a tax for elementary logic exams for citizens to pass to earn the right to vote.
Ok... both Russ and Mark elegantly evaded my question, so I will assume their position is that low taxes are moral, and high taxes are not. But who decided what is low and what is high? What you consider high I might consider optimal or low. And who says the current taxes are high? They are the lowest in decades, no? And as such, they generated the historic high corporate profits and the increase in personal wealth of the 1%, even under Obama. So, what exactly is the problem?
... The problem with our current taxes is that most of them are for things that, under the Constitution, aren't legitimate. That kind of thing is called "ripoff."
No. For example I'd support a tax for elementary logic exams for citizens to pass to earn the right to vote.
You see, I'm a socialist, so I find this an appalling idea - limiting the right of the people to vote, that's for fascists, statists, oligarchists, & dictators. So the people sometimes vote for stuff you don't like; live with it.
And that would be the current administration's fault?
Russ you stated that businesses benefit the most from lower taxes? You prefaced that with a lowering of tax for the rich as part of your plan for the future. Why not raise taxes for the rich.... they can afford it? Meanwhile I am still trying to work out how lowering taxes brings in more money. Is it because the turnover in the economy will increase? You should have stated that as part of the plan!
Sixteen year olds in Scotland can have sex. . .
No, it's not because of "turnover," whatever that is.
I suspect Republicans want to feather their nests and tell the gullible public in the USA that they will benefit by cuts for the rich?
No, they've just ballooned the problem. It started around 1932.
Non-sequitur. Whence do you deduce an objection to a publicly funded fire service?
Sixteen year olds in Scotland can have sex, get married, start a family, work, pay taxes - why on earth shouldn't they get to vote?
... Clearly, this thread has turned into another black/white/black/white with no hope of an honest self-examination, so I'm out of this. Envy rules.
Rob C
No. For example I'd support a tax for elementary logic exams for citizens to pass to earn the right to vote.
The forum just got a new sarcasm contender, ladies and gentleman! Welcome! It felt so lonely here for a while.
No sarcasm on my side. I mean it.
... The problem with our current taxes is that most of them are for things that, under the Constitution, aren't legitimate...
Why are you guys so evasive and secretive when it comes to actually spelling out what are those "illegitimate things"? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, school lunch milk, unemployment benefits...? What else would you eliminate?
Don't forget Big Bird. The key to fiscal health is the cancellation of Sesame Street.
I must admit I find the idea pretty seductive.
Actually, I would be, on occasion, on the verge of succumbing to its siren call, but then I would remember all those Nascar fans, all those rednecks, all those "clinging to guns and religion," and would start to feel really sorry to disenfranchise so many honest, hardworking people and put Republicans at a disadvantage in elections. Just not fair.
Oh, wait, you actually meant the poor, Blacks and Latinos would fail the test. I got ya!
I'm out of here, as declared, but can't resist that final statement of truth from stamper's pen: the naked base of lefty politics.
Nobody, anywhere, must be allowed responsibility for their own future or past stupidities.
Now you see it all: freedom in enslavement of the mind disguised as safety net.
Have a good day.
Rob C
I would not (and could not) support such a measure, but I understand the logic of those that do support it.
For the records, and for the benefit of the non-Americans who may not know our politics ...
Such fascist nonsense was outlawed in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act and have not really been part of the political dialogue since.
For the records, and for the benefit of the non-Americans who may not know our politics ...I suspect such fascist nonsense is out there on the fringe in most other countries too, Jeremy. America is not an exception there.
Such fascist nonsense was outlawed in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act and have not really been part of the political dialogue since.
I suspect such fascist nonsense is out there on the fringe in most other countries too, Jeremy. America is not an exception there.
... to make sure nobody was confused by such comments and infer that there actually was some kind of political debate going on in the US about restricting voting rights.
Russ, since you are the only one who is capable of interpreting economic data correctly ...
How do you explain the following two facts?
1) The economies that are doing the worst are those that have cut back the most on fiscal spending.
2) The forecast errors in GDP growth rates are highly correlated with the level of fiscal pullback.
As you don't like my explanation ... that the impact of fiscal spending in times of severe financial crisis is amplified and much bigger than "anti-keynesians" like yourself would have us believe ...
Provide your own. Please provide a sound analytical framework that explains these two FACTS.
Russ, that came from the latest IMF Outlook (also, please note my bold):
"... IMF forecasts have been consistently too optimistic for countries that pursued large austerity programs. This suggests that tax hikes and spending cuts have been doing more damage to those economies than policymakers expected. (Conversely, countries that engaged in stimulus, such as Germany and Austria, did better than expected.)..."
if you're gong to write BS like this
Jeremy, pardon my limited comprehension of English, but it seems to me that the above sentence is meant to say there is NO political debate going on in the US about restricting voting rights? If so, how about the current legislative efforts (i.e, way past debate stage) regarding voters registration, which, in turn, effectively results in restricting voting rights?
There are some state efforts that have made it much harder for non-profits and other groups to engage in voter registration drives. I believe there are still over 50 million eligible and unregistered voters.
Jeremy, pardon my limited comprehension of English, but it seems to me that the above sentence is meant to say there is NO political debate going on in the US about restricting voting rights? If so, how about the current legislative efforts (i.e, way past debate stage) regarding voters registration, which, in turn, effectively results in restricting voting rights?
How does showing an ID to prove who you are in order to vote restrict voting of rights of anyone?
How does showing an ID to prove who you are in order to vote restrict voting of rights of anyone?
... socialist Europe.
I thought that the voter ID controversy centered around the fact that a person would have to show a photo ID at the voting place in order to vote. The link you referenced is concerning restrictions on voter registration drives which a different topic. An interesting topic, but a different one.
It's not the showing of an ID, but getting an ID that will be a hurdle to a lot of people. The new laws are going to apparently affect mostly non-republican oriented voters ...
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1033872/gop%27s_new_voter_id_laws_could_impact_10_million_voters/#paragraph3 (http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/1033872/gop%27s_new_voter_id_laws_could_impact_10_million_voters/#paragraph3)
See for example : http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2012/07/18/wisconsin-gop-voter-obstruction-act-23-permanently-halted-by-judge/ (http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2012/07/18/wisconsin-gop-voter-obstruction-act-23-permanently-halted-by-judge/)
or
http://www.aclu.org/voter-suppression-america (http://www.aclu.org/voter-suppression-america)
or
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/pennsylvanias-voter-id-law-spurs-debate/
or even more obvious
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOT1bRYdK8
Cheers,
Bart
Sorry, but in what universe is Europe socialist? I wish it was, but unfortunately it is not the case.
With all due respect, it was you who changed the topic.
Read what both Slobodan and I wrote.
In the current political climate in the US, it is intended to be the "kiss of death" to tag someone or something as Socialist. The word "Liberal" as been replaced ... Now the bad guys are all "Socialists".
It was Socialist to suggest we might have a collective interest in some kind of universal health insurance program, for instance.
As you can see from the lack of familiarity with the term "Turnover", we’re a fairly provincial culture ... sadly.
New York City, however, isn't ...
So, again, why would a person not want to show a photo ID? Why would a person not want there to be a mechanism in place to prevent someone from casting your (or your deceased family member's) vote?
Again, it's not about showing an ID (with or without photo), it's about creating obstacles for millions(!) of eligible voters in an attempt to prevent them from exercising their constitutional rights. What's more, it is intentional, in an attempt to have Romney elected and is primarily funded by the states that are trying to swing the vote.
It's a multi-million dollar solution to a virtually non existing problem (except for a few cases which are already punishable by existing law), with an obvious goal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOT1bRYdK8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOT1bRYdK8)
Cheers,
Bart
I disagree. I do not see how it is creating an obstacle for millions of eligible voters most of whom probably already have an ID, even a photo ID of some sort that is recognized as being accepted.
54 million eligible Americans are not registered to vote. More than 25% of the voting-age citizen population is not registered to vote. Among minority groups, this percentage is even higher - more than 30% for African Americans and more than 40% for Hispanics.
Laws restricting voter registration drives do not address any real “problems.” Some state lawmakers claim that these new laws protect against “fraud” and help voters by ensuring that their forms are submitted on time. The evidence shows that voter registration drives do not change the patterns of when and how voter registration forms are submitted, except by increasing the number of voters who register.
So, I think that the protest against voter ID is a protest against a virtually non existing problem.
... when I'm President I'll pass a law that requires you to pass a small test before you're allowed to continue into the voting booth. The test will have one question on it: "Please name the branches of the United States government." ... (And if you believe a US president can pass that law or any law, you're too stupid to vote.)...
Russ, that came from the latest IMF Outlook (also, please note my bold):
"... IMF forecasts have been consistently too optimistic for countries that pursued large austerity programs. This suggests that tax hikes and spending cuts have been doing more damage to those economies than policymakers expected. (Conversely, countries that engaged in stimulus, such as Germany and Austria, did better than expected.)..."
Yes. Everything you need to know can be found in these two documents:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012/02/pdf/c1.pdf
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fm/2012/01/pdf/fm1201.pdf
Hi Russ, welcome back! Hmmm... I do not know about voters, but I think I know at least one (quite recent) US president that probably couldn't pass your little test either... Nor some other equally simple life tests, like being able to handle pretzels safely ;D
propaganda from the IMF
To quote another president: "let me say this about that:" http://www.doobybrain.com/2008/10/03/joe-bidens-smile-compared-to-the-cheshire-cat/
:D
... they're going to have to get their government off their backs so the can get back to work ...
... My first question would be: "What does 'better' mean?"...
Then it looks like I am in a good company: ;D ;D ;D
In fact, when I'm President I'll pass a law that requires you to pass a small test before you're allowed to continue into the voting booth. The test will have one question on it: "Please name the branches of the United States government." You'll notice that the test didn't say "three branches." Most of the people without a photo ID don't even know that we have three branches. (And if you believe a US president can pass that law or any law, you're too stupid to vote.)
... I'd like to see voting restricted to those who have at least a remote clue about their government and the issues at stake...
Basically, you would like to restrict voting to those more educated? Be careful what you wish for, Russ! If you are white, the more educated you are, the less likely you are to vote Republican (http://themonkeycage.org/blog/2012/03/23/voting-patterns-of-americas-whites-from-the-masses-to-the-elites/) (duh!)
... I think the most intelligent people vote for the person and not the party.
I suppose you all know that registering to vote is mandatory in Australia, if one is an Australian citizen and over the age of 18.
If one doesn't vote in either a State or National election, one will be fined, unless one has a good excuse. During the last state elections in the State where I live in Australia, I was out of the country at the time. Shortly after returning to Australia I received a letter from the Electoral Office asking why I had not voted. I was given a deadline to reply, after which I would be fined, and also fined if my explanation wasn't acceptable.
Fortunately, my explanation was acceptable. Very reasonable of them. ;D
Why are you guys so evasive and secretive when it comes to actually spelling out what are those "illegitimate things"? Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, school lunch milk, unemployment benefits...? What else would you eliminate?All of those. The Feds have no enumerated constitutional authority for any of them. The States do.
All of those. The Feds have no enumerated constitutional authority for any of them. The States do...
Russ, is there a provision in the Constitution to have military budget bigger than all the military budgets of the rest of the world combined?
If that's "good company" I'm a cheshire cat.
Franklin Pierce's refusal to release federal land to aid the insane is a superb text on this
If voting is mandatory in Australia, do they include a "none of the above" choice on the ballot? The commonly accepted way of indicating that sentiment is to spoil the ballot, but giving an explicit choice might be an interesting experiment. Of course if that choice won a majority, I'm not sure how anyone would be better off.
