How long before they’re claiming that al-Zaidi, like Jamil Hussein, doesn’t exist?

Possibly by then he won’t, in a sense.

I can so easily see Gateway pundit, Ace and Yankee purring with delight in the hands of a torturer, at last finding the cruel and firm daddy figure they have hunted for their adult life.

Daddy had to be cruel to be kind, and now, whenever they hit someone or thrink about torture, they have a warm, gooey feeling inside.

Hmm, let’s see.

Not surprised the dood got a thumpin. Wasn’t hard to see that coming.

Not surprised the likes of Ace and Yank drooling at the thought of extra-constitutional punishment. That was entirely predictable.

Not surprised that bush can understand “what the guy’s beef was”. Self awareness was never his strong suit.

Isn’t it comforting that the world has such a methodical predictability to it?

mikey

JammieWearingFool.

Just, ugh.

I just wish the old boy had landed one on President Shitferbrains.

I don’t recall people lionizing al-Zaidi, so much as mocking Bush.

Sort of sucks to be Gateway Pundit, dontcha think?

Yeah, well he obviously deserves it for saying mean things to Bush, even after Georgie gave him free speech.

they have a warm, gooey feeling inside their pants

Fixed yer typo there, Susan. No charge.

[Switched the Bodissey link to a much better shoe-related post…]

Can someone write a Greasemonkey script that will transform my thought patterns from “Shoe-thrower’s use of his new-found freedom goes to justify the invasion of Iraq — under Saddam he would have been arrested and tortured” into “Shoe-thrower has been arrested and tortured — serves him right”, all within about 30 seconds?

It must be possible, and half the bloggosphere seems to have it installed.

rm -rf /dev/brain

cognitive_dissonance > /dev/null

rm: cannot remove `/dev/brain’: No such file or directory

Sadly, it never existed.

America is an idea, not a nation… No conquered nation has ever received a better deal from its conquerors than Iraq has from the USA.

Can I get a WTF?!?

WTF, Rip.

No conquered nation has ever received a better deal from its conquerors than Iraq has from the USA.

No conquered nation has ever been OWED a better deal from its invader…

Gundamhead fucking nails it:

“Yeah, well he obviously deserves it for saying mean things to Bush, even after Georgie gave him free speech.”

Think W protested his beating? Think he said, “Whoa, that’s not what 4,000 Americans and 100,000 Iraqis died for–to be beaten up for expressing yourself”? Or, “‘Cause that’s what Saddam used to do”?

Or, rather, “And kick him in the nuts for me”?

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I didn’t hear a WTF outta that guy!

How long before they’re claiming that al-Zaidi, like Jamil Hussein, doesn’t exist?

He doesn’t because that “shoe-throwing” event never happened, it was cobbled together by the LIEbral media from a variety of press availabilities and taken completely out of context. This conspiracy to dishonor Mr.President Bush was contrived by Obama dead-enders working in league with the Masons in order to bring about a Shania Caliphate, thus fufilling the prophecy prophesized by Allah and given to your precious black J*sus.

What’s with the promotion to “fungus?” There have been numerous credible reports of the punditythang being capable of motion which properly classifies it as a slime mold. Thank you very much.

Mr. M.:

The Memeorandum link isn’t working for little ol’ me.

What’s w/ Baron Booty-Bump & the Islamo-Arabic non-representational background on his fear-site? Is he trying to tell us something? We know he’s trying to “show mother something,” as the Freudians would say, but is Baron Zemo telling us he’s tongue in cheek or implying that those pesky Moooslims are everywhere, even under his web log?

Shania Caliphate

Twain got divorced????

America is an idea, not a nation

I’ll just imagine paying taxes this year, then.

Shania Caliphate

We’ll all be ruled by lovely Canadian songbird Ms. Twain? Sign me up immediately!

212:

Yes, she dumped the producer who made her what she is today. May not have been the greatest move.

Moral reasoning, hell reasoning of any sort, automatically disqualifies you from being a wingnut.

She promised me I’d be next.

*Sigh*

East is east and west is west and never the Twain I’ll meat…

Within six months or two years or five years from when the United States finally withdraws its military forces from Iraq, the Iraqis will either revert to their customary ways and install a strongman in power,
resort to civil war, or become an Islamic theocracy like Iran.

1. “Install a strongman…” Well, no. Strongmen “install” themselves. They are “installed by” others. I mean, we did the Shah, Pinochet, and so many others.
2. Resort to civil war? Umm, where the fuck have you been the last four years?
3. If only the weakman we installed could have prevented that from happening. But he doen’t seem to have succeeded very well.

The only way we can prevent such an outcome is to occupy the country for decades — or pave it over.

If only the English had had his good sense, we could have invaded a giant parking lot instead of having to slog through the desert. Damn those Brits for not having the guts to “act like an empire.”

Can I get a WTF?!?

How about a WTMFF?

Delusional does not begin to do justice ….

And, no matter what happens, gratitude will never be forthcoming. Expecting it is utter foolishness.

We should act like an empire or go home.

Coulda’ told you that 6 years ago, asshat, but you were too busy telling us on the left that we aren’t patriots. Thankfully, America lacks the genuine ambition and moral vacuousness to be a classical empire. Unfortunately, we aren’t reflective enough to realize that and thus we let our leaders get away with half-assed empire building that just fucks things up.

A visiting AP writer noted that al-Zeidi’s apartment was decked out with a poster of murderer Che Guevara, and chatted with his brother, Dhirgham:

Oddly enough, despite GP’s implication, the AP writer didn’t use the word “murderer,” whether speaking of Guevara or Bush.

Yes, she dumped the producer who made her what she is today. May not have been the greatest move.
On a related note, I saw a report that Madge has settled with her (to me) somewhat hunky ex-toy Ritchie for something like $75 million or maybe $90 million. In either case, it’s but a small part of her fortune and a multiplicative increase in his.

Suppose we figure an average of four um,….you what’s per week. Sure, more at the beginning fewer towards the end, but that seems like a reasonable average for straight people. That puts his services at roughly $35,000 to $40,000 per, um, pop. Not bad work if you can get it.

Sorry, the minimum wage discussion is what got me thinking about it.

Is Sadly, No going to mock the Gates of Vienna thing? Cuz there’s no fucking way I’m going to click through to that site, and yet I must know.

> rm: cannot remove `/dev/brain’: No such file or directory
> Sadly, it never existed

For wingnuts/muttjobs/whackjobs, /dev/brain exists as a hard link to /dev/null. Not a symlink.

Suppose we figure an average of four um,….you what’s per week.

Dude, you are so obviously not married….

Is Sadly, No going to mock the Gates of Vienna thing?

The guy is actually quoting Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden”, which is to say that mockery is rendered pointless as this particular piece mocks itself.

Dude, you are so obviously not married….

Technically, no. Plus, you know we fags are famous for our skrewed, er, I mean skewed, statistical base.

That puts his services at roughly $35,000 to $40,000 per, um, pop.

Alex Rodriguez gets paid more per ball when he plays for the Yankees!

Technically, no. Plus, you know we fags are famous for our skewed, er, I mean skewed, statistical base.

Hah, me too. Fag, I mean. You get it more than twice a week? What are you feeding him?

How many balls does Alex R. have?

A heaping plate of fagotini for us all.

How many balls does Alex R. have?

Two, but he’s got a huge set.

What are you feeding him?

Oh, come on. Way too easy.

Was there independent confirmation from a doctor? Is he related to Ashley Todd?

Inquiring minds want to know!

And as far as my doppleganger spoofing me in the comments with profanity directed at The Truth, har dee har.

A visiting AP writer noted that al-Zeidi’s apartment was decked out with a poster of murderer Che Guevara:

Posh! He’s probably also “hooked up” with about 3 hours of running water a day!

PS: Better Guevara than bin Laden, right? I mean, you know, if you want to get serious about it.

Haidt has conducted research in which liberals and conservatives were asked to project themselves into the minds of their opponents and answer questions about their moral reasoning. Conservatives, he said, prove quite adept at thinking like liberals, but liberals are consistently incapable of understanding the conservative point of view. “Liberals feel contempt for the conservative moral view, and that is very, very angering. Republicans are good at exploiting that anger,” he told me in a phone interview.

Perhaps that’s why the conservatives can so successfully get under liberals’ skin. And why liberals need to start working harder at breaking through the empathy barrier.

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/no-laughing-matter/

Which is why any parody of me or “Troofie” will invariably be easy to spot by anyone paying attention.

Welp, gotta get to work. Those Happy Meals aren’t gonna assemble themselves!

Oh, Haidt “has conducted research.” That seems definitive.

But is this not also research? Or is research not all equally 100% true, or something?

Holy shit, I just had an e-mail exchange with Phil Proctor of Firesign Theatre…omigod! I think I orgasmed!

Does he love-love Al-Sadr or is he merely in love with him? My level of outrage depends on the answer.