That's great Russ, but it bypasses my question, which was not about the defense function itself, but about the size of it.
But while we are at the Article 1, Section 8, one thing caught my attention:
"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; "
I admit I am not a constitutional scholar, so I am sure someone will enlighten me in that respect (no sarcasm here): what does that "general welfare" entail? Sounds awfully close to the "unconstitutional" and "forced charity" things I enumerated earlier, no?
So, are you against those only at the federal level, but in favor at the states level? Or against them whatever level they are?1. They're all unconstitutional at the federal level.
This is where it gets tricky. The strictest interpretation has been that the paying off of national debt was the only form of "general welfare" and that unemployment and social welfare programs are for the "specific welfare" of certain individuals, while others have successfully argued a much broader interpretation.
The supreme court ruled Social Security was constitutional ... But Russ will probably remind us that FDR stacked the court ...
That's great Russ, but it bypasses my question, which was not about the defense function itself, but about the size of it.
1. They're all unconstitutional at the federal level.
... Considering your own background it's astonishing to me that you'd even ask a question like that...
Why do you suppose the Soviet Union finally packed it in, Slobodan?...
Considering my own background!?
I come from a country known for fighting and winning for itself and by itself (for better or worse), not enjoying anyone's protection or even help
only because other countries did the work for your country elsewhere... do you really think that Tito can do anything w/o Axis being annihilated from the East and the West ? ;D ;D ;D
The Allies certainly did not do any work "for us," but for themselves.
Those seven weeks meant the Germans reached Stalingrad (and its oil supplies) seven weeks later, thus entering into the dreaded Russian winter, freezing their butts (and I mean literally). The same Russian winter that defeated Napoleon.
Had Germans reached the oil fields earlier, had they captured them, I am not sure the Allies' victory would be so soon and easy (relatively speaking, of course).
Once again you are bypassing my question. I was raising the issue of constitutionality, not strategy. Was it "constitutionally enumerated" that the definition of national defense will entail patrolling the world, having military presence in 100+ countries, with "662 overseas bases in 38 foreign countries," (that counts only those outside war zones). If it wasn't enumerated, according to your logic, it must be unconstitutional then.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
;D
In most cases the locals hate that idea, though. Maybe instead of bitching about the size of the US military you ought to try bitching about the fact that Europe doesn't want to spend a dime to defend itself.reducing the size of the military can be done starting w/ bases abroad w/o any regard to the Europeans... no need to bitch about them, just withdraw and that's it... they will swim then.
That's a silly comment, sorry. Do you really thing any Allied country would be able to single-handedly defeat the Axis!?
I was talking about our territory. No other country ever entered out territory to help us defend ourselves. The exception was the in the last few months of the WW II, when Russians passed through our northern parts on their way to Berlin, and even for that they got our permission.
The Allies certainly did not do any work "for us," but for themselves.
Given that we were on the same side, it certainly helped, but the same logic works in reverse too: it was easier for them as well, as we kept a fair share of German armies busy fighting us, not the Allies.
As a matter of fact, as we were the first ones to stage an uprising against the Germans in 9141, that delayed their attack on Soviet Union for seven weeks (if my memory serves me well).
Those seven weeks meant the Germans reached Stalingrad (and its oil supplies)
... I understand that it hurts your feelings to know that Soviets were as usual behind, sorry... that is unlike Poland where at least there were genuine non Soviet backed pro Allies forces...
Not correct. According to today's law of the land they are explicitly constitutional.The law is wrongly decided. Exceeding the enumerated powers + amendments is unconstitutional.
The law is wrongly decided. Exceeding the enumerated powers + amendments is unconstitutional.
You can disagree with the decision ... but you can't say it is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court gets to say what is and what is not constitutional ... and it said it was.
This is semantics.
The American constitution is in serious need of amendment. Currently about 67% of all Americans are overweight and about 34% obese. The trend is upwards. I've seen estimates of 50% obesity, or greater, by 2030.
For a strong constitution I would recommend regular exercise, both aerobic and anaerobic, and consumption of only wholesome foods in moderation.
I hate to break it to you, but the UK and the rest of Europe is headed in the same direction.
... the gutting of the military (designated "the peace dividend" by Slick Willie) since the Reagan years ...
Sure! But the USA is top dog in this respect. Refer attached graph from the OECD on obesity rates, taken from http://www.oecd.org/els/healthpoliciesanddata/49716427.pdf
Obese means not just overweight but very much overweight, ya know. It would be nice if America could show a good example to the rest of the world.
Now, if we can just get the Europeans to quit smoking, I might visit again.
The American constitution is in serious need of amendment. Currently about 67% of all Americans are overweight and about 34% obese. The trend is upwards. I've seen estimates of 50% obesity, or greater, by 2030...
You can disagree with the decision ... but you can't say it is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court gets to say what is and what is not constitutional ... and it said it was. Case closed - see Marbury vs Madison - 1803.
I hear you Russ, but you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of the gutting until you look at some numbers. Here are the official government numbers for the Department of Defense military spending.
1988 (Regan’s last year in office and his highest military spending) -- $282 billion (inflation adjusted = $527 billion).
2011 -- $721 billion.
... And you might want to ask yourself how much of that "military spending" actually is military.
Ray,
Thanks for stirring the debate away from Mitt Romney's halo to Chris Christie's (http://wonkette.com/454114/is-monstrously-obese-chris-christie-even-too-fat-for-republican-voters) jell-o :)
Hi Ray,
You haven't told us where you are, though your use of the word "whilst" is a fair clue. Looks as if you and your friends are having a very healing praying session. Here in Manitou Springs folks do a lot of the same thing and some of Manitou's sessions even look like your prayer session.
But I have to suggest that world hunger hasn't anything to do with a shortage of food. The problem is a shortage of enlightened politics. For instance, when a starving people's leaders react to the opinions of a group of over-indoctrinated know-nothings' propaganda about bio-engineered food and prohibit it to their people, the result is hunger in the presence of abundance. There are plenty of other examples of politics interfering with nourishment. The only effective way to prevent obesity is to bring about world dictatorship by the ignorant.
Yes Jeremy. And then see Dred Scott and Plessy v Ferguson. Both were considered constitutional -- for a while -- until they were found to be unconstitutional. Eventually the same thing will happen with garbage decisions like Roe v Wade. Supreme courts are short, the Constitution is long.
Good luck with outlawing Social Security.
... the gutting of the military (designated "the peace dividend" by Slick Willie) since the Reagan years ...
I hear you Russ, but you can’t really appreciate the magnitude of the gutting until you look at some numbers. Here are the official government numbers for the Department of Defense military spending.
1988 (Regan’s last year in office and his highest military spending) -- $282 billion (inflation adjusted = $527 billion).
2011 -- $721 billion.
Right, Dean. But the US Navy now has less ships than it had before WW I. It's hard to make comparisons for the USAF because of immense changes in technology, but from the standpoint of personnel and aircraft the AF is at its lowest point in decades. The Army is in even worse shape, considering the fact that they're the guys who when they come home get rotated right back into combat before having time to say an extended hello to their families. In 1988 we had enough troops that unaccompanied tours could be one year in length, with considerable resting time between rotations. Now we're breaking our army with this kind of crap.
I've been retired from USAF active duty since 1977, but I remember what happened in the sixties in SAC with rotation schedules like these. The divorce rate went out of sight, and morale, which is as important a military weapon as are guns and bombs, was in the pits. The highly advertised suicide rate among army troops doesn't surprise me a bit.
And now, under this administration, we're facing another huge reduction. If you don't think that's scary you haven't been paying attention. And you might want to ask yourself how much of that "military spending" actually is military.
What a wonderful and welcome breath of fresh air your pictures provide Ray...
Hi Russ,
You may not wish to know, but I was at a Hindu temple complex in Kathmandu, known as Pashupati, which appears to be, from my perspective, an open-air crematorium.
Attached image is not for the squeamish.
You are right that world hunger has little to do with a shortage of food production, and I emphasise the word production. We actually currently produce, world-wide, enough food to provide a healthy and ideal diet for a population of 20 billion or so.
The problem is food wastage. Food is wasted on a number of levels, which I won't go into now because the post would be too long. To summarise, I'll just quote a figure of 1.3 billion tonnes of wastage per annum, a quarter of which would be sufficient to feed all the current starving and undernourished people in the world. (For those who might be a bit incredulous, that's 13 hundred million tonnes of food that is wasted each year due to inadequate handling, storage and a host of other reasons.)
When one combines this general wastage with the excessive consumption amongst the wealthy, resulting in obesity, plus the very inefficient practices of feeding huge quantities of grain to cattle in order to provide an unhealthy amount of prime beef to the wealthy, we begin to get a glimmer of the problem.
The world simply cannot sustain American practices of food consumption.
Then you go on to state that “from the standpoint of personnel … the AF is at its lowest point in decades.” According to the USAF, the total number of active duty personnel was 327,379 in 2009 and 332,724 in 2011.
I assume that you’re a nice guy, Russ, but it appears that your ill-informed preconceived notions and biases make you immune to facts or reasonable discussion. You’d hope that my noting the absurdity of your “gutting the military” claim might give some small impetuous for pause or reflection, but alas not. So, wail away with your inane comments … I’m over and out. It’s neither interesting nor productive to try to have a rational discussion with someone who refuses or is unable to reciprocate.
Well ... it took a few Amendments to the constitution the overturn Dred Scott ... and Plessy wasn't overturned, per se.
The framework for Plessy was that "separate but equal" was ok as long as it was truly equal. Brown vs Board ruled that separate was not equal.
My take on the issue is that the problem is not food over production in the US but food underproduction in poor countries. In the long term it would be better to increase agricultural output in the poor countries than ship excess food from US and other rich countries to the poor world. When people are starving, that is another issue, than we need to help, immediately.
I think you guys are both right. There's a lot of wastage as Ray said, but Eric pointed out the major problem. Nobody's going to solve that problem with handouts or even overseas shipments of food. "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Politics, as usual, is what keeps the hungry part of the world from being able to fish.
Like open-air cremation? Hmmm... Wrong choice of words/metaphor, perhaps? Or, de gustibus non est disputandum? ;)
One of the major problems with food production is profit. Most of it is produced for the market. If a profit can't be made then it isn't produced and locals who need it and don't have the money don't get fed. Charities then have to step in and buy it - at inflated prices - and feed the poor.
BTW there are some people who are over weight that eat less food than some who are possibly less than half their weight. Some thin people eat enormous amounts but their bodies don't turn it into fat and some obese people to their horror seem to have everything they eat turned into fat. Athletes can consume three times the amount of calories that normal people eat but exercise burns it up.
Do I detect a small degree of sarcasm here? ;)...
No sarcasm Ray, at least none intended. I was just teasing Walter for an awkward choice of metaphor :)
No, I am definitely not. I simply find it next to impossible to associate a "breath of fresh air" with open-air cremation.
Quote Ray
You're not making much sense, Stamper. Making a profit is the incentive that drives most people to work.
Unquote
I am afraid Ray that you are the one not making sense. The vast majority of people in the world work for a wage therefore the profit incentive doesn't apply to them. Profit is made after wages and production costs has been deducted from the price of goods.
I can note that my BMI has moved from 30 to 26.4 since I began this schedule (June) but my weight hasn't changed one iota. Perhaps I am merely replacing fat with mass, but even if, it sort of queers that intake-outtake theory.