Oh, pfah! I saw P. P. at the cleaners a few yrs. ago. No stains, though I suppose the cleaners would have been a good place to have that sort of thing happen.

Research, like pasta shapes, is only true if it confirms the ass fungal world view of the wingnut spruiking it.
Sadly the pasta analogy fails completely here but I had to mention that WIki page. Also I love the patterns that the Glenn ‘Creste di galli” Reynolds machine makes.

Give me a few weeks, M, and I’ll take him to the cleaners! He’s already bought one of my “Bush’s Last Day” bands…

Hmm.

In several large internet surveys, my collaborators Jesse Graham, Brian Nosek and I have found that people who call themselves strongly liberal endorse statements related to the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations, and they largely reject statements related to ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. People who call themselves strongly conservative, in contrast, endorse statements related to all five foundations more or less equally. (You can test yourself at http://www.YourMorals.org.)

Well, “several large Internet surveys” — that’s hard to argue with.

Holy shit, I just had an e-mail exchange with Phil Proctor of Firesign Theatre…omigod! I think I orgasmed!

Woot!

Isn’t it comforting depressing that the world has such a methodical predictability to it?

Fixt yer typo, Mikey.

I’m just hoping the world survives until January 24. That’s figuring the inauguration, plus 72 hours to winkle Dick Cheney out of his security vault.

Suppose we figure an average of four um,….you what’s per week.

This is unlikely, because Mr. Ritchie is not 17 years old.

My boyfriend and I live together, we are in our early mid twenties, we’re healthy…you know, but somehow, real life still manages to get in the way.

Not that that bothers me, mind you. I’ve finally gotten over this line of thinking.

(You can test yourself at http://www.YourMorals.org.)

What kind of morals test requires you to log in? Isn’t that, you know, unethical?

This is unlikely, because Mr. Ritchie is not 17 years old.

According to the endless ads on the teevee news and other old peoples’ shows, there are many fine pharmaceutical products available for these purposes.

Oh, that link is mildly NSFW, I suppose.

Hopefully justice will be served, and the ungrateful Iraqi journalist will recieve the death penalty.

The Iraqis should be grateful that President Bush liberated their hell-hole of a third world country from Saddam. Instead, they throw a shoe at the man whose feet they are not worthy to lick.

Most of the post Saddam deaths in Iraq are caused by the terrorists, or as you liberals like to call them “insurgents”. If the Iraqis would just throw down their arms, and stop resisting their liberators, there would be no more violence and blood shed.

However, because the Iraqis seem keen on firing upon U.S. troops, they are gunned down in the process. Thats how it works, you shoot at American soldiers, they shoot back. Its not rocket science. But you liberals decry the 100,000 “innocent” Iraqi deaths since Saddam was overthrown. If the Iraqis would just cooperate with their American liberators, instead of firing on them, none of those deaths would have occured.

The post-invasion deaths in Iraq are the fault of the Iraqis themselves for continuing to wage war against American troops.

Hopefully justice will be served, and the ungrateful Iraqi journalist will recieve the death penalty.

Spoken like a shit salesman with a mouth full of samples.

The Iraqis should be grateful that President Bush liberated their hell-hole of a third world country from Saddam.

100,000 (dead) Iraqis can’t be wrong, shithead.

He funny

Ummm.. This First Crusade guy. Is he serious? Just wondering.

What kind of morals test requires you to log in? Isn’t that, you know, unethical?

Also self-selecting — what they derisively call a SLoP survey.

Say, here’s some fun.

“Hopefully justice will be served, and the ungrateful Iraqi journalist will recieve the death penalty.”

Sounds like Saddam never really died

Crusade guy’s a parody. He has to be. No one could seriously do the “if only they didn’t fight back and would just let us run their country however we want, there wouldn’t be any need for bloodshed!” argument. I refuse to believe it.

“ut you liberals decry the 100,000 “innocent” jewish deaths since Poland was overthrown. If the jews would just cooperate with their Aryan liberators, instead of firing on them, none of those deaths would have occured.”
Commander of the Scottish Contingent during the First Crusade in Germany circa 1938

Insult to Scotsmen must be a parody troll. No one w/ such stupid/evil ideas can possibly be that competent a speller/grammarian/syntaxer.

As well as what Gundamhead said.

Well, I’ve read some pretty stupid evil stuff that seems to be for real, like the Gates of Vienna guy. It’s so hard to know.

But then there’s this:

The post-invasion deaths in Iraq are the fault of the Iraqis themselves for continuing to wage war against American troops.

which makes me think Crusade is just making it up, or does not know that most of the deaths in Iraq are due to Sunnis and Shiites ethnically cleansing themselves. If I remember correctly.

But hey, we’re all entitled to our own facts these days, aren’t we.

“ut you liberals decry the 100,000 “innocent” jewish deaths since Poland was overthrown. If the jews would just cooperate with their Aryan liberators, instead of firing on them, none of those deaths would have occured.”
Commander of the Scottish Contingent during the First Crusade in Germany circa 1938

I see what you did there.

(For the record, I still maintain Imperial Japan is funnier.)

My favourite comment from a Crooked Timber thread about Haidt’s work:

“He apparently did a survey in which he asked respondents whether, if they were buying a dog, they would want the one that was a member of a breed known for being ‘independent minded and relating to its owner as a friend and equal…’”
This breed of dog is more commonly known as a “cat.”

A comment from RB followed, about ‘kittiegories’, but we can draw a discrete veil over that and move on.

Oh, Haidt “has conducted research.” That seems definitive.
He’s more of an, umm, ‘synthetic thinker’. From a NYTimes article:
On his return from India, Dr. Haidt combed the literature of anthropology and psychology for ideas about morality throughout the world.
I’m biassed against Haidt because Steven Pinker likes his work, so I’m trying to be fair. He’s not bad (as pop evo-devo psychologists / moralists go).

Whether “real” or parody, The Scottish wannabe and booger wannabe are extremely Boring. I skip their comments, and the responses to them.

Thank You, S,N! for having the poster’s name at the top of the message.

A comment from RB followed, about ‘kittiegories’, but we can draw a discrete veil over that and move on.

That was the Serious Me talking.

“He apparently did a survey in which he asked respondents whether, if they were buying a dog, they would want the one that was a member of a breed known for being ‘independent minded and relating to its owner as a friend and equal…’”
This breed of dog is more commonly known as a “cat.”

To be entirely fair, because Haider sure ain’t:

a) Every dog and cat I’ve ever had have been raised around and are comfortable with one another. Our momma-dog actually thinks she is a cat, seemingly having imprinted on the cats almost as heavily as us and adopting various feline mannerisms (balance walking, paw manipulation of objects – which she, adorably, uses to play a crude form of soccer – and the occasional effort at sneaking up on us like a cat). These are retrievers, not lap-dogs.

b) In fact, most people who raise large dogs could tell you that raising them with small animals is perhaps the best way possible to teach them that there’s such a thing as too rough, which can often become problematic in families with older dogs dealing with new children.

c) I’ve always felt, as much as I love them, our dogs would probably be Republicans: they’re obsessed with their family, incredibly vain (and get by on their looks most of the time), have no concept at all of their own dependence, and – most importantly – spook really easy and aren’t that bright.

Liberals don’t get under conservative’s skins because cons are able to think from a liberal point of view? Uh, no. They may have convinced themselves they can think like a librul, but reality doesn’t really conform to their notions of a crazed fifth column (roughly half of the US population) whose main goals are letting the terrorists win and maximizing the abortion rate.

Yeah, a guy who seeks attention by attempting to harm the President can be trusted to tell the truth about what happens to him in custody.

Yeah, a guy who seeks glory by killing the President of Iraq can be trusted to tell the truth about anything.

Reading threads is like ploughing in Australia. At some stage you will hit a buried tree stump and theoretically lose your ploughing gear. This is painful and expensive in terms of lost time.
Instead you should install the stumpjump plough and train the eyes to flick past the comments from such contributors as the Laird of the Scunners. Thus saving time and aggravation.
Sometimes it is partially amusant to cast a proverbial scat at the trollish ones just for old time simian humur purposes.

al-Zaidi attempted to harm Bush with his shoe! If only he’d stuck to throwing the devices George W. Bush prefers: bombs. That way he could simply claim to be liberating the president!

Perhaps that’s why the conservatives can so successfully get under liberals’ skin. And why liberals need to start working harder at breaking through the empathy barrier.

That makes no sense. Doesn’t this stupid bint mean the “lack of empathy” barrier?

Also, how does some conservative schmendrick at the University of Virginia know how “liberals” (whatever the fuck that is) think?

how does some conservative schmendrick at the University of Virginia know how “liberals” (whatever the fuck that is) think?

The same way conservatives know anything – Rush said it, and it was so.

…We should act like an empire or go home…

Cake or death? I’ll have the chicken, please.