I'll keep you posted if this changes.
You can lose inches and gain mass (muscle) and still not lose or gain weight. My doctor has a scale which does the BMI caclculation so not sure of the formula you used, but I am sure it has accuracy. I've lost one waist size and one inch off my chest, but gained inches on my arms and legs.
As to a brisk walk, few people can walk with me without doing a bit of a jog. I walk quite fast. I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for my weight stability despite the exercize.
From that infallible source of reliable information, Wikipedia, I quote: The body mass index (BMI), or Quetelet index, is a heuristic proxy for human body fat based on an individual's weight and height. BMI does not actually measure the percentage of body fat. It was devised between 1830 and 1850 by the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet during the course of developing "social physics". Body mass index is defined as the individual's body mass divided by the square of his or her height. The formulae universally used in medicine produce a unit of measure of kg/m2
Yes, there is a reasonable explanation for your weight stability. Your energy output equals your energy input (ie, food intake). If you were to stop exercising but continue eating the same quantity of food, you would put on weight.
In the first part of my opening statement, I noted I hadn't changed weight in 8 years and that it has only been since June that I have been doing this vigorous exercise routine...sooooooo how does this fit in with the input-output theory?
By the way, for some reason you switched to defense spending rather than military spending.nukes cost was in DOE budget, not DOD budget... you can find some (and expensive) defense related items in the budget of rather civilian agencies.
And yet, Poland needed Soviets to free it and remained Soviet for the next 50+ years, while Yugoslavia freed itself and remained independent from Soviets for the same time period.
said what I said, and those who know history know what I am talking about. Those who do not, are free to disagree, peddle their silly logic and their own theories or whatever.
... as your mistake with the dates and oil in Stalingrad, etc clearly showed.
The vast majority of people in the world work for a wage therefore the profit incentive doesn't apply to them.
In the first part of my opening statement, I noted I hadn't changed weight in 8 years and that it has only been since June that I have been doing this vigorous exercise routine...sooooooo how does this fit in with the input-output theory?
I went from 216 to 189 lbs in three months.
...and I neither gain nor lose weight but I am changing mass...
leave the rest of us to bitch about politics which has some relevance to the original post? ;D
....... and leave the rest of us to bitch about politics which has some relevance to the original post? ;D
The entire thread is days, if not weeks, past its usefulness for me and has managed to show some very unflattering facets to some of the personalities involved.
...threads that hold no interest or usefulness...Well - I am not sure if it ever aspired to be the useful variety of Lula thread, although I have to confess that it did prompt me to read the US Constitution for the first time (an impressive document, BTW), and that I am still puzzling over how it is possible to rationally believe that something which the Supreme Court has unambiguously held to be constitutional is in fact unconstitutional.
...there are several cases where what was onceThanks for the clarifications, Russ. My difficulty was that the Constitution seemed to say that what the Supreme Court finds to be constitutional at any point in time is, in the only meaning for which it (the Constitution) provides, constitutional - but to not exclude the possibility that might change - along the lines of your sentence as modified above. I guess the difference is semantic. Your later point about implementation seems to belong in a different discussion.found to beconstitutional is laterdeemedunconstitutional...
Good luck with the weight. What you need is the right genes.
Am I the only one able to keep this thread related to photography? ;D
well, good riddance Mitt !+100.
BTW, has anyone ever seen Mitten's birth certificate?I did not see his tax returns, that is for sure.
You mean, Gawd & Mitt's Magic Underwear wasn't enough? BTW, has anyone ever seen Mitten's birth certificate?
Guys, a little bit grace in victory wouldn't hurt.
Guys, a little bit grace in victory wouldn't hurt.
Not my country but I doubt that the Republicans would have been particularly generous to the the other lot if they had won. Can you imagine Donald Trump being graceful in victory? Y'know, the Donald Trump who called for a revolution upon realising his side had come second.
Donald Trump needs either a straitjacket & a padded cell, or an orange jumpsuit & a stay in Gitmo. Oh, and a haircut. The man desperately needs a haircut.
Perhaps they/he wouldn't. But is that really a good excuse for us (i.e., members of this forum, regardless of political inclination)? How different would we be then from him?
I honestly think that the country would be no better or worse off with Romney as President.
I feel that President Obama has failed to be an effective leader of Congress so far.
I do not trust that Romney would have done better.
I hope that President Obama can be a better kindergarten teacher the next for years and get the kindergarten kids (congress) to act nice and play (work) together like good boys and girls.
why americans (let me forget my blue passport for a moment) think that their model is good ?
Because no society in the history of mankind has provided more equality of opportunity to so many people.
Look, I don't believe that I am in any sense anti-american. My children are US citizens, I love the american landscape and american culture. And so on. But what you have written above reads to me as the kind of thing that gringos like to say about themselves to generate a warm feeling. I might be wrong about that, but a few metrics wouldn't go amiss. Social mobility is surely measurable. Are there measurements that prove your case? I would assume that in the USA as in every other human society, where you start heavily influences, but does not absolutely determine, where you end up. Do you have evidence that the relative influences are different in the USA? At the level of anecdote, it would surely be easy to instance French or Argentinian or New Zealand leaders who come from humble backgrounds and Americans in high places who were born with trust funds awaiting them. And if you are talking about raw numbers (a dubious approach, but let that pass), what about China right now? Plenty of careers open to talent there, it seems to me, at the same time as plenty of easy paths for the children of the party elite.
World coming to the end..Read the Bible, they will come dress as messiah, as barraca hussein, WE, all the same..take a look at obama 2016, U can take a look, in you will see.
Its in the Bible, God will punish those, the want free stuff..So he send hussein.
Oh boy, I know this will cost me more taxes as well....what a great example!
I do not agree with this.
This is simply untrue. The Republican dominated house of representatives vowed to obstruct Mr. Obama at every opportunity, and they have. One can’t succeed at leading when the other party overtly conspires to attempt the president’s failure. It’s telling that this not only didn’t work out for them but lead to a huge embarrassment for the GOP at this election.
Despite the obstruction, Mr Obama had some extraordinary achievements in his first term. All by itself the affordable care act (aka Obama care) is an achievement that has eluded every other president. The fact that we did not drop into a Depression is itself another extraordinary achievement. There are many more examples.
Romney's pandering to all sides of so many issues makes me think he would have done far, far worse. He lacks credibility.
While I don’t understand the kindergarten reference, i join you in hoping that that the House majority will change their tactics. On the other hand, the design of the 2 party system serves to insure that gridlock takes place on the federal level, and in that regard, it is doing as intended. Unfortunately millions of Americans suffer for the arrogance and obstinance of the GOP. I'm certain far far more would suffer with a Republican president. After all, the last one was at the helm and lead the charge to the destruction the US and most of the global economy.
... World coming to the end..Read the Bible, they will come dress as messiah, as barraca hussein, WE, all the same..take a look at obama 2016, U can take a look, in you will see.
Its in the Bible, God will punish those, the want free stuff..So he send hussein ...
Er, either your account has been hacked, or you need to put down the snakes & start taking those meds. No really. The rantings of Bronze Age, desert-dwelling goat herders are all very interesting, but the relevance to the world today is pretty much zilch.
...The rantings of Bronze Age, desert-dwelling goat herders are all very interesting...You can't judge a book by (all of) its readers.
I wonder if the elephant in the room is that the adversarial model of government is well past its use-by date and it is high time to give rule by consensus as suck at the sauce bottle.
... what do we fill the vacuum in peoples lives if we take away religion or organised belief?
World coming to the end..Read the Bible, they will come dress as messiah, as barraca hussein, WE, all the same..take a look at obama 2016, U can take a look, in you will see.
Its in the Bible, God will punish those, the want free stuff..So he send hussein.
Oh boy, I know this will cost me more taxes as well....what a great example!
The Republicans aren't interested in democracy even though they took part in the process. They see it as a win win situation. Try and win the election and if they fail then sabotage everything they can afterwards. They represent the money men of America who in reality own and control the economic system. That is what Obama is trying to win against and in reality is failing. You can't democratically defeat the REAL owners of the country. ::)
Being wealthy doesn't automatically mean you are part of owning the economic system. The wealthy who own or are large shareholders in big businesses are partly the owners and wield great power. Those who inherit, win the lottery and possibly steal don't have that power. There is a distinction. The Democrats who own big businesses will possibly have a social consciousness , but the Republicans less so. They may give to charities but they aren't giving away their power.
I can't lay my finger on the citation right now, but recent metrics show that social mobility in the U.S. is in fact lower than in many other of the industrialized nations.
The United States is not a democracy. Never was...
the flexibility of the workforcemyth...
Because no society in the history of mankind has provided more equality of opportunity to so many people.
... and that opportunity is REAL. See Barrack Obama and Bill Clinton as perfect examples.
I am sorry, but Romans have Emperors from much more humble beginnings...
A new meaning for the term "cutting your losses":
Mitt Romney's campaign cancels staff credit cards on election night (http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/11/mitt_romneys_campaign_cancels.html)
"When Mitt Romney’s staffers tried to take cabs home after the Republican presidential nominee’s election night concession speech, they discovered a problem. According to NBC, the Romney campaign cancelled staffers’ campaign credit cards in the middle of the night."
I guess there is no grace in losing (at least when TV cameras are turned off).
A new meaning for the term "cutting your losses":
Mitt Romney's campaign cancels staff credit cards on election night (http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/11/mitt_romneys_campaign_cancels.html)
"When Mitt Romney’s staffers tried to take cabs home after the Republican presidential nominee’s election night concession speech, they discovered a problem. According to NBC, the Romney campaign cancelled staffers’ campaign credit cards in the middle of the night."
I guess there is no grace in losing (at least when TV cameras are turned off).
not that I am pro-Romney, but I am not sure why there were thinking in the first place that they can use "corporate" credit cards to pay for the cabs in question... that actually goes to the feeling of entitlement that is not totally alien from GOP ranks...
I guess you never worked for a company, so the concept of travel expenses must be alien to you. You might want to check IRS Publication 535 (http://www.irs.gov/publications/p535/index.html) for details.
It wasn't standard practice in the Roman Empire, so ...
I guess you never worked for a company, so the concept of travel expenses must be alien to you. You might want to check IRS Publication 535 (http://www.irs.gov/publications/p535/index.html) for details.on the contrary I do work for a company (US based, publicly traded here) and we do not pay our non local employees to attend any celebrations neither do we pay our local employees to take cab rides home after such events... being born in a "communist" country I guess my work ethic is a little different ;D
That would make Mitt Romney a... communist, I guess?see what kind of a tragedy we were able to prevent by voting Obama... now all those federal/state/etc "staffers" will be able to breath that sweet air of freedom... to ride the cabs ;D, on your dime.
This thread is getting weirder and weirder by the minute... pass that bong, dude! ;)
What vacuum? Taking away supernaturalism doesn't leave a vacuum. But if it did, how about filling it with rationality?
Just got this from a friend down under. I laughed my butt off, I guess in part because I just finished watching Karl Rove try to explain why his strategies didn't work and of course put the blame somewhere besides his lack of understand the shifting demographics of this country."TO THE REPUBLICANS
WHO SAID THEY WILL MOVE
TO AUSTRALIA IF OBAMA WON:
AUSTRALIA HAS UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE,
COMPULSORY VOTING,
NO GUNS, NO DEATH PENALTY,
PRO-CHOICE WHEN IT COMES TO CONTRACEPTION,
OPENLY GAY POLITICIANS AND JUDGES,
EVOLUTION IS TAUGHT IN ALL SCHOOLS,
AND THE FEMALE PRIME MINISTER IS AN UNMARRIED ATHEIST.
BE SURE TO DECLARE YOUR PITCHFORKS
AT TULLAMARINE."
I think that you need to put the crack pipe away, you can not read for the smoke. The USA is a Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic, not a democracy.
The billions spent on the elections were wasted? ;D
That would make Mitt Romney a... communist, I guess?
Much easier said than done, Chairman Bill. Some of the greatest scientists and rational thinkers have professed a belief in some sort of God, including Albert Einstein, although Einstein's belief seems to have been more along the lines of Intelligent Design rather than a belief in a personal deity who intervenes in human affairs.
Voltaire was a fairly rational and enlightened sort of guy, wouldn't you agree? Yet one of his most famous sayings is, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
Be careful now, lest Judgement Day be upon you. ;D
(Attached image was processed on my Dell Notebook. Not sure about color calibration, so if it looks a bit odd, that's the explanation.)
Einstein is usually trotted out as theist, by those making this sort of case. He was at best, a deist, just like most of the US 'Founding Fathers'. As for the Intelligent Design idiocy - I don't think he'd have gone for anything like it. There's certainly no evidence whatsoever that he did. More a 'if there's a god, it lit the blue touch paper & stood well back, then let the cosmos do its thing' sort of bloke.
Much easier said than done, Chairman Bill. Some of the greatest scientists and rational thinkers have professed a belief in some sort of God, including Albert Einstein, although Einstein's belief seems to have been more along the lines of Intelligent Design rather than a belief in a personal deity who intervenes in human affairs.
Voltaire was a fairly rational and enlightened sort of guy, wouldn't you agree? Yet one of his most famous sayings is, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."Voltaire was a deist, and at a time when science had barely begun to scratch the surface. No theory of evolution - a tipping point in humanity's journey from supernaturalism to rationality - and so like many people of reason, god/God filled the gaps. Those gaps have got so small now ...
I think that you need to put the crack pipe away, you can not read for the smoke. The USA is a Federal Presidential Constitutional Republic, not a democracy.
... Voltaire... "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him."...
Which we did.
What a silly and pedantic statement.
I will therefore assert that according to my authoritative sources, the US is - in fact - a "democracy".
Can you please share your source of definitions?
I pulled mine out of my ass ... Where did you get yours?
Which poses the obvious question as to why did we do that?
Gods are simply argument from ignorance & incredulity. That and a means of dealing with existential angst & fear of death. Where does lightning come from? Er, must be some magic thing, maybe a god. Where do we go when we die? There must be some nice place where we meet all our ancestors, etc, yada, yada, yada.
Gods are simply argument from ignorance & incredulity. That and a means of dealing with existential angst & fear of death. Where does lightning come from? Er, must be some magic thing, maybe a god. Where do we go when we die? There must be some nice place where we meet all our ancestors, etc, yada, yada, yada.
Gods are simply argument from ignorance & incredulity. That and a means of dealing with existential angst & fear of death. Where does lightning come from? Er, must be some magic thing, maybe a god. Where do we go when we die? There must be some nice place where we meet all our ancestors, etc, yada, yada, yada.
Where we going after we die? Well, I know u going direct to hell...U won't be able to see where i am going U will be blind as U are now, with your messiah of Baca huessin Obama...When I die, my remains will rot away. Just like everyone else's. As for Obama being my messiah ... wow. The depth of stupidity in the suggestion is profound. Obama is a right wing politician. I'm not going to look to him for my political (or any other) guidance. The implied spiritual aspect ('cos messiah does imply that) is irrelevant. I don't believe in magic sky pixies, and I don't need a messiah to save me from said sky pixie.
Whatever u smoking, its getting to you...Should be a new LAW, U want to smoke, the weird stuff, u must work for it, if Hussein obama give to you, U should be hung in the street, in a tree in a public park...bet the smoke will stop, a list I will pay less taxes, in people will think before get free stuff.I don't smoke, have never smoked, and as I'm a Brit, Obama is giving nothing to me. As for the suggestion that I should be hung from a tree in a public park ... well, I can just feel that Christian love.
U R young, go to work...Actually I'm not young, but I do work. Thanks.
God, the real Messiah one, help us all for the next for years.Thanks. I'd never have worked out that your invisible friend won't help me, without you telling me first, though I did know that he doesn't cure blindness, just as he doesn't make amputees limbs grow back either.
U blind already, so your messiah, won't help U ,,,sorry u done...
Oh what I take for med? or if I took my med,,yes..I paid for, work for it...No free, in paid taxes as well..oh lord!, , its Remy Martin, when is cold, if its hot, I drink Santa Margarita , in for dinner I drink every night chateauneuf-du-pape..wine...Nice, but, cost cash, in if u smoke the other stuff, will not be cash left for this..sorryWow indeed.
So there u go with my med....I know yours, so, keep it for your self. WOW
Thanks.....You're welcome
You do seem a rather cynical sort of bloke, Chairman Bill. But I think your cynicism might be preferrable to BlasR's rantings. ;DA skeptic rather than a cynic
Just a small point; don't you mean, "Gods are simply argument from ignorance and credulity." Surely it is the atheistic argument that would be from incredulity.No, I meant argument from incredulity. It's of the kind, 'I can't believe all this happened/is here, without a god being behind it all'. The argument is one from a position of incredulity.
We should not forget that what we know, pales into insignificance compared with what we don't know.Quite. And about a huge amount of things, the best & most honest answer I can give is simply, I don't know. And rather than make stuff up, I just accept that I don't know. Some others tell me what I don't know, but then go on and assert the existence of a god to fill those gaps in what is known & not known. The implication is that they do know - goddidit. Of course, they're just making stuff up, rather than admitting that they don't know.
We don't even know what 95% of the matter and energy in our universe consists of. We give it the euphemistic name of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. In reality, it's not only dark, it's completely invisible and undetectable in any shape or form.I'd like a referecne or three for the assertion that we don't know what 95% of the energy/matter in the cosmos is, and as for what scientists are calling 'dark matter', we haven't detected it yet. That doesn't mean it's undetectable. Measurements suggest the presence of something.
Most astronomers presume it exists, because, if it doesn't, many of their current theories will have to be revised, modified or junked.Astrophysicists posit the existence of something (currently termed 'dark matter'), because measurement data suggests the presence of something. That's what theories do - explain data. The best of them also make testable predictions, and all of them are falsifiable. All it takes is data they can't/don't account for.
Now now Bill, with all due respect you're just being a teeny bit silly.How so?
... The rational approach is to consider why it is that mankind is so susceptible to the irrational and here the answer may lie in man's need for survival, or more precisely, our genes need to ensure they get propagated.Of course the susceptibility to supernaturalism has its roots in evolutionary processes. I've no doubt that jumping at shadows & being afraid of the dark have survival advantages, albeit they bring stress, and superstitions can help cope with that stress, and over time ... well that's the history of religion. I've never doubted the utility of it, but like so many things, it brings its own problems. The point is, however helpful some may find it, whatever its utility, that doesn't make it true, nor does it mean that it is helpful to persist with it. We have an appendix, which once served some useful purpose - it's still there, but more a potential problem than anything else.
... No doubt Bill you have some sort of motivation to get up each morning. What is it? My guess is that it is belief in yourself rather than a god, or are you going to claim that you believe in nothing?The alarm clock does it, if the birds haven't got there first. Did god invent alarm clocks?
How so?
There must be some nice place where we meet all our ancestors, etc, yada, yada, yada.
The alarm clock does it, if the birds haven't got there first. Did god invent alarm clocks?
Of course the susceptibility to supernaturalism has its roots in evolutionary processes. I've no doubt that jumping at shadows & being afraid of the dark have survival advantages, albeit they bring stress, and superstitions can help cope with that stress, and over time ... well that's the history of religion. I've never doubted the utility of it, but like so many things, it brings its own problems. The point is, however helpful some may find it, whatever its utility, that doesn't make it true, nor does it mean that it is helpful to persist with it. We have an appendix, which once served some useful purpose - it's still there, but more a potential problem than anything else.
The alarm clock does it, if the birds haven't got there first. Did god invent alarm clocks?
And you can prove that it's not true ...No, because you can't disprove a negative. And in just the same way, you can't disprove the existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn (bbhhh), or the dragon in Carl Sagan's garage, or Russell's Flying Teapot.
... that there is no other universe or altered state that science is unaware of?The thing is, without unambiguous, incontrovertible evidence, why shouyld anyone believe in such things? These things might exist. I don't know. I'm not going to assert that they do on the basis of whim or fanciful imaginings.
... The metaverse theory has been around a long time time now and is not totally discredited, likewise the Higgs field was only a 'belief' until billions were spent on proving it's existence and if that is one force that we were unaware of how many others might there be?The multiverse is a theory, derived from mathematics, and is just one explanation for the data we have. It is indeed not totally discredited, but to be a scientific theory it must be falsifiable, and all it takes is data that it can't account for. The Higgs Boson was something predicted by a theory, and data now suggests it does indeed exist. Theory & data (evidence) is a different category from 'belief'.
... These are not arguments for the existence of God or another world, just suggestions that we should keep an open mind for 'God' may turn out to be something totally unexpected that neither the romantics or rational envisaged.An open mind is just fine. I still lack belief in gods. I'm not stating that something that we might terms god(s) definitely does not exist, but the lack of any positive evidence for such things is cause enough to doubt. Equally, leprechauns & gnomes might exist, and the Tooth Fairy may well be true. I keep as open a mind in respect of these things as I do god(s).
... Besides which having a belief in something makes makes you little more finished as a human and can add an extra dimension to life. Try it sometime.Any evidence for this assertion? I see the Westboro Baptist Church believe in something - are they 'more finished' human beings? Hitler had lots of beliefs in all sorts of supernaturalist nonsense ... and having invoked Godwin's Law, shall we leave it there?
I'd like a referecne or three for the assertion that we don't know what 95% of the energy/matter in the cosmos is, and as for what scientists are calling 'dark matter', we haven't detected it yet. That doesn't mean it's undetectable. Measurements suggest the presence of something.
Astrophysicists posit the existence of something (currently termed 'dark matter'), because measurement data suggests the presence of something. That's what theories do - explain data. The best of them also make testable predictions, and all of them are falsifiable. All it takes is data they can't/don't account for.
Article 4 Section 4 the US Constitution.
No, because you can't disprove a negative. And in just the same way, you can't disprove the existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn (bbhhh), or the dragon in Carl Sagan's garage, or Russell's Flying Teapot.
The thing is, without unambiguous, incontrovertible evidence, why shouyld anyone believe in such things? These things might exist. I don't know. I'm not going to assert that they do on the basis of whim or fanciful imaginings.
The multiverse is a theory, derived from mathematics, and is just one explanation for the data we have. It is indeed not totally discredited, but to be a scientific theory it must be falsifiable, and all it takes is data that it can't account for. The Higgs Boson was something predicted by a theory, and data now suggests it does indeed exist. Theory & data (evidence) is a different category from 'belief'.
An open mind is just fine. I still lack belief in gods. I'm not stating that something that we might terms god(s) definitely does not exist, but the lack of any positive evidence for such things is cause enough to doubt. Equally, leprechauns & gnomes might exist, and the Tooth Fairy may well be true. I keep as open a mind in respect of these things as I do god(s).