You know, Bush could have intervened in this poor fellow’s fate. If he really thinks it’s just a big joke, he could tipped the powers-that-be to go lightly about this.

However, they know what an insult it was, and want to make an example of him.

So Bush has held hands with Saudis since birth… yet has no clue he was seriously insulted?

Clueless, or classless… the world may never know.

So Bush has held hands with Saudis since birth… yet has no clue he was seriously insulted?

Hm. Makes me wonder how many times they openly pointed their feet at him and laughed behind his back.

You know, Bush could have intervened in this poor fellow’s fate. If he really thinks it’s just a big joke, he could tipped the powers-that-be to go lightly about this.

A well death-squadded society is a polite society, as they say.

how does some conservative schmendrick at the University of Virginia know how “liberals” think?
Haidt “describes himself as a moderate liberal”.

Oh, so now hand-holding is a committed relationship.

our dogs would probably be Republicans

Our running joke is that our dog voted for Guiliani.

However, although we agree that dogs are obsesses with family, we recognize that they don’t care what type of family, so at least they are more open-minded in that sense.

But the Saudi’s didn’t actually show the soles of their footwear which is the crucial element of the insult. No, the soles were firmly planted on the ground while he licked their shoes. So he likely did not take it as an insult.

Saudi’s? Saudis. Sorry. Been infected with the web-based extraneous apostrophe disorder.

Hm. Makes me wonder how many times they openly pointed their feet at him and laughed behind his back.

I’m given to understand that, because it’s a local tradition with a lot of traction, millions of Arabs have been doing to Bush on TV what this beautiful man did to Bush in person.

Seriously, I think he deserves sainthood: he knew what he was getting into, he knew he’d disappear into a dungeon somewhere and probably not emerge with the use of all of his limbs, and yet he had the fucking restraint not to walk in there with a glock.

He either gave his life or a significant part of his future for the fairly unsatisfying act of making a laughingstock out of that awful man. Whatever dismal little ape humping ritual he wanted to weedle out of the American public has been gunned down in its boots. Bush doesn’t get a fucking victory lap.

We don’t deserve the Iraqi people sometimes. This is definitely one of them.

Haidt “describes himself as a moderate liberal”.

By whose standards? Rush’s? Hell, a Klansman could fit into the “moderate liberal” category now that it’s been Overtoned into slightly right of Attilla the Hun.

George Bush describes himself as “pretty smart” and “without regrets” while being a retarded sociopath. Self-descriptions are pretty much useless.

I think the Professor’s contention is foolish as well. It’s pretty easy to think like a conservative – just watch somebody’s two-year-old for a while, you’ll get the idea pretty quickly.

Haidt is definitely not entitled to wear a kilt.

Hard to believe you all got suckered into that one. C’mon – Dr. Haidt? Ranks right up there with the Kash’n’Karry guy and the more recently revealed Madoff with the money character.

Seriously, I think he deserves sainthood: he knew what he was getting into, he knew he’d disappear into a dungeon somewhere and probably not emerge with the use of all of his limbs, and yet he had the fucking restraint not to walk in there with a glock.

Agreed. I bet it would have been hard to get in there with a gun, but yes.

found that people who call themselves strongly liberal endorse statements related to the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations, and they largely reject statements related to ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. People who call themselves strongly conservative, in contrast, endorse statements related to all five foundations more or less equally.

But then, who’s going to admit that, “Fuck you, I’ve got mine,” is the linchpin of their moral philosophy?

…I mean, you might as well ask, “Are you a nice person? Yes or no.”

Must not have ever seen The Godfather.

Coulda put the old pistol in the toilet last week.

Walked thru the metal detectors and pat-downs with a smile on his brogans.

Nah, he wasn’t a killer. I dunno. Unlike my fellow white americans who populate Right Blogistan, I’m not going to pretend I have any real understanding of Arab/Islamic culture. But one has to wonder.

It has been said that it is, to them, an honor to die a martyr in battle. Maybe he just didn’t want bush to have that honor. That he believed him to be a dishonorable, foul little liar, truly a “Dog” in all it’s deeper and more choleric meanings. And that to insult him, harshly and forcefully, in front of the world would be enough.

And indeed, while there will never be a punishment for this feckless, vile thug commensurate with the monstrous evils he has inflicted on humanity, perhaps, for now, it was indeed enough…

mikey

Must not have ever seen The Godfather. Coulda put the old pistol in the toilet last week.

Fair point, I didn’t think of that.

I think it was, for the moment, enough. Like alec said, it derailed Bush’s “victory lap”, and that’s as much as can be expected for now. And the personal cost to al-Zaidi makes it very impressive.

A visiting AP writer noted that al-Zeidi’s apartment was decked out with a poster of murderer Che Guevara:

This objectivily proves that HE is a murderer too! Oh noes! GED: This also proves that ANYONE with a Che poster is murderer- at last way to round up every college freshman in America!

Seriously, I think he deserves sainthood

Yes. A pretty important manifestation of the Bush legacy and he could have done it with 50% fewer shoes.

…every college freshman in America

and many of their parents and grandparents

Coulda put the old pistol in the toilet last week.
Not having seen The Godfather either, I guess that’s to conserve water, right?

…I mean, you might as well ask, “Are you a nice person? Yes or no.”

No.

Are there brownie points for honesty?

What the shoe-thrower said was just as big an insult – Muslims consider dogs to be unclean. I’ll never forget in first year studio when one of the guys brought in his dog, and all the Malaysian girls leaped up on the desks. Being the provincial little 19-year-old I was at the time, when they told me that they weren’t “allowed to touch dogs”, I thought they were joking.

Not having seen The Godfather either, I guess that’s to conserve water, right?

Where did I read about Brian O’Nolan having been smart enough to hide alcohol in the bathroom of a pub/eatery so that his minders couldn’t keep his liquor from him?

Tim Pat Coogan describes interviewing Flann O’Brien in 1964 after the publication of The Dalkey Archive. The interview was carefully planned. Apart from getting him to talk, there was one other main objective: to keep O’Brien away from the drink. It was to take place at 8.30 on a Saturday morning so that he could be returned home before the pubs opened. But the wily O’Brien escaped the television crew’s vigilance. Disappearing to the toilet in his house when the camera man called for him, he was hauled out some twenty five minutes later, drunk as a lord. He had hidden a bottle of whisky in the cistern and downed the lot while the crew were eating breakfast. Somehow the interview went ahead – O’Brien demanding more drink as he rambled on – with the result that on the only surviving recording of his voice we hear a man slurring his words, obviously drunk. Praised by the producer as one of the “classics of Irish broadcasting,” it was unbroadcastable in 1960s Ireland and is hardly a fitting tribute to its subject.

(From a website that’s now expired, but there was still a copy in Google Cache).

I think we should seek out Gomer’s advice on which fire arm would be the best to save water on every flush.

I’ll bet he has a lengthy blog post about it somewhere…

As always, there can never be enough Smut.

Praised by the producer as one of the “classics of Irish broadcasting,” it was unbroadcastable in 1960s Ireland and is hardly a fitting tribute to its subject.

O’Nolan’s alcoholism was truly tragic, though I understand it given the life he had (and possibly the genetics – I come from a very long line of very drunken Irishmen).

having been smart enough to hide alcohol

“Smart enough” is evidently a low bar for me. I must stop trolling myself.

Lucky!

I can’t blame my alcoholism on any one culture.

“No conquered nation has ever received a better deal from its conquerors than Iraq has from the USA.”

That’s worth repeating one more time.

(they should have chosen Door #3)

Wait, I thought we liberated Iraq? Has someone gone off message here?

I would have said “dumb enough to hide alcohol”, but that is because I am still trying to find where I left the bottle of Ardbeg the other night.

people who call themselves strongly liberal endorse statements related to the harm/care and fairness/reciprocity foundations, and they largely reject statements related to ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity. People who call themselves strongly conservative, in contrast, endorse statements related to all five foundations more or less equally

So let me get this straight. Conservatives believe that in making a moral decision, factors like demonstrating group loyalty, remaining dogmatically “pure” and obeying authority are JUST AS IMPORTANT as considering potential harm to others, or whether or not what they are contemplating is fair or just?

That about sums up conservative “morality.”

And liberals are –horrors!– “consistently incapable of understanding the conservative moral view.” No! Really? Could it possibly be that it’s like, you know, INCOMPREHENSIBLE?

It has been said that it is, to them, an honor to die a martyr in battle. Maybe he just didn’t want bush to have that honor. That he believed him to be a dishonorable, foul little liar, truly a “Dog” in all it’s deeper and more choleric meanings. And that to insult him, harshly and forcefully, in front of the world would be enough.

Al-Zaidi has done more to earn my respect than most of our own press/Versailles-by-the-Potomac courtesans.

This is central to my point.