Any evidence for this assertion? I see the Westboro Baptist Church believe in something - are they 'more finished' human beings? Hitler had lots of beliefs in all sorts of supernaturalist nonsense ... and having invoked Godwin's Law, shall we leave it there?
The greatest evidence I have for the assertion that an open mind and some form of belief makes us a little more human is presented within your postings. The calculated denial of anything that smacks of sitting outside of mainstream science suggests a lack of warmth, compassion, emotion and humility which are all traits that most of us find attractive in people.You hear what you choose to hear. And if you choose to hear a lack of warmth, compassion, emotion and humility in what I say, then it says more about you than me.
Your belief that nothing can exist until there is a sound and demonstrable explanation indicates that either you have little experience of the world or that you have deliberately isolated yourself from anything that that induces uncertainty in your model of how nature operates.Or you could be setting up a straw man.
... Why are yo so afraid of embracing ideas that, at best, are considered to be on the fringe?Where do you get the idea that fear has anything to do with it? I lack warmth, compassion, emotion & humility, and I'm afraid. And you can garner all this info about me, yet have never met me. Amazing. Or maybe you're talking bollocks & just engaging in a little bit of ad hominem attacks.
So what evidence is there that rational western science may not have all the answers?Well there's the fact that science makes no claim to have all the answers. If science had all the answers, it would stop.
... Well there is water dowsing for a start. My brother had rather a knack for it, but it doesn't work for me. Look it up on Wikipedia and you are faced with a tirade of denial quoting all sorts of laboratory based trials that appear to disprove it, so obviously it can be dismissed as bunkum. But wait a minute, another experiment based in the real world shows remarkably different results -False dichotomy time, eh? What if I said that I can't explain the successes claimed by dowsing? I've never said it is unexplainable. But when it is explained (whether shown to be nonsense or otherwise), it will be science that explains the mechanism, not religion.
To do this, researchers teamed geological experts with experienced dowsers and then set up a scientific study group to evaluate the results. Drill crews guided by dowsers didn't hit water every time, but their success rate was impressive. In Sri Lanka, for example, they drilled 691 holes and had an overall success rate of 96 percent.
"In hundreds of cases the dowsers were able to predict the depth of the water source and the yield of the well to within 10 percent or 20 percent," says Hans-Dieter Betz, a physicist at the University of Munich, who headed the research group.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/1281661 (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/1281661)
So who do we believe, the sceptics sneering at poor lab results or workers in the field relying on dowsers to help alleviate the suffering of the poor?
The more I experience life the more I come to think that science is often asking the wrong questions, it is too hidebound, too scared to really experiment, it follows ever narrower channels of investigation rather than sitting back and looking at the bigger picture. There maybe a great deal to be discovered about how the universe operates but it will remain unexplored because science 'won't go there', and it won't go there because Chaiman Bill and others will laugh from their ivory towers.Oh, OK. Now I know. So which god has all the answers? Because I'm sure you know. Do tell. Or could it be that you're talking bollocks, again, setting up more straw men to knock down? Come on, tell us what it is about the universe that will remain unexplored because science won't go there? Let's see your evidence that science 'won't go there'. And don't cite dowsing, 'cos the study you mentioned was done by scientists, which suggests that maybe they will go there.
Here's a quote from an article I wrote 32 years ago: "Science, effective as it may be at providing better living through chemistry and better destruction through physics, isn’t capable of providing the beliefs that hold a society together. As someone once said, 'Science can tell you how everything works, but it can’t tell you what anything is for.'” For anyone interested, the article's at http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/commoncause.html. I doubt anybody will be interested since it's clear most of the minds in this thread have long been made up and don't want to be bothered with arguments or facts.
The United States is a Republic. It has a representative democracy form of government which is a type of republic.What I don't get, in your line of reasoning, which seems to be shared by other Americans, is why a country can't be both a democracy and a republic. We Australians consider ourselves to be a democracy and a constitutional monarchy. If we ever amend our constitution to remove the connection with the House of Windsor and create an Australian Head of State, we will consider ourselves to have become a republic, but without ceasing to be a democracy. You seem to believe that no republic can also be a democracy but the definitions you quote seem to lead more comfortably to the proposition that some but not all republics are also democracies (and vice versa). Only semantics, of course, but what is interesting is why this particular semantic insistence?
Which poses the obvious question as to why did we do that?
You hear what you choose to hear. And if you choose to hear a lack of warmth, compassion, emotion and humility in what I say, then it says more about you than me.
Or you could be setting up a straw man.
Where do you get the idea that fear has anything to do with it? I lack warmth, compassion, emotion & humility, and I'm afraid. And you can garner all this info about me, yet have never met me. Amazing. Or maybe you're talking bollocks & just engaging in a little bit of ad hominem attacks.
Well there's the fact that science makes no claim to have all the answers. If science had all the answers, it would stop.
False dichotomy time, eh? What if I said that I can't explain the successes claimed by dowsing? I've never said it is unexplainable. But when it is explained (whether shown to be nonsense or otherwise), it will be science that explains the mechanism, not religion.
Oh, OK. Now I know. So which god has all the answers? Because I'm sure you know. Do tell. Or could it be that you're talking bollocks, again, setting up more straw men to knock down? Come on, tell us what it is about the universe that will remain unexplored because science won't go there? Let's see your evidence that science 'won't go there'. And don't cite dowsing, 'cos the study you mentioned was done by scientists, which suggests that maybe they will go there.
Article 4 guarantees the states a "republican form of government". It does not state that the US is NOT a democracy.
Ever occur to you that it isn't a one-to-one, mutually exclusive thing?
Ever occur to you that the US can be BOTH a republic AND a democracy?
Your quote actually proves my point ...
"Democracy. That form of government in which the sovereign power resides in and is exercised by the whole body of free citizens directly or indirectly through a system of representation, as distinguished from a monarchy, aristocracy, or oligarchy. Black's Law Dictionary, Fifth Edition, pp. 388-389."
You have done a terrible job proving your point. Go back and study some more. You are wrong Jeremy. I do not care if you never understand. You probably would not admit being wrong if the truth bit you in the but, so I am not wasting my time trying to get you to think otherwise.
Democracy is NOT distinguished from a republic. By this definition, the US is unambiguously a democracy.
You are very argumentative and confrontational about semantics ... it would be preferable if you stuck to ideas as your semantic arguments aren't terribly interesting.
You are wrong Jeremy.
Only semantics, of course, but what is interesting is why this particular semantic insistence?
About what exactly? Are you really insisting the US is not a democracy because it can also be described as a representative republic?
Oh yeah ... I forgot ... you are the Supreme Law of the Land ... so I guess it really is up to you whether or not the US is a democracy ...
Sorry. I'll bow to your magnificence and accept your arbitrary and pedantic definitions.
You are right, sir, the United States of America is not a democracy ... it is whatever YOU say it is. Ok?
I'm sure there's some whack-job who wrote a pamphlet ....
A major problem is that some leaders of countries in the world eg Israel pray to something in the sky for guidance rather than using their brains - and the brains of advisers - to decide what is right and wrong in solving the problems of the world. When the "answers" turn out to be wrong and misguided then they pray again looking for more "answers". The belief system is imo counter-intuitive to rational thought and a major problem in the ways of running things? An example. If Romney - a Mormon zealot - had got elected he would have been itching to bomb Iran of the map, another country that relies heavily in the power of prayer to guide them. I find this very strange. :(
You guys are talking about a different, parallel universe?
Then it must be true, since in my universe, Einstein wrote the following (the letter from Albert Einstein to Eric Gutkind from Princeton in January 1954):
"... The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text. For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions..."
(The letter from Albert Einstein to Eric Gutkind from Princeton in January 1954)
"Whack-job" was new to me, as an antipodean. The nicest citation I found on looking it up was this: “GFYS and that goes for the rest of your bongwater drinkin whackjob freinds.” But I guess yours would be an 18th Century pre-bongwater whack-job (or wackjob...the spelling doesn't seem to have regularized), as he went in for pamphlet writing. Or have pamphlets made a comeback?
The chasm widens daily until we see that science itself has come to mimic organised religion in the promotion of its high priests and past saints.
You are on a real bullshit kick lately. That's just pure nonsense.
And would you mind explaining why or is just sneering dismissal the extent of your thoughts upon the subject?
You simply asserted that science has become a religion ... nice soundbite, but amounts to nothing more than saying: "I know you are, but what am I."
I don't see any evidence of the scientific method in organized religion. I see plenty of scientific method in real science.
Until religion adopts the scientific method, or science drops it ... your statement is just pure bullshit.
Reading the posts of both you and Chairman Bill I conclude, maybe incorrectly, that you each consider science to be the single truth. Mmmm.... now where have we heard that before?
Wow ... are you just playing dumb? If you truly believe science is just another religion I would respectfully suggest you have no idea what science is.
OKaaaay, I can see you are having some difficulty here so I'll try and use easy words.
I have not said that science is just another religion. I have said they can look the same to someone who is not deeply involved in either.
Please, if you have difficulty in understanding any part of that then let me know and I'll give it another go.
May I give it another go as well, please?
I think you may want to rephrase it to something like this:
"...they can look the same to someone who is not deeply involved in... thinking."
Please, if you have difficulty in understanding any part of that then let me know and I'll give it another go.
Wow ... are you just playing dumb? If you truly believe science is just another religion I would respectfully suggest you have no idea what science is.
This thread has turned into a classic rattling of empty heads, but this one really cracks me up. Jeremy, 500 years ago a Roman priest would have put it this way: "If you truly believe Catholicism is just another religion I would respectfully suggest you have no idea what truth is." (He might not have used the word "respectfully.")
Let's face it. To a real scientist,science isn't a religion, and that kind of scientist has a very precise picture of science's shortcomings and of the things science not only can't answer, but that science can't even approach. But the great unwashed masses have been taught that science is capable of what religion used to be thought capable of. To those masses science most certainly has become not only a religion but the religion.
The difference between science & religion is essentially this; religion seeks evidence to confirm beliefs held, whereas science looks at the evidence & derives beliefs about the world from those.
In religion, those who question are heretics. In science, those who question are, er, scientists.
Religion is concerned with the truth as revealed to a select few. Science is concerned with the truth as revealed to everyone who bothers to look.
The difference between science & religion is essentially this; religion seeks evidence to confirm beliefs held, whereas science looks at the evidence & derives beliefs about the world from those.
In religion, those who question are heretics. In science, those who question are, er, scientists.
Religion is concerned with the truth as revealed to a select few. Science is concerned with the truth as revealed to everyone who bothers to look.
But science is unable to explain some things. I choose to believe in God because if I am wrong, I have not lost anything of value. Now, those that do not believe in God are in a different situation. It could really matter if they are wrong. This is my personal choice that I have made and I respect the next person for not believing. To each his own. I see no need in arguing about it or trying to "convert" anyone.
But science is unable to explain some things. I choose to believe in God because if I am wrong, I have not lost anything of value. Now, those that do not believe in God are in a different situation. It could really matter if they are wrong. This is my personal choice that I have made and I respect the next person for not believing. To each his own. I see no need in arguing about it or trying to "convert" anyone.
And yes, to each his/her own. I see no point in trying to convert people. Except that I regularly get believers trying to convert me, or arguing that I can't be good without their particular god, or specific version of religion. They keep trying to influence social policy, educational policy, and so on. If only it really was just a private matter.You're so right. They belong to the Establishment religion of 'Scientism', which has perverted Science into a series of pc dogmata to which one must do obeisance for preferment. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus on the other hand have never pressured me.