The fact is, Obama probably think he’s a hero the shoe guy, and so do all the liberals. Here in the heartland, we support torture for those who disrespect our patriotic leaders, they are hate-USA people.

Especially someone we liberated from tyranny, he deserved to be liberated from his body with this ungratefulness.

We also support those who are fighting hard against the impending Obama presidency, which is completely illegal and a fraud.

Smut Clyde said,

Coulda put the old pistol in the toilet last week.

Not having seen The Godfather either, I guess that’s to conserve water, right?

I dunno – if anyone pulled a pistol on me in the toilet, I’d have trouble conserving my water.

Jennifer said,

…I mean, you might as well ask, “Are you a nice person? Yes or no.”

No.

Are there brownie points for honesty?

No, you just get dismissed as “margin of error”.

Righteous Bubba said,

As always, there can never be enough Smut.

Tom Lehrer agrees.

vis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pva35TFiBfI

…we support torture for those who disrespect our patriotic leaders

Well, yes, of course. That goes without saying.

Forgive me my ignorance: I’m new to teh intart00bz and the political blogosphere, and i really don’t want to click on that gatesofvienna link but….

“Baron Bodissey?” Some right-wing fucktard is a Jack Vance fan like me? That really skeeves me out!

The fact is, come on, liberals, debate me with facts and logic. Oh, sorry…. you are unfamiliar with them? Typical liberal.

Baron Bodissey?”

Nah, that’s a different one. This is Baron Biodiesel, that hippy who keeps stealing the used veggie oil from the back of Burger King.

Lurkbot – this quote from Baron Botty-Jelly, from the link, should indicate all you need about his views:

This is how the people of Iraq react to their “liberators”, the people who brought them democracy and invested thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars on their behalf. No conquered nation has ever received a better deal from its conquerors than Iraq has from the USA.

And yes, as a fellow Vance fan it sticks in my craw that such an ignorant putz should hijack names from infinitely superior writing – but that’s wingnuttia for you.

And yes, as a fellow Vance fan it sticks in my craw that such an ignorant putz should hijack names from infinitely superior writing – but that’s wingnuttia for you.

When you try to pick your own they can turn out to be pretty fucking stupid.

The fact is, this man deserved death for what he did, and you have to admit it. How ungrateful those hajis are for how we liberated them! Well, we should give them Saddam’s corpse back, complete with a dead hand on history.

Come on, honey. Just relax and you’ll enjoy it.

The fact is, liberals want to to surrender to jihad. It’s axiomatic.

Anybody call themselves “Cugel the Clever?” Please tell me he’s one of us!

Well, we should give them Saddam’s corpse back, complete with a dead hand on history.

Yeah, that’ll show them(!?!!?)

The fact is, this man who threw the shoes deserves slow death at the hand of the CIA for being anti-freedom. You liberals cheer him on. He needs to die. He is ungreatful and must be punsihed or the world will never appreciate freedom.

..axiomatic.

“So you can feel safe on the road!”

When you try to pick your own they can turn out to be pretty fucking stupid.

Mine’s mysterious.

The fact is, liberals who support this shoe thrower or his best buddy Obama need to be terrorised and threatened to show them how precious there freedome is until they appreciate it.

Well, we should give them Saddam’s corpse back, complete with a dead hand on history.

And so began the Baathist Zombie Wars.

“liberals …need to be terrorised and threatened …until they appreciate it”

Oooh, the “Germans”!!

Dick Cheney just did an interview where he confessed to a war crime.

I await the media firestorm.

…

Well, I’d better have a drink. It seems like it will be a long wait.

I actually have to admit to agreeing with the Baron about his conclusion,

We should act like an empire or go home.

As I’m no fan of acting like an empire, in my book that really leaves one choice.

Unfortunately, the sorta-kinda hey-we’re-liberatin’-ya,-right?-so-ya-oughtta-love-us thing just gives cover to folks who want to deny the reality of what it means to go to war, topple a government without having the vaguest idea of how to replace it or what to replace it with beyond an ill-defined concept of “freedom”, kill four or five percent of the populace, displace another ten or fifteen percent and turn the whole of their infrastructure into so much shit-moat fodder. Just. Because. We. Can.

All that’s missing is Bush getting up behind a lectern and jazz-handing a quick “The Aristocrats!”

Oh, right.

Jeez, who put a nickel in Gary tonight?

Wassamattah, Rups, your mom out on a date tonight and you’re lonely?

Burned your hand on the stove and it hurts to pull on your junk?

What you really need is to go next door and get that dog they have in the back yard and go to town with a phillips screwdriver.

You KNOW it’ll make you feel better. It always does…

mikey

The fact is, shut up. Dick Cheney has never done a war crime, he has always supported USA FREEDOM above all. And, because he is the VP, he cannot go to jail , so bit me. However, the governor of Illinois is corrupt and Obama is behind it. Why wont liberals look at real issues?

And so began the Baathist Zombie Wars.

Speaking of zombies, I really need one of these These would be just great for the Baathist Zombie Wars in that “no zombies were actually killed (again) in the taping of this war” kind of way.

The fact is, eat me libs, Bush is not going to jail, but Osama is because of corruption in Chicago, the media can try to cover it up but the bias is there too see.

The fact is, freedom will eat the liberals alive once it catches up. Your love for tiranny is what makes you the hate-USA enemies of our republic.

(as pointed out on a “thread-below”)

Yam rope turd, whore mirroire.

The fact is, shut up.

The fact is, for some reason you remind of this. See if you can guess which one is you. And I’m saying that in a really cheery way – I love this scene; it completely cracks me up, just like you’re cracking me up this evening.

Maybe I’m just giddy from the unemployment.

The fact is, shut up liberals. We own America, not you. here in the Heartland we do not subscribe to media bias, we support our President and the Troops in the fight for freedom. We do NOT support Hussein Osama Bin Terrrorist as president and know he was elected by fraud and cheating.

Djur’s machinery is excellent:

http://desperance.net:8000/feed?bad_users=The+Truth|Gary+Rupp*|Malfunctioning*

Or this link and FYWP.

I liked the earlier threads better. You know, call me an apple polisher or a knob gobbler or something, but it does my old IPA coated ventricles a favor to see names like Flann O’Brien and Phil Proctor bruited about like this. Whatta site.

What are we going to do about shoe-boy? We’ve got to get his ass out of jail before they kill him or something! Is there a defense fund? Where the hell is Amnesty International? Is there some way we can make sure that Bush’s new dwelling in Dallas is always hit by shoes, left there in the dead of night, or tossed there from speeding cars—just making sure that shoes are always piled in the driveway at all times?

The fact is, I use facts and logic and you use biased emotions, so I win.

The fact is, shoe biy deserved death for disespecting the USA in the Person of the President. Liberals should see that there are consequences for this, when you threaten Bush, and Obama, who was not legit elected should face consequences too.

Any liberals who go to Dallas Shoe Wearhouse to get shoes and throw at Bush’s house should go to jail and face death penalty, Texas style like in the Heartland.

The fact is, liberrals think they have won the election and that conservatives are to be marginililized, while what about bipartisanship? Does not exist for liberals but they want it when they loose to us, they do not deserve it! They are hate USA and should be illegal.

The fact is, liberals who disrespect President Bush deserve to go to jail for life or die. However, if patriots disrespect Osama, it is legit because he cheated.

Is there some way we can make sure that Bush’s new dwelling in Dallas is always hit by shoes, left there in the dead of night, or tossed there from speeding cars—just making sure that shoes are always piled in the driveway at all times?

This is an excellent idea. I have many pairs of “fishing shoes” (aka worn out New Balances) that I could donate to this project.

(Because you really don’t need that many fishing shoes.)

The fact is, saying “the fact is” doesn’t automtically make it a fact.

Gary is strongly pro-freedumb.

Is there some way we can make sure that Bush’s new dwelling in Dallas is always hit by shoes, left there in the dead of night, or tossed there from speeding cars—just making sure that shoes are always piled in the driveway at all times?

Security will be tight. Unauthorized visitors who approach his house will probably be shooed away.

Wonderful Olbermann quote just uttered on tonight’s edition:

See, the thing is…

…

…

…

The president is FULL OF CRAP…

mikey

Is there some way we can make sure that Bush’s new dwelling in Dallas is always hit by shoes, left there in the dead of night, or tossed there from speeding cars—just making sure that shoes are always piled in the driveway at all times?

I agree with ITTDGY – capital idea. I keep thinking of how you used to see shoes strung over telephone lines. Unfortunately, those tony McMansion neighborhoods usually have all the lines underground. But it would be great if the people of Dallas would pay attention to his regular haunts, and keep the areas around them well-supplied with shoes at all times. Like, he could never go anywhere ever again without seeing shoes.

Look how pitiful this is – taunting a war criminal with shoes because he’s never going to pay any other kind of price for ruining the lives of millions of people. But it’s better than nothing.