This is not a reliable argument. When a person believes in God, it is a God imagined and expressed through the human imagination.
When a person disbelieves in God, it is a disbelief also imagined and expressed through the human imagination, but with greater courage because belief is easy and just requires a conformity to tradition, whereas disbelief requires genuine intellectual activity and questioning of a sort that leads to truth, or at least the scientific framework our society is now based upon.
There was a time, just a few hundred years ago, when science did not exist, and I imagine that life must have been truly awful when those in control were sorcerers, witches, magicians and popes.
I'm so grateful I live in an enlightened era, but so saddened that so many people in this enlightened era are still stuck in the mire of religious bigotry.
Of course there are still many things that science is unable to explain. It's because the standards of scientific explanation are so much higher than the standards of religious explanation.
I hope no-one takes offense. I'm simply expressing an honest opinion.
This is not a reliable argument. When a person believes in God, it is a God imagined and expressed through the human imagination.No offense taken. One of the things that science can not explain is how something can be created without a creator. I think that it takes a whole lot more faith to believe that everything (Humans, plants, animals etc) just "happened". This way of thinking would lead one to believe that you could take a watch, disassemble it, put it in your pocket, and at some point (maybe in a million years) the watch would just happen to not only be reassembled, but be running and have the exact time. That takes an awful lot of faith.
When a person disbelieves in God, it is a disbelief also imagined and expressed through the human imagination, but with greater courage because belief is easy and just requires a conformity to tradition, whereas disbelief requires genuine intellectual activity and questioning of a sort that leads to truth, or at least the scientific framework our society is now based upon.
There was a time, just a few hundred years ago, when science did not exist, and I imagine that life must have been truly awful when those in control were sorcerers, witches, magicians and popes.
I'm so grateful I live in an enlightened era, but so saddened that so many people in this enlightened era are still stuck in the mire of religious bigotry.
Of course there are still many things that science is unable to explain. It's because the standards of scientific explanation are so much higher than the standards of religious explanation.
I hope no-one takes offense. I'm simply expressing an honest opinion.
......... and all of a sudden the bigotry of the rationalists looks just as vindictive and ugly as any that we have seen from the church over here in recent years. It's almost enough to make me to take up holy orders!
Sorry! Your term 'Bigotry of the Rationalists' destroys your argument. It's an oxymoron. Rationalism by its nature is against bigotry. What more can I say!
... One of the things that science can not explain is how something can be created without a creator...
You're so right. They belong to the Establishment religion of 'Scientism', which has perverted Science into a series of pc dogmata to which one must do obeisance for preferment. Christians, Buddhists, Hindus on the other hand have never pressured me.Evidence?
Evidence?
No offense taken. One of the things that science can not explain is how something can be created without a creator. I think that it takes a whole lot more faith to believe that everything (Humans, plants, animals etc) just "happened". This way of thinking would lead one to believe that you could take a watch, disassemble it, put it in your pocket, and at some point (maybe in a million years) the watch would just happen to not only be reassembled, but be running and have the exact time. That takes an awful lot of faith.
Neither could religion. Otherwise, who created the "creator"?
No offense taken. One of the things that science can not explain is how something can be created without a creator. I think that it takes a whole lot more faith to believe that everything (Humans, plants, animals etc) just "happened". This way of thinking would lead one to believe that you could take a watch, disassemble it, put it in your pocket, and at some point (maybe in a million years) the watch would just happen to not only be reassembled, but be running and have the exact time. That takes an awful lot of faith.
Chuck Norris? ;D
Why does religion have to prove that it's Creator is real? The burden of proof always lies on the accuser.
C'mon now Bryan. That's an argument that leads nowhere. If there's a creator, then who or what created the creator?
Another issue which boggles my mind, is how anyone could believe that he has a direct insight into the mind of an imagined creator of this vast universe, the extent of which was not even remotely envisaged by the originators of our main current religions.
Belief, in anything, is a force in itself, whether in reality it is true or not. It's known as the placebo effect.
The burden of proof lies on the one making the positive assertion. You claim there's a god, you provide the unambiguous, incontrovertible evidence to support the claim. In the complete absence of such evidence, I'm perfectly justified in not accepting your claim.
A number of things follow from this though - who created this 'Creator', being one of them. And the 'just happened' bit is a straw man. Compare the scientific explanation for humans (all that complicated evolution stuff) with the simple-minded 'goddidit' of religious explanations. Which is closer to a 'just happened' explanation?
A number of things follow from this though - who created this 'Creator', being one of them. And the 'just happened' bit is a straw man. Compare the scientific explanation for humans (all that complicated evolution stuff) with the simple-minded 'goddidit' of religious explanations. Which is closer to a 'just happened' explanation?Evolution (to which I subscribe) is not a 'scientific explanation for humans', it's a scientific explanation for speciation from earlier species or a common universal ancestor of which 'the ascent of man' is one example. The origin of Life isn't explained. There simply isn't a scientific explanation for Life, Matter, Time etc. The Big Bang may be a singularity that stops further enquiry. The only scientifically accurate position is that of Hamlet (a Christian as it happens):
Evolution (to which I subscribe) is not a 'scientific explanation for humans', it's a scientific explanation for speciation from earlier species or a common universal ancestor of which 'the ascent of man' is one example. The origin of Life isn't explained. There simply isn't a scientific explanation for Life, Matter, Time etc. The Big Bang may be a singularity that stops further enquiry. The only scientifically accurate position is that of Hamlet (a Christian as it happens):
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
You are back to believing that everything just happened at random.
I can not find (in my way of thinking) any logic in the thought that a creator (the cause) is not necessary. If I meet the creator, I will ask him who was his creator.
We can play word games all day. You seem to be of the belief that people that believe in God are wrong....that there is no God. Correct?
Evolution had to have a beginning.Of course. It requires life to have come into existence before that life could evolve. That's a question of abiogenesis, and science has revealed some tantilising things regarding that.
... I accept that you believe that God is not real.I have no beliefs about gods generally. Do you believe in Quetzalcoatl? What about Hera, or Lugh?
... I can not explain either side of this argument beyond a doubt, no one can.There's always room for doubt in science. Unless you're claiming that all swans are white for instance.
So, we will just have to wait until the end to find out...like everyone else since the beginning of time.....oooops.....who created time... ???Ah, the ultimate get out - we'll have to wait 'til we're dead to find out. Except that we'll be dead.
Evolution (to which I subscribe) is not a 'scientific explanation for humans', it's a scientific explanation for speciation from earlier species or a common universal ancestor of which 'the ascent of man' is one example.And as humankind is a primate species, with clear DNA ancestry indicating a commonality with earlier hominids, and going back, with other apes, other mammals, and so on, evolution does seem to explain us quite well.
The origin of Life isn't explained.That's because that's abiogenesis, not evolution.
There simply isn't a scientific explanation for Life, Matter, Time etc. The Big Bang may be a singularity that stops further enquiry. The only scientifically accurate position is that of Hamlet (a Christian as it happens):Well, science is increasingly casting a light on all these things, and there are indeed scientific explanations for many of them. And those many things in heaven & earth - most of what we know about them derives from science, and precious few (if any) from religion.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
And who was the creator of his creator, and so on. I know I have a grandfather, and great grandfather, and great, great, great grandfather. So does God have grandfathers?
Let's be sensible for Christ's sake. ;D
I have no beliefs about gods generally. Do you believe in Quetzalcoatl? What about Hera, or Lugh?
There's always room for doubt in science. Unless you're claiming that all swans are white for instance.So far, you have proven that there is doubt on both sides. So the score is tied.
Ah, the ultimate get out - we'll have to wait 'til we're dead to find out. Except that we'll be dead.It is not a get out. I do not have to "get out" of anything. Or, are you trying to make me "believe" the way that you believe? ;D
Maybe, I do not know the name of the Creator.You don't know that there is a creator. You believe there is. Belief & knowledge are not the same thing
So far, you have proven that there is doubt on both sides. So the score is tied.So many theists seem in so little doubt about things.
It is not a get out. I do not have to "get out" of anything. Or, are you trying to make me "believe" the way that you believe? ;DSaying that we'll find out when we're dead, is indeed a get out. You can believe whatever you want, but saying that the argument ends until we're dead, means the argument is never likely to be solved.
Maybe both of us are wrong. Maybe the "Hokey Pokey" really is what it is all about.I'm sure that I'm wrong about all sorts of things. I'm not wrong about the fact that I don't believe in god(s).
So, now I am waiting with open eyes and an open mind to accept your proof that there is no Creator.How would anyone prove the absence of something that possibly isn't there? You want me to disprove a negative? Can you prove the non-existence of the Lesser Spotted Three-toed Snortiblog?
Heck, I can not even think of something without a Creator...except the Creator.Ah, argument from personal incredulity. I have no need of a belief in a creator. Where does that leave us?
So, you can begin with giving me a list of things that exist without a creator...something that just appeared out of nothingness.How about your creator? If a complex, ultimate being can just pop into existence, or always exist, something we have no evidence for whatosever, then why not the cosmos (something we do have evidence for)?
How would anyone prove the absence of something that possibly isn't there? You want me to disprove a negative? Can you prove the non-existence of the Lesser Spotted Three-toed Snortiblog?
Ah, argument from personal incredulity. I have no need of a belief in a creator. Where does that leave us?
How about your creator? If a complex, ultimate being can just pop into existence, or always exist, something we have no evidence for whatosever, then why not the cosmos (something we do have evidence for)?
Enough already…
Read your classics... (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolegomena_to_Any_Future_Metaphysics)
No point in bringing to this table any ideas that don't immediately accord with either side of the god/science argument as they will only be ignored.And that is the difference. Scientists make no claims for that which is beyond their ability to enquire. Those asserting the reality of supernatural agencies tend to make such claims.
If evolution is an effect what was the cause, and was that cause an effect of something else? Religion places the ultimate cause firmly in the hands of a god, deity or life spirit etc whilst the scientists can see no further back than the big bang.
... Neither side will satisfy the other that they have the real answer which leaves the non committed grasping for something else and that there may be 'something else', a compromise or even alternative between the two is an anathema to the zealots of either side.But science isn't claiming to have the real answer. More straw-manning. Really, where is the zealotry in saying "I don't believe"? Where is the zealotry in saying, "show me the evidence"? Do tell.
And that is the difference. Scientists make no claims for that which is beyond their ability to enquire. Those asserting the reality of supernatural agencies tend to make such claims.
There's a humility involved in science, not least in the fact of scientists having to say "I don't know" in response to a variety of questions. Contrast that if you will, with the supreme arrogance of those who are equally (or more) in a state of unknowing, but who claim to know - goddidit.
And that is the root of it all. That is the two sides of this argument. Science saying "We don't know, & in the absence of evidence, we're not going to make claims to know", with various theists arrogantly saying, "Ah, but we know. It was God/Allah/Zeus/ etc."
But science isn't claiming to have the real answer. More straw-manning. Really, where is the zealotry in saying "I don't believe"? Where is the zealotry in saying, "show me the evidence"? Do tell.
If science is so full of humility why do its more ardent disciples insist on rubbishing religion at every opportunity?Maybe because various religionists would have us base our educational, health & social policies on the fevered ramblings of Bronze Age goat herders, who thought that you could change the colour of an animal's offspring by getting it to shag alongside different coloured sticks.