The fact is, the current fake Gary couldn’t carry Guillermo Ruperto‘s jock strap, and should just hang it up.

The fact is, I am sure that Bush will welcome visitors from patriots in the Heartland, I am positive he would share a beer and barbecue a weiner for me, unlike that eleite faggot Kerry who would make French Fries with ketchup and say it was art.

The fact is, Osama would want aragulia on everything! And lattes.

Gateway Pundit:
Surprise!… Leftist Hero & Shoe-Chucker Loves Muqtada Al-Sadr

How is it that anyone who criticizes Bush for any reason, is magically transformed into a ‘Leftist’?

The fact is, we dont like eleitist food in the Heartland. We like our cheeseteaks made with Cheezewiz not that fancy Provolony.

The fact is, all leftists hate Bush, which is why the liberal USA hating left voted for Osama and cheated using the media bias and Chicago political machine to make the election unfare. There will be a recount and a reckoning and The real USA will fight back.

The fact is, if you voted for Osama it was like voting for Hitler.

“Gary” seems to be a bit concerned with food (albeit misspelled food)

The fact is, Osama will try to make USA part of the Umma and Califate as soon as he takes over. You traiters have destroyed us.

…perhaps he’s just hungry.

We should either leave them to their own devices, or rule them with all the ruthlessness that is required.

Sure thing, buddy. You go over there and rule them ruthlessly. Don’t let us stop you.

The fact is, you are not engaging me with logic, you are using emotional slurs and change the subject, the subject is Bush deserves respect and Osama does not. I can’t believe you support a muzzie over real USA people.

The fact is, the arabs need a strong hand they do not handel freedom very well, like the Africans they need to be controlled for their own safety and our benefit, but liberals want to be all senstive and give them freedom, but they do not deserve it and cannot handel it.

..yes, I would say low blood sugar

The fact is, if a choice between saluting the flag and standing up for a rapist pedofiles rights, the liberals make the wrong choice every time.

… but the Handel reference is very seasonal

…saluting the flag..standing up for racist pedofiles [sic]… gosh, it’s hard to choose!

Seems like the GR-0 has lost a lot of its higher-function programming. Perhaps it’s self-boring into total fail mode.

I’M hungry.

Damn…

mikey

The only way to win is not to play the game.

Asked of the organist – “Can you play the ‘Halleluia Chorus’?”

The organist replied – “Oh, I think I can handel it.”

What I wanna know is, who is “The Harold” and how come the angels is always singin’ about him?

“This is how the people of Iraq react to their “liberators”, the people who brought them democracy and invested thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars on their behalf. No conquered nation has ever received a better deal from its conquerors than Iraq has from the USA.”

This is how the people of China react to their “liberators”, the people who saved them from warlordism and invested thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars on their behalf. No conquered nation has ever received a better deal from its conquerors than China has from the Empire of Japan.

This is how the people of the Philippines react to their “liberators”, the people who brought them democracy and invested thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars on their behalf. No conquered nation has ever received a better deal from its conquerors than the Philippines has from the USA.

This is how the people of Kuwait react to their “liberators”, the people who brought them Baathism and invested thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars on their behalf. No conquered nation has ever received a better deal from its conquerors than Kuwait has from Iraq.

Hey this is fun.

This is how the people of Taiwan react…

Boring.

What the shoe-thrower said was just as big an insult – Muslims consider dogs to be unclean. I’ll never forget in first year studio when one of the guys brought in his dog, and all the Malaysian girls leaped up on the desks. Being the provincial little 19-year-old I was at the time, when they told me that they weren’t “allowed to touch dogs”, I thought they were joking.

In one of my ur-blogs I attempted to construct a new term for what we call Islamophobia (it’s neither a fear nor about Islam). Besides my suggestion on that front (antigastarbite, on account of it’s part of a wider convenient hatred for brown labor), I had made a point on the wingnuts’ beloved Their Culture Is Irrelevant Unless We Can Be Dicks With It paradigm.

They like to think it’d be a great scheme to do something forcing pork on the filthy Moslems. (Never mind that this is generally borrowed directly from modern-era blood libels against Jews.) The problem is, the Muslim prohibition is much more explicitly scientific than the Jewish one we’re familiar with; the main reason Jews abstain from pork (besides hypothesized ability to ward off parasitic infections) is because God says so. The main reason Muslims are told not to eat pork is because pigs are filthy, disgusting animals.

I don’t agree per se, but in general handling pig is completely disgusting to Muslims and there’s no possible profit that could be made forcing it on them. It’s like a brilliant scheme to show those evil secular humanists what’s what by smearing yourself in shit and hugging them. The dominant reaction isn’t going to be the fear they’re after but disgust. You’re basically going, “Yeah! See, shit is delicious! Mmm-mmm, can’t get enough turds in my stupid mouth! Welcome to democracy, bitch!”

It makes for a feeble threat and a worse sales pitch.

Who put the uppers in Gary’s Mountain Dew?

Well, so much foreign and domestic conservative”policy” seems to consist of not much more than doing anything they can think of that will irritate the liberal opposition and result in giggling, mastubatory, self-congratulatory high-fives. I honestly don’t think they give a shit about policy other than purposefully pissing off people who are smarter than they are.

When you try to pick your own they can turn out to be pretty fucking stupid.

Oh yes. This is known as the Hindrocket Principle.

Alec, I don’t have your education nor your ability to place all this madness in some kind of historical context.

But here’s the half-formed thought I want to bring to the party.

Culture.

Religion.

Race.

As much as these three entirely different concepts get conflated, they are all a different consideration, and as such, a different problem.

While we know that that “Race” is a concept that has no basis in science, it has a long recognized connection to community. While we know religion is nothing but a bunch of competing just-so stories, the power it holds over humanity is undeniable.

But it is the cultural connections, the touchstones, the taboos, the tribal connections and hatreds that seem to me to form the basis for all the strife and bloodshed ahead of us in upcoming years.

Explaining it is not enough. Indeed, it’s too late. Blood is going to be spilled, and we will weep over the madness and stupidity even as we pull hard on our triggers. Because evens don’t seem to follow logic, but rather they adopt a mad logic all their own.

And we find ourselves without option, killing people we would otherwise befriend, because our tribe, and our time, and our fears, demand it.

Look to Drake, and the last variable in his equation. What is the lifespan of a sentient society. The answer is nothing short of depressing..

mikey

Who put the ram in the ram-a-lam-a-ding-dong?

pretty fucking stupid

and the wingnuts say, “Oh, look! Isn’t that pretty?”

His spelling looks OK to me.

Still, I’m not prepared to give up on us just yet.

What I wanna know is, who is “The Harold” and how come the angels is always singin’ about him?

‘Hark the Herald’ was Mack the Knife’s cousin, but not nearly as tough.

And brussel sprouts with garlic and bacon and carmelized onions rock.

Is the Hark related to the stork? What with the birth announcements and all.

Man, I’m trying too hard.

His spelling looks OK to me.

…the downside (bottom crust) of a pie filter.

…the downside (bottom crust) of a pie filter.

Depends on your taste. I get a huge kick out of seeing the string of pie exclamations and imagining the “…and another thing!” fulminating without actually having to read it.

…I post the screengrabs of the piefilter for the trolls’ benefit, so they can see how they look to other people.

…yeah, you’re not missing much!

…(and – if your mom makes it – the bottom crust is the best part of the pie!)

This breed of dog is more commonly known as a “cat.”

Or any of the spitz breeds (Chows, the sled-pulling breeds, Keeshonds, Schipperkes, Papillons, Pomeranians, Lhasas), the sighthounds (Greyhounds, Afghans, Basenjis), terriers, Dachsunds, most of the herding breeds (Border Collies, Corgis, Blue Heelers)… Basically, if you want the proverbial slobbery, cringing “spaniel” behavior, you’d do best looking at the subset of gundogs (retrievers, spaniels, setters), ‘personal-protection’ dogs (Dobermans, the modern German Shepherd), or ambulatory throw pillows (Bichons, Shi Tzus, most Labs & Goldens). Perpetual submission to a godlike “Alpha” is easiest to elicit from a stupid dog, which means that the most popular suburban companion canines have been bred to be passive, compliant, and stupid — much like fReichtards!

Jennifer, most Muslims think of dogs the way Americans think of pigeons — as filthy, disease-carrying scavengers. Just as the average New Yorker understands that *some* people admire the vile Winged Rats, and even breed them on purpose to raise as pets & for sport, good Muslims in America or western Europe or other dog-philic territories eventually adapt to our inexplicable fondness for animals that God made to be disgusting parasites. (Which doesn’t mean they ever learn to respect our counter-rational choices. My sister’s partner grew up in northern Sweden, and whenever she runs across an American Christmas tchocke involving reindeers, she reacts the way a proud American suburbanite would react if you suggested they bring a barnyard pig into their nice clean home as an adorable pet, because in her world reindeer are filthy vermin whose vocation is to become sausage & whose avocation is to get loose on a highway & total some innocent driver’s car.)

The fact is, I was making a lot more sense in the minimum wage thread earlier today

…she reacts the way a proud American suburbanite would react…

Well, I wouldn’t restrict it to Americans – it’s much more widespread than that – and it’s probably less a matter of the principle than the particular pet/companion animal. I’m not a pet fancier, but I don’t really see much difference between a pot-bellied pig or a dachshund (pet-wise). Wouldn’t want to live with any of them, but (death-dealing capacity aside – e.g. venomous snakes, tigers, etc.) they’re all pretty much the same in principle.

Jennifer, most Muslims think of dogs the way Americans think of pigeons — as filthy, disease-carrying scavengers.

I’ve spent some time in countries that despise dogs, yet have lots of roving wild packs of them. The strange thing is, I don’t like those dogs very much either. Being hungry, shouted at, and pelted with rocks your whole life makes you a not very likable being.

Sure, I’ve felt sorry for them sometimes. But watching them, they don’t seem trustworthy. They look deceitful, mangy, cowardly, and dumb. It just goes to show that you become what you are expected to be.

Anne Laurie, on behalf of my recently deceased, much-loved and widely admired cocker spaniel (who never slobbered, rarely cringed, and was so “stupid” she developed the ability to distinguish between colored balls despite the inability to perceive color) I hope you get a painful, smelly yeast infection in your floppy ears.

It just goes to show that you become what you are expected to be.

Norm Coleman.

Wow, it’s a Garygasm!

Nothing like being berated for not using “facts & logic” to argue with somebody that considers insults to be worthy of the death-penalty … while he’s ragging us out for being against free speech … on a LIEberal website that lets him flame to his heart’s content & still won’t banhammer his perennially obnoxious nym.

The fact is, I think I’ve seen this sort of brilliant reasoning somewhere else already.

We should find a way for al-Zaidi to wangle a Nike endorsement, so he can buy his way to freedom. Then he can buy a new house on the Riviera with the rights to the XBox game & the made-for-TeeVee movie. Yeah, I’m dreaming with my eyes open, but DAMN. If anyone deserves to profit from his moment of (very dangerous) glory, it’s this guy.

…reindeer are filthy vermin whose vocation is to become sausage…

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Links and Patties.

Avert your eyes, mortals, from the Shame of Amber Pawlik!

[Ancient history here.]

FYWP.

R.B., let me be the first to cast compliments your way for your fishy nameytude.

Smut Clyde-

Ouch. Hit something too soon, apparently.

Smutster–

The Godfather is worth seeing, and even more so is Godfather II. Note, to your amusement, that a lot of us have our images of what our ancestors went through on Ellis Island from that film. PLUS the Cuban stuff, which is primo.

Sadlynauts, be advised that the Brian O’Nolan chat points to At Swim-Two-Birds, one of the great (and funny) modernist novels of the prev. century, but also to the Irish Times columns of Myles NaGopaleen (sp, surely?), all the same guy, and still funny an hundred (sic) years later.

I get credit for pushing the “write” button? Er… YES!! I GET CREDIT FOR PUSHING THE “WRITE” BUTTON! And well-deserved too.

Myles NaGopaleen (sp, surely?)

You see it transliterated different ways, of which that is one. My favorite is “Myles na gCopaleen”. I took a book of his collected works called The Best of Myles along when I went to wander around Thailand as a youngster, and the combination of erudite Irish silliness and the exotic setting made for quite an experience.

Oh, and, Alec–

I sent your comment about big dogs being cats to my wife, who is active in Rhodesian Ridgeback rescue, and she writes:

“Tell your commenter they should talk to me about getting a RR. They’re total democrats, not obsessed with anything but food, not at all vain and are extremely bright.”

’nuff said.

I took Gargantua and Pantagruel to Egypt and their piss formed the Nile. YOU’RE WELCOME EGYPTIAN INGRATES.

Neon tetras are people, too.

But only the kuhli loach can be a Great American.

But only the kuhli loach can be a Great American.

Oooh, the coolie loach – I used to have one of those!

Is it about a bicycle?

Have you been using the omnium to get mud off your boots again?

In Muslim countries, is there much of a stigma for a blind person to use a seeing-eye dog? Do they maybe prefer the guide horses?

Rhodesian Ridgebacks “are extremely bright”.

All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore, Socrates is mortal

Oh, I can’t stand Brussel’s Sprouts either.
/licks butt

Speaking of zombies, I really need one of these.

Fascinating as that is, Jennifer, the real potential lies in the tiny mechanical lodenhosen that yodels when you wave a sausage at it. I’m thinking we should send Gavin one of these, for the next time he needs to evicerate a Jonah Goldberg column…

Also, if we are going to deliver shoes to the Dallas domicile of the Ex-C-Plus-Augustus — and now I regret discarding those extremely trodden-over flats that did lawn-mowing duty in the backyard dog toilet all summer! — we are going to need more trebuchets.

NYCGuy, I apologize to your late beloved Cocker, because yes I know there are smart and charming members of that much-maligned breed, just as there are intelligent Conservatives who don’t wet the rug or drink out of the toilet. It’s just so much more common to encounter the less fortunate specimens who greet every new experience by simultaneously yapping, piddling, and running in tight circles. For that matter, Papillons are supposed to be smart little bustards, and most of ours have been, yet I cherish the memory of our beloved Candy-Mouse, who would have lost an intellectual duel with a hamster, or a pair of running shoes, or a particularly well-aged cheese. Candy *literally* could not walk and chew biscuit at the same time, but she was the very embodiment of perfect Zen joy in five pounds of lung, bladder, and fuzz… snnf.

Incidentally, scientists have finally admitted that dogs *do* have color vision, although possibly not as sophisticated a rod-and-cone system as us fortunate humans, who can perceive ten thousand variations of melanin distribution (and yet still reduce them all to ‘My People’ and ‘Those Bug-Eating Ape-Men Who Marry Their Sisters’).

FYWP!

Jennifer, the mechanical zombie is okay, but what really rocks are the windup lederhosen that yodel when you wave a tiny plastic sausage in their direction. I’m thinking we should send one to Gavin, for use next time he needs to evicerate, I mean explicate, a Jonah Goldberg column…

If we’re going to start regular footwear deliveries to the Dallas domicile of the Ex-C-Plus-Augustus — and how I regret discarding those trodden-over flats that served for lawn-mowing duty in the backyard dog toilet all summer! — we’re going to need more Trebuchets.

NYCGuy, I apologize to your late beloved Cocker. Yes, there are bright and charming specimens of that much-maligned breed, just as there are Conservatives who don’t wet the rug and drink out of the toilet. It’s just so much easier to run across specimens who react to every new experience by simultaneously yapping, piddling, and spinning in circles!

I will confess that, while Papillons are supposed to be smart little bustards and most of ours have been, I cherish a special place in my heart for the late Candy-Mouse, who would have lost a battle of wits with a hamster, or a pair of running shoes, or a particularly well-aged cheese. Even though she *literally* could not chew biscuit and walk at the same time, she spent the last 12 of her 16 years on earth teaching the ideal Zen attitude through example. (Snff)

Bodissey says:

Within six months or two years or five years from when the United States finally withdraws its military forces from Iraq, the Iraqis will either revert to their customary ways and install a strongman in power, resort to civil war, or become an Islamic theocracy like Iran.

Using the term “either” in discourse implies a choice between two alternatives. I sense confusion in this sentence since three alternatives are named within it. Aside from the grammatical nitpicking, I wonder how the thousands of Americans who lost relatives in this conflict feel about this analysis. Are they A-OK with Bush’s pursuit of a war which resulted in three alternatives that were completely unacceptable according to the principles advanced to support our invasion of Iraq?

Perpetual submission to a godlike “Alpha” is easiest to elicit from a stupid dog, which means that the most popular suburban companion canines have been bred to be passive, compliant, and stupid — much like fReichtards!

The odd thing is, you’ve actually got it kind of backwards: because dog breeding kind of requires vaguely fascist behavior (fascism is, at its heart, an elaborate attempt at turning human beings into pack animals), people come to believe that intelligence is directly associated with obedience. There are several breeds that, because they were bred for independent-minded tasks (guarding rather than herding sheep, for instance), are extremely intelligent but stereotyped as dumb because they’re general-idea animals and aren’t in the business of taking orders.

There are a few breeds that, if raised properly, are both smart and obedient, but in general people tend to prefer the second and readily confuse it with the first.

In Muslim countries, is there much of a stigma for a blind person to use a seeing-eye dog? Do they maybe prefer the guide horses?

A character I’ve been playing around for with a while is basically a blind version of Bond who has the weirdly extensive low-frequency hearing range I do kicked up a few notches; on account of hating dogs, he has a guide pig.