If it does not know all the answers then perhaps it should be a little more modest in decrying other peoples beliefs until it does ...Again, you are free to hold whatever beliefs you want, but when theists (of various stripes) start making claims about reality that are faith-based, rather than being grounded in evidence, when religions make claims to know, when they have nothing more than fantasy & made-up shit, I think pointing & laughing is appropriate.
Maybe because various religionists would have us base our educational, health & social policies on the fevered ramblings of Bronze Age goat herders, who thought that you could change the colour of an animal's offspring by getting it to shag alongside different coloured sticks.
Again, you are free to hold whatever beliefs you want, but when theists (of various stripes) start making claims about reality that are faith-based, rather than being grounded in evidence, when religions make claims to know, when they have nothing more than fantasy & made-up shit, I think pointing & laughing is appropriate.
As for thinking that it will be science, not religion that explains things - a simple matter of looking at the track record. Name one fact determined by religion.
Oh yes of course, all religions base their beliefs on the reproductive management strategy of bronze age goat herders just as all chemists are still seeking to turn base metals to gold and naturally the searcgh for the perfect solvent continues.Alchemists aren't chemists. Nice try though.
Eugenics is also shit.Here you're mixing up the science with what people choose to do with it
Populations can be motivated by belief?Indeed. But can you name a fact that has been determined by religion?
Alchemists aren't chemists. Nice try though.
Here you're mixing up the science with what people choose to do with it
Indeed. But can you name a fact that has been determined by religion?
... Populations can be motivated by belief?
So where did chemistry originate, how much of our knowledge of the elements came from alchemy, does modern day science owe anything to methodology developed by the alchemists, when did alchemy end and science begin? Your superficial dismissal is disingenuous to say the leastThe point is that religion is based on the beliefs of scientifically ignorant people. The whole god-concept is not one based on evidence & reason, but from uninformed superstition.
And of course you are not by your blanket condemnation of all faiths and religions and how they are practised.I'm generalising. Do you want a point-by-point refutation of every different belief emanating from every religion & cult?
I'll give you a scientific fact determined by religion when you give me a religious fact determined by science.So that's a no then? I can give you facts about religion(s), but I'm not sure what would constitute a religious fact. Various religions make claims about how the cosmos is & came into being. We can test those claims & generally find them wanting. The point is this - given that Bronze Age tribes knew so little about physics and the like, given that we today put so little stock by their claims regarding the observable universe, why should we take any notice of their claims about gods, angels, demons, pixies & shit?
Indeed... into wars.
... Modern wars tend to be about resources rather than religion, resources that science has shown us how to use in increasing the comfort of our lives. If it was not for science, and I include technology in that, would we be fighting over oil reserves?
In fact, when was the last major war fought over purely religious differences?
The whole god-concept is not one based on evidence & reason, but from uninformed superstition.
The point is that religion is based on the beliefs of scientifically ignorant people. The whole god-concept is not one based on evidence & reason, but from uninformed superstition.
Alchemy deviated from science in a number of ways - not least the involvement of arcane symbols & other 'magical' concepts.
Once those were stripped away, the science started to emerge.
I'm generalising. Do you want a point-by-point refutation of every different belief emanating from every religion & cult?
So that's a no then? I can give you facts about religion(s), but I'm not sure what would constitute a religious fact. Various religions make claims about how the cosmos is & came into being. We can test those claims & generally find them wanting. The point is this - given that Bronze Age tribes knew so little about physics and the like, given that we today put so little stock by their claims regarding the observable universe, why should we take any notice of their claims about gods, angels, demons, pixies & shit?
You, Sir, are known by now by incredible stretches of logic (e.g., WWII sacrifices and modern financial troubles), but you've outdone yourself here: wars fought because of religion paralleled by wars fought because of... science??? What!? Since future wars will probably be fought over another resource, water, shall we blame science for that too?
Ah, Sir, by including those weasel words "major" and "purely," you wisely pre-empted any possible reply by not being "major" and "purely" enough for you. Well done.
But let me try nevertheless: all current conflicts in the Moslem world, Middle East, Asia have a significant religious component. Also the civil war in former Yugoslavia: Moslems vs. Catholics vs. Orthodox Christians, in various alliances. Or, closer to your home, the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Everything in our existence (as we know it) is cause and effect. Action and reaction.
Bill, you need to stop playing with words, step outside your dungeon, and look around you. The information to inform you is all there. All you have to do is open your eyes and look.
Bryan, your statement sounds like classic Newtonian physics, which in many respects has been supplanted by quantum physics. Maybe it’s nitpicking in the broader context of this discussion about religion, but your statement does not reflect the generally accepted view of physicists.
So just what are you trying to tell us Bill. Those who choose to hold a faith are lesser and ignorant people? There are plenty of people who manage to live quite excellent lives without great knowledge of science, or any religion come to that.Pretty sure I haven't said this, but those who assert that dinosaurs walked the earth 6000 years ago, or that Noah's ark really did hold seven of each clean animal & two of every uclean one, and the flood is all true ... well the jury's in on those, and the verdict isn't good.
Bill, the only facts that are acceptable to you are scientific facts ...Oh. OK. Thanks for letting me know.
so when you seek to source them from the pool of religion you are bound to come away empty handed. That's the ultimate straw man argument!Really? How have I set up a straw man here? Religions make claims about reality. Reality is subject to scrutiny. Where doctrine & observable facts fail to coincide, are you suggesting that doctrine wins?
Religion is not about scientific factsbut it makes claims about reality, so opening itself up to scientific testing.
... but if that is your understanding of it then no wonder you struggle accept other peoples less blinkered view of the world and the way it works.Please explain how a scientific view, that amends its understandings in light of data, is blinkered, yet a religious view that seeks to make reality conform to doctrine, isn't.
If 'facts' were all that life was about then then every successful person in every field of human endeavour would be a scientist and obviously that is not the case.Really? Good job I never claimed that all life is about, is facts, isn't it?
... Rather than pander to your rather unscientific fixation with the ancients and their goats let us look once again at the influence of later religions whose desire for symbolism led to flying buttress and vaulted domes, both of which were architectural developments which came about due to religion.Er, no. The development of architecture owes nothing to religion, and plenty to human ingenuity. The church might have been calling the shots & paying the wages, but the problem solving wasn't based on reading entrails or conjuring up spirits. More to do with an understanding of angles than angels.
I have already mentioned the improvement of pigments which was fuelled to a great extent by money from the church but art led us in all sorts of directions such as the desire for decoration and enlightenment, so lets celebrate the good that religion has brought us rather than dismiss it's pagan origins and influence as being nonsensical and inconsequentialI'm quite capable of seeing the good things that have arisen from human effort & ingenuity, however inspired. None of that says anything about the truth of a religious viewpoint.
Well I think this sums it up -State of denial? You think they prayed & an angel came down to give 'em the architectural drawings? Religion might have been the inspiration, but it was plain human ingenuity & problem solving skills that delivered.
Er, no. The development of architecture owes nothing to religion, and plenty to human ingenuity.
That just suggests an advanced and quite frightening state of denial. What are you scared of Bill?
State of denial? You think they prayed & an angel came down to give 'em the architectural drawings? Religion might have been the inspiration, but it was plain human ingenuity & problem solving skills that delivered.
... now, if nothing else, I am far less grumpy and aloof than of yore and I actually like and get on with a lot more people.
Yes, we noticed ;)
Yes, we noticed ;)
Here you're mixing up the science with what people choose to do with it
Bryan, your statement sounds like classic Newtonian physics, which in many respects has been supplanted by quantum physics. Maybe it’s nitpicking in the broader context of this discussion about religion, but your statement does not reflect the generally accepted view of physicists.So a physics theory is the truth? Do you have faith in this physics theory? It is a theory, so it is unproven as a fact. Just like religion.
If that is so then it is more proof that one doesn't exist.
No, only that there are many different interpretations of what many billions of people over the years have felt as a presence of a higher order or state. They could all be wrong or we could just settle for the cop out that God is whatever you think it is.
So a physics theory is the truth? Do you have faith in this physics theory? It is a theory, so it is unproven as a fact. Just like religion.
B*llocks, much of the fighting is over land, which is a resource, religion is often dragged into disputes to merely justify the battles and that goes as much for the Irish situation as it does anywhere else.
Actually, there is plenty of evidence that God exists but an empiric proof is something else again.
Tony Jay
Ah, so it is just another real-estate issue?
I knew you were going to connect it somehow to those greedy bankers ;)
As for evidence, I'd certainly be interested in the unambiguous & incontrovertible evidence for god(s) of any stripe.Or evidence against them. There are different varieties of agnostic. I am what the Australian philosopher Tamas Patacki has described as a naive agnostic. I haven't encountered God, or a God, but I am not quite certain that I never will and not quite hopeful that I will. Not being pure in heart, it probably won't be the Christian version. Krishna would be recognizable from a distance, being blue. The Greek ones tended to disguise themselves as humans, or swans, or such things, so maybe I have met one but not just recognized her.
So a physics theory is the truth? Do you have faith in this physics theory? It is a theory, so it is unproven as a fact. Just like religion.
... what else don't we know?
... Just as Chairman Bill points to the fact that religion is not going to build cathedrals all by itself I would reiterate the we we didn't fly to the moon purely on the back of science, there was some sort of soul within the team that put the rockets together, a shared faith that it could be done and that in itself is a religion although I'm quite expecting our Bill to refute that and point to the field of psychology to support his claims. :)Indeed I would refute that. Having trust in the science & technology, some self-confidence & trust in others involved in a venture, doesn't amount to religion.
At the end of the day why does religion have to prove itself scientifically?When religions make claims about the cosmos, claims that are so very much in opposition to all that we currently know, and where religious doctrine conflicts with known facts, and still religious people want special treatment & influence on the basis of those religious doctrines, I think we're entitled to say, 'where's your evidence?'.
I see you appear not to have much of scientific background, Bryan. It would be helpful if posters in this discussion were to make a clear distinction between theory and hypothesis. It's unfortunate that the words are often used interchangeably, even in Wikipedia, as though they are synonyms.
Quite often, disputes never get resolved as a result of the protagonists not realising they are assuming different definitions of the same keys words they are both using in their arguments.
Now my understanding of a theory, when the word is used in a scientific context, is that it is always based upon evidence, and a theory is only as true as the consistency of the evidence which supports it and upon which it is based..
An hypothesis, on the other hand, is of the nature of conjecture and speculation. The evidence to support it is at best tenuous. As more evidence accummulates, the hypothesis may eventually reach the staus of a theory, at which point the theory tends to be of practical use, helping us to construct models of reality and predict outcomes. We don't build digital cameras and plasma TV sets using speculative hypotheses. We need sound, reliable and consistent theories.
Belief on the other hand, doesn't require the knowledge, understanding or appreciation of a sound, evidence-based scientific theory. Belief is emotional in nature. Presumably, those who believe in God get a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling from their belief, especially when they contemplate those endless years of joy and delight in heaven that await them after they die.
However, I'm sure the emotional nature of belief also affects scientists, but in a different way to the usual effect of conventional and traditional religions, Einstein's belief in God being an example previously mentioned.
I still remember my susrprise when I first learned that Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientists of all time, was rabidly and obsessively religious. However, he kept his religious views pretty much to himself because they differed so much from the established dogma of the time, and he lived in an era when religious heretics were still being persecuted.