I suppose that would be right out for Muslims: maybe a goat? Pet goats aren’t just for reading about as New York burns – they’re also adorable. Maybe a sheep or large rodent. And if you were gonna go with any equid, I’d say a donkey – less physically demanding.

Guide elephants were ruled out after one or two unfortunate accidents.

Sure, I’ve felt sorry for them sometimes. But watching them, they don’t seem trustworthy. They look deceitful, mangy, cowardly, and dumb. It just goes to show that you become what you are expected to be.

Dingoes are kind of like that: the most dangerous thing about them is that people think they’re cuddly widdle puppies. Nobody labors under that delusion about wolves, which is a major contributor to their being little to no personal threat to humans.

“Tell your commenter they should talk to me about getting a RR. They’re total democrats, not obsessed with anything but food, not at all vain and are extremely bright.”

Well, I really did mean in human terms, which is hardly fair. In dog terms, our dogs are pretty smart, so they wouldn’t vote for Sarah Bulldoodle. And there’s worse things a dog can be than vain; the important thing is that you don’t have an animal who treats clothes as a personal accomplishment (you should see them on the odd occasion one of us decides to put a vest on them — although to be fair, those vests didn’t cost the American taxpayer hundreds of thousands of dollars) in front of the Button.

And in their defense, they’re loving, cuddly animals in a way Republicans generally are not unless they are paying and you use both words far more loosely.

mikey: I personally attribute it to our poor ability to relate to large numbers of people as human beings. The farther they get from us, the more broad and caricatured they get; further, we have very little capacity for dealing with abstract concepts, because that’s not really something that seriously helped anyone live long enough to fuck a few times in prehistoric Ethiopia.

When we deal with groups and things comprised of people, we do it one of two ways: we reduce them into something non-anthropic, rational, something there can be conflicting information about – everyone has weird associations with words and concepts that persist even though you have later and more solid information ruling them out, in my own case an uncle’s lame joke that an ‘autobiography’ documents the life of a noteworthy car – and something that has to be sifted through and pieced together every time.

The other is anthropic: turn it into another human being we feel a distinct way about, expect distinct things out of, and assign distinct characteristics to. This is why fair-skinned Iranians couldn’t get cast in Hollywood in the 80s, and why stereotypes have such consistency and unoriginality (c.f. our anti-Japanese art barely – and sometimes not at all – painting existing anti-black caricatures yellow).

The ideal is to deal with things as much as you can on the rational level; it saves up head-space for actual human beings or entities that can be related to well as human beings. The problem is, it’s difficult to consciously do so.

The man on the street (a concept which represents a triumph in anthropomorphization, by the way) usually sees all the categories you mention as single typical people whose qualities have been related to him by trustworthy sources.

Keeping those trustworthy sources from including your Bodisseys is maybe the most important thing you can do in dealing with the social problem of racial, religious, and cultural hate. All of those are at least partially and probably mostly human constructs, and yet they’ll always be useful to us because it’s how we think. We as we are now will never accept that you can’t lump all Iraqis into a single human being; we just need to make sure there’s nobody whispering into our ear about what a filthy, savage ingrate that human being is.

Guide elephants were ruled out after one or two unfortunate accidents.

Girl Guide biscuits turned out to be pretty crumby too

This isn’t really related to the main post, but I read that Haidt column a while back and there’s something that’s been bugging me ever since:

Haidt’s five moral foundations aren’t equal. They vary quite widely in how objective they are, and they do so in pretty much the order he lists them.

Harm is a very objective standard; no matter where or when I am, kicking a guy in the nuts still hurts him.

Something like ingroup/loyalty is somewhere in the middle; I believe that it would be considered disloyal to open the gates of your city to invaders in every human society, but on the other hand, some societies would consider it disloyal to disagree with a political leader in public, and some wouldn’t

At the bottom of the scale you have purity/sanctity, which is almost entirely subjective, and varies widely between different societies. For example, is sex with the temple prostitute a way to gain contact with the divine, or a way for perverts to get their rocks off? Is human sacrifice the greatest gift you can give to the gods, or a terrifying atrocity that springs from our basest instincts?

I think this fact is probably very important. For example, it explains why I reject purity as being an important moral, um, thingy (sorry, I’m tired): In the modern world, people from radically different societies end up living in close proximity to each other, and there has to be some way to deal with their competing ideas of what’s sacred.

Also, this:

There is a long tradition of liberal anti-materialism often linked to a reverence for nature.

But many Christian conservatives view this as an impure thought process; they think it’s a grave error to venerate the world and ignore the one who made it. “Reverence for nature” is, for them, a gateway drug to paganism.

Don’t forget the double-chin and bearded one – K-LO:

…but am I crazy to take a little offense in that shoe incident? On behalf of my president on foreign soil. On behalf of my fellow countrymen and women. On behalf of the men and women serving in our armed forces who have made it possible for the “hero” of the story to fling shoes. On behalf of those same men and women, so many who respect and even love this commander-in-chief.

But wait, it gets worse. The. Very. Next. Sentence.

I cringe — like many of us — when I read that the shoe-thrower may have been beaten in prison. For p.r. if nothing else, guys!

Now that’s being the good (not so)little Christian. There’s more but she’s a pathetic waste and it’s early in the mornin’ and I’m already in a bad mood and Fuck ’em all.

oops. Last 2 sentences are mine, not Mommy Cass’. Coding error. Please forgive.

Let me play with it
Let me play with it
Let me play with your poodle,
I mean your little poodle-dog.

I think if Myles had heard that song by Marcia Ball he would have liked it. That Best of Myles collection (printed by U of Illinois at Normal, of all places, dba as “The Dalkey Archive Press”) has a sequel of other floor-scrapings left over from thatmain collection of stuff from the Irish Times. Oh, man, is he funny. He convulsed the Big Man, S. J. Perelman. I think my favorite Myles column was about some Irish chestnut play (“The Plough and Stars”?) that was running forever at a theater. He suggested that the play ought to keep running until all the actors dropped, save one, who could be doing his part while reminscing about all the other actors (“Here’s where Siobhan used to come in, peace be on her…”) I’m doing it wrong because it’s 4am, but it’s a stitch. I’d get my copy and transcribe, but it’s in the other room and the zebra finches are asleep in it.

“Reverence for nature” is, for them, a gateway drug to paganism.

Thus does the dead angry hand of ascetism still distort modern Christianity.

This “horror of the body” has such anti-life complications that it results in the Pope regarding a vague multi-cellular construct as worthy of the highest veneration, and yet makes them able to disregard what it might become.

One of the reasons I love pets is that I am not anti-life; to have an alien being live in my house and interact with me is one of the greatest joys there are.

My view is vast and encompasses multitudes.

Poor Joe Biden. He did the right thing. He wanted a German Shepherd, and went to a breeder. And I loathe PETA with every cell of my own body; they are fanatical hypocrites, at best.

If one has had a Great German Shepherd, it’s no surprise that one would want to repeat the experience. I’m not talking the poor, low slung creatures of the dog shows, but the dogs that were the core of the early guide dog experiments, the dogs that were like Strongheart, the amazing prototype of Rin Tin Tin; all around great dogs with more sensitivity & smarts than the average Congressperson.

As always; living creatures are what they are allowed to be.

Sorry: just can’t let this go.

The Truth, on the 16th:

I see Jesse Jackson Junior was offering $1 million dollars to Governor Blago for the Senate seat; the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it? And when will Rahm be forced to resign?

Ah, the squeaky clean smell of Obama politics…

MzNicky, so you just accept the corruption trailing behind Obama as the natural stink of a politician?

The honeymoon is over before it even begins, liberals. You are not going to get any of your progressive agenda – that much was clear weeks ago. Now it is evident that you’ve been bamboozled into electing an empty suit with a long trail of sleaze and corruption behind him. Well, it sure is amusing to those of us who called this before the election.

Is DrDick still around? In light of the Jesse Jackson Jr revelations, I’d like to know if there is a single civil rights “leader” who isn’t a con man? Good luck!

CNN, today:

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. — who was cited in a criminal complaint against Rod Blagojevich — has been an informant for at least a decade with the U.S. Attorney’s office, and has informed on the embattled governor of Illinois, though not in the case currently under investigation, Jackson spokesman Kenneth Edmonds told CNN Tuesday.

Seriously, The Truth – if you’re reading – it just isn’t funny anymore. seek help.

What I wanna know is, who is “The Harold” and how come the angels is always singin’ about him?

Who’s Mary Chrismuss, and why is everyone insisting I have her?

the Iraqis will either revert to their customary ways and install a strongman in power

Oh, gee, Baron, like our very own Tommy “Six Months” Friedman wanted us to do? And Bill O’ Reilly, and (I think) Doughy Pantload, and oh so many other America-haters like those.

Anybody call themselves “Cugel the Clever?” Please tell me he’s one of us!

Well, I can’t find a “Cugel the Clever” blogger, so I guess it’s up for grabs (damn! there goes a great opportunity). I know Emphyrio is on our side.

I can’t believe “The Many Worlds of Magnus Ridolph” has not been used as a blog title yet. (DAMN!)

Unfortunately Apollon Zamp is Dark Side, evidently. (And that’s a particularly stupid post I link to there)

Pere Ubu, that “Gates of Vienna” link is beyond awesome.

‘Hark the Herald’ was Mack the Knife’s cousin, but not nearly as tough.

Yea, he blew people to death.

I thought that was Madonna.

Yay!!! GoV mockery! My very favorite online hobby! Baron Oddity is the biggest buffoon online without a doubt. He’s had my vote for ages. That was a pretty heinous post in the link. It cannot hold a candle to this one, however, which includes such gems as this quote from the article cited (to many comment accolades in the post):

Islam is indeed in its essence a creed of desert savages, imbued with the bloody ethos of 7th century Arabia. But it’s not nearly the mighty, unstoppable force that we few, we happy few, will repulse at Thermopylae. For one, our ruling elite of Body Snatchers and the great majority of the Pod-citizens, wouldn’t allow it. And it is they who control the police and the armed forces, the sources of employment and the tax collectors, the TV programs and the book publishers.

I don’t know what’s more pathetic, Baron posting on the Brussels Journal or the “Meccania” series AT the Brussels Journal. Either way it is an interesting trip to fantasy land. OK, that’s my latest dispatch from wingnuttia;)

but they do not deserve it and cannot handel it.

Might you say they were given freedom by the European colonizers but they baroque it?

The fact is, I was making a lot more sense in the minimum wage thread earlier today

Apparently somebody set the switch back to “stupid” some time after. Too bad: reasonable Gary was HOT.

Pere–dang, how’d I miss that one? Great link. I only recently started posting again on the nuttiness going on over there. GoV “guest posts” are always the best. Baron manages to find the most insane people out there to host on his site.

but they do not deserve it and cannot handel it.

Might you say they were given freedom by the European colonizers but they baroque it?

Both of you are now on my Lizst.

Both of you are now on my Lizst.

uh-huh, that’s just some bloviating Bartok.

What I wanna know is, who is “The Harold” and how come the angels is always singin’ about him?

Silly girl, God is The Harold.

“Our Father, who art in Heaven, Harold is thy name”

Composer puns seem Verdi familiar, though I suppose such themes come Offenbach around again.

RB and whoever else cares: fixed my server issues. Should be stable from now on. Got a permanent URL set up for the filtered Sadly, No comments feed.

Composer puns seem Verdi familiar, though I suppose such themes come Offenbach around again.

you all do seem to take them in good Pärt, though.

Composer puns seem Verdi familiar, though I suppose such themes come Offenbach around again.

They do tend to Yo Yo, Ma.

oh, good the umlaut came through. wordpress may remain unfucked for now.

uh-huh, that’s just some bloviating Bartok.

Are you suggesting I’m full of Witt? Come to your Saint-Saens! Come out of Haydn and Schoepenauer yourself!

Are you suggesting I’m full of Witt? Come to your Saint-Saens! Come out of Haydn and Schoepenauer yourself!

huh! I would, but I don’t give a Schnittke. just too Bizet right now, Bach later.

huh! I would, but I don’t give a Schnittke. just too Bizet right now, Bach later.

And the chicken says “Gluck Gluck”…

And the chicken says “Gluck Gluck”…

I’m sorry, that’s de Wert pun I’ve ever posted.

“The Harold” was an improv technique developed by the legendary Del Close. Here.

I’m sorry, that’s de Wert pun I’ve ever posted.

that’s too much! meet me behind the Taverner after work….

oops. that’s Tavener….

I give wordpress the Byrd.

“The Harold” was an improv technique developed by the legendary Del Close.

Del Close, but no cigar.

that’s too much! meet me behind the Tavener after work….

de Maque me!

So. What’s going on?

de Maque me!

I’d give you the Byrd, but wp has it. you big talkers just Chaplin my ass, I’ll be out there, and the devil take the Hindemith!!!!

So. What’s going on?

Elephant dung sells like hot cake as mosquito repellent

I see. Tasty.

So Jesse Jackson Jr. was an informant to the feds on Blago. Because they are who they are, the Kermers are doubling down on the scandal…now saying that because of this, Obama must have known what Blago was up to. This despite 1) JJJ wasn’t an informant on this particular case and 2) What? That doesn’t even make friggin sense.

Obama must have known what Blago was up to.

Oh, now, DN, you know how all those Negroes know each other and talk in that special code!

What a Messaien. Here’s the Delius: don’t Strauss out or get in a Schnittke, Telemann you’re sorry before he Schütz someone. Quit Warren, Jolivet let live, you’ll draw more flies with Honegger than von Weber, etc. It might not be Varese, but it’s the Reich thing Tan Dun so quit being so Menotti.

Elsewhere in the news, legendary dummy Gateway Pundit thinks that Cheney’s defense of waterboarding somehow, um, puts us libs in our place. Badoodle-boo-yeah, as it were.

This “horror of the body” has such anti-life complications that it results in the Pope regarding a vague multi-cellular construct as worthy of the highest veneration, and yet makes them able to disregard what it might become.

Say what you will about the Church’s stance on abortion and contraception, which I agree is terrible, but I don’t think you can accuse them of hypocrisy here. No abortion, no death penalty, and tons of actual charity work. The slogan of valuing human life is actually practiced, not just used as a blunt anti-abortion instrument as some conservative evangelical churches do.

And I loathe PETA with every cell of my own body; they are fanatical hypocrites, at best.

Well. In some sense I think we need fanatical groups like PETA, monkeywrenching eco-saboteurs, etc. Overton Window mumble mumble.

What a Messaien. Here’s the Delius: don’t Strauss out or get in a Schnittke, Telemann you’re sorry before he Schütz someone. Quit Warren, Jolivet let live, you’ll draw more flies with Honegger than von Weber, etc. It might not be Varese, but it’s the Reich thing Tan Dun so quit being so Menotti.

You Strauss me out! You Borodin to my soul! Please get Offenbach and Turnhout the lights when you Schutz the door!

Say what you will about the Church’s stance on abortion and contraception, which I agree is terrible, but I don’t think you can accuse them of hypocrisy here. No abortion, no death penalty, and tons of actual charity work. The slogan of valuing human life is actually practiced, not just used as a blunt anti-abortion instrument as some conservative evangelical churches do.

If this was true the Philippines wouldn’t be a place people want to leave.

What a Messaien. Here’s the Delius: don’t Strauss out or get in a Schnittke, Telemann you’re sorry before he Schütz someone. Quit Warren, Jolivet let live, you’ll draw more flies with Honegger than von Weber, etc. It might not be Varese, but it’s the Reich thing Tan Dun so quit being so Menotti.

I’m tired now. can’t go down this slippery (Tallis-covered) slope any more. You may declare Vittoria. and will probably Guo Wenjing at the Tavener later, too.

If this was true the Philippines wouldn’t be a place people want to leave.

It really annoys me that people confuse the misuse of religion with religion itself.

It really annoys me that people confuse the misuse of religion with religion itself.

I think you’d have to speak to the holy father about that one.

It really annoys me that people confuse the misuse of religion with religion itself.

Me too!

The only appropriate “use” for religion is and always has been the accumulation of wealth and power for an inner circle using the most profound fear-mongering tactics, particularly around death’s inevitability.

So when people forget the purpose of religion, the real reason it exists, they can be fooled again and again into virtually any action, no matter how violent, venal or counterproductive, in the name of what the religious leadership is always free to describe as “the will of god”.

Thugs, the fucking lot of ’em…

mikey

Totally and completely OT, but I just love this headline:

Accelerant Poured Around Palin’s Church Before Fire; Palin Apologizes

That article I linked to was old, but I was listening to a radio documentary the other day about the Philippines and legislation in favour of birth control and abortion and so on. The president had seemed to promise a veto but was vague, so maybe good things are happening despite the Catholics and the proper use of their religion.

A more current article.

It really annoys me that people confuse the misuse of religion with religion itself.

Well that’s kind of the problem, isn’t it? Any theory can be perfect in theory, but if what happens when you introduce it to a real world with real people, it always turns into a complete clusterfuck, you can’t really then excuse the theory because it’s being misused… it’s just not a realistic theory.

Communism for that matter is a great theory as an ideal, but if it doesn’t take into account our real world, which is full of selfish assholes who prefer to empathize with the powerful and repressive, it’s just not going to work until we’ve actually got the class of Proletarian angels it’s reliant upon either.

Thugs, the fucking lot of ‘em…

Um…I’m sorry?

Now’s your opportunity to troll