I find it fascinating that despite the great scientific endeavours of the past centuries, and despite our apparent mastery and understanding of the nature of matter and energy at such a fundamental level that we can create atomic bombs, nuclear power plants and amazing computers etc etc, we still haven't got a clue what 96% of the matter and energy in the obervable universe consists of.
Or to put it in another ways, recent observations of our universe using increasingly sophisticated technology, such as the Hubble telescope, have revealed that the universe is not behaving as our theories predict. Our theories predict that we should observe a slowing down of the expansion of the universe at its outer reaches. It was predicted, once upon a time, that the forces of gravity would eventually halt the expansion of the universe which would then begin to contract and fall in on itself.
Our best current observations, which rely upon interpretation through existing theories of Physics and Astrophysics, reveal that the outer reaches of the universe are expanding at a much faster rate than predicted by our theories of gravity, which of course must be of immense relief to those who were once worried about their world eventually collapsing in upon itself, causing great loss of property and wealth.
Our theories also predict that the stars in spiral galaxies at the edge of the universe should be rotating much slower than our observations now reveal. So what's going on?
In order to explain this observed phenomenon, we either have to modify our existing theories of gravity, so that our theories will then match our observations, or cling to our existing theories, and hypothesise the existence of calculated huge quantities of truly invisible and so far undetecable matter and energy, the existence of which, if we ever detect the stuff, will preserve the integrity of our existing theories.
I find that to be an incredible situation. We're not talking here about minor discrepancies. We've discovered all the elements of matter described in the Periodic Table. We've split the atom and identified its constituent components, including numerous sub-atomic particles. We've analysed the Electromagnetic Spectrum and identified the properties of the various types of radiation, a part of which is visible light which we are all so interested in as photographers. We've even discovered particles of anti-matter, the existence of which was hypothesised by Paul Dirac many decades ago.
But all this "stuff" which we've observed, analysed and documented over the centuries, is now claimed to represents only 4% of the total mass and energy in the universe (or maybe it's 5% or 6% -estimates vary). The other 96% is totally invisible and of the nature of pure conjecture or hypothesis. Not a single particle nor wave of this mysterious Dark Matter and Dark Energy has so far been detected by any scientific instrument or process known to mankind. Makes one wonder, eh?
If the best scientific minds of our species do not know what 96% of the stuff in our universe consists of, what else don't we know?
... I do think that several people in this thread have displayed an abundance of book knowledge, but a severe lack of knowledge of what it means to be an intelligent, caring human being.
Nicely little ad hom there, Bryan. Care to name names? Better still, how about explaining what leads you to this claim. Some evidence & insight into your line of reasoning would be good.
Scientists working on NASA's six-wheeled rover on Mars have a problem. But it's a good problem.
They have some exciting new results from one of the rover's instruments. On the one hand, they'd like to tell everybody what they found, but on the other, they have to wait because they want to make sure their results are not just some fluke or error in their instrument.
It's a bind scientists frequently find themselves in, because by their nature, scientists like to share their results. At the same time, they're cautious because no one likes to make a big announcement and then have to say "never mind."
The exciting results are coming from an instrument in the rover called SAM. "We're getting data from SAM as we sit here and speak, and the data looks really interesting," (cont)
No, I will not stoop completely down to the level of making it personal by naming names. If the shoe fits, feel free to wear it.
If it is not evident by reading what I have read, it would be futile for me try to explain my reasoning.
I do think that several people in this thread have displayed an abundance of book knowledge, but a severe lack of knowledge of what it means to be an intelligent, caring human being.
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Just as Chairman Bill points to the fact that religion is not going to build cathedrals all by itself I would reiterate the we we didn't fly to the moon purely on the back of science, there was some sort of soul within the team that put the rockets together, a shared faith that it could be done and that in itself is a religion although I'm quite expecting our Bill to refute that and point to the field of psychology to support his claims. Smiley
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The Russians managed to put people and Sputniks into space without any religious faith to back them up. For a while they were ahead of the USA. Therefore religion is meaningless Justin in this context. Just good old scientific planning. ;)
Not at all, no doubt the Russians to had belief in themselves.
... there was some sort of soul within the team that put the rockets together, a shared faith that it could be done and that in itself is a religion...
Damn, I did not know that having bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning would make me religious! I had faith that I can crack an egg, that I won't cut myself cutting bacon, and if I do, I had faith I can apply a bandaid. ;)
Indeed I would refute that. Having trust in the science & technology, some self-confidence & trust in others involved in a venture, doesn't amount to religion.
When religions make claims about the cosmos, claims that are so very much in opposition to all that we currently know, and where religious doctrine conflicts with known facts, and still religious people want special treatment & influence on the basis of those religious doctrines, I think we're entitled to say, 'where's your evidence?'.
We've got people in the UK (as you have in the US), who want schools to be teaching a six day creation, the literal reality of Noah & the Flood, a 6,000 year old earth, and similar nonsense. We have people trying to influence social policy, including the establishment of Sharia Law ('cos it says we must in the Quran). We've got people demanding an end to certain scientific research because their god or holy book says it's wrong.
Now I don't care what people choose to believe, and what consenting adults do in private is their affair. I don't even mind people bringing their superstitions & philosophies into the public realm, but if they do, and base arguments & claims for changes in how I live my life, based on those superstitions & philosophies, I think I'm entitled to challenge, question, & ask, 'where's the evidence to support your claims?'
You see, I have friends who are monotheists (Christians, Jews, Muslims & one Zoroastrian), as well as pantheists, panentheists & polytheists. We get on just fine, because none of them tell me how to live my life, & I don't tell them how to live theirs. They vote for candidates in elections, maybe on a religious basis, and that is their right. But were they to demand special treatment for their beliefs over anyone else's (and some do), or demand special treatment in terms of tax (and some do), or special consideration for their fanciful notions about the cosmos in science lessons & the like, then we would fall out, and rightly so.
But you don't have to agree with me. Just know that if we scrapped the idea of evolution, it would come back & bite you on the arse; no more need to worry about drug-resistant antibiotics, 'cos bugs can't evolve, obviously. Er ...
I'm a proper atheist - I had fried babies for my breakfast
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Just as Chairman Bill points to the fact that religion is not going to build cathedrals all by itself I would reiterate the we we didn't fly to the moon purely on the back of science, there was some sort of soul within the team that put the rockets together, a shared faith that it could be done and that in itself is a religion although I'm quite expecting our Bill to refute that and point to the field of psychology to support his claims. Smiley
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The Russians managed to put people and Sputniks into space without any religious faith to back them up. For a while they were ahead of the USA. Therefore religion is meaningless Justin in this context. Just good old scientific planning. ;)
When they were not firing Sputniks into space it seems those dasterdly Ruskies were exploring the paranormal - www.scientificamerican.com (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=us-and-soviet-spooks-studied-parano-2008-10-29)
No idea what success they met with although they kept at it for a while.
When they were not firing Sputniks into space it seems those dasterdly Ruskies were exploring the paranormal - www.scientificamerican.com (http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=us-and-soviet-spooks-studied-parano-2008-10-29)
No idea what success they met with although they kept at it for a while.
I didn't know that extrasensory perception was a religion? Justin it looks like you are flailing around for evidence of God and failing? ;)
Sigma DP2 Merrill camera thread hangs its head in shame, with only 24 pages worth... :D
But I'm not talking about religion, I'm talking about belief.
Changing the goal posts once again Justin? :)
A few posts back you were on the defensive concerning the existence of God. Furiously kicking everything off the line and at the same time conceding own goals. ;D Now if you want another metaphor: you are as slippery as an eel on this subject, just like the other believers. ;)
I believe that Laphroig is a really good single malt - personal opinion, doesn't in any way impact on your reality
I believe that water is wet - personal experience of phenomena (qualia) - impacts on your reality, but a quick check reveals that just about everyone experiences water as 'wet'.
I believe that the speed of sound at sea level = 340.29 m/s. Impacts on your reality, but is subject to testing & clear evidence can be provided to support the claim.
I believe that the Invisible Pink Unicorn (bbhhh) spreads her loving pinkiness throughout humanity & is solely responsible for all the good things we do, and if you don't share that belief, you should be covered in pink vinyl emulsion - impacts on your reality, but no shared experience, no evidence, impossible to subject to testing and so on.
Belief is a word with application to a range of situations. Those situations are not all of a kind. To conflate the fact of someone having a belief in one of those first three categories, with belief in the fourth, is disengenuous at best.
I've had people previously argue that because I have faith that the sun will rise tomorrow, I have faith in the same way that people who think that handling snakes & speaking gibberish is some profound religious gift from a magic man in the sky. It's complete bollocks.
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I have certainly been understanding of peoples desire to hold a religion and defending their right to do so against the scientific onslaught of rationality, but you will also note that I have stated in response to CB that I am not beholden to any particular god myself.
You obviously assume that I am a believer, which may be the case, but what is it that you think I believe in?
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A lot of people have doubts about "leaving God behind" and keep wondering if they are doing the right thing. Personally I am past that stage and on to territory that Bill espouses. Justin I think you are still on that journey and probably some day all doubt will vanish and you will become a happy atheist, no longer burdened by beliefs. I seem to remember a TV program about a priest - or it might of been a minister - who doesn't believe in God but believes in religion. What ever rocks your boat. :)
Spoken like a true priest of the new order!
What's all this about pink unicorns BTW? I don't think they have been mentioned up until now. Strikes me as being a little straw manish.
Are you sure you understand a) analogies, and b) what a straw man argument is?
Of course there are things science can't explain - yet. If science could explain everything, it would stop. Scientists admit that they don't know things ...
... Scientists make no claims for that which is beyond their ability to enquire. ... There's a humility involved in science, not least in the fact of scientists having to say "I don't know" in response to a variety of questions. …
... yet science keeps reminding us that it is the only true explanation of everything.
I do think that several people in this thread have displayed an abundance of book knowledge, but a severe lack of knowledge of what it means to be an intelligent, caring human being.
Our friend Justin seems to be reaching for a Humpty Dumpty dictionary way to often ;)
Pages after pages in defense of God and religion, and it turns out in the end he had in mind a good, old spiritualism!?
Oh dear oh dear....
Perhaps a short diversion would be helpful. How about a short digression about single malt scotch? :)I good ole scientific fashion, I will go & check, a few experiments, note the results, then I'll get back to you.
Chairman Bill, I really enjoy Bowmore 12 year, but find Lagavulin 16 year to be a little too assertive for my taste. Can you say how Laphroig compares? I've never tasted it.
Oh please.
You basically stated that belief in one's own abilities was "religion" ... but ... To be fair, you've equally misrepresented "science" and "religion" ... and many other related concepts.
Slobodan's point is spot on ... You've defined and redefined core terms and concepts so many different ways that your message has disolved into something very personal that only you can truly understand.
... I would reiterate the we we didn't fly to the moon purely on the back of science, there was some sort of soul within the team that put the rockets together, a shared faith that it could be done and that in itself is a religion
Justin.
... maybe adding Glenmorangie to the test subjects...Recommended. My personal favorite. According to their website "with fresh fruits, butterscotch and toffee. Silky smooth in the mouth, slightly less spice and with more toffee than before, Original is nutty, with well-mannered spices coming through more in the medium length finish. The finish has less caramel character than previously, and a final hint of ginger." And that's just the cheap version. I can't say I notice all that, particularly the "well-mannered spices", at least until half way down the bottle, and then you wouldn't believe what I notice.
Recommended. My personal favorite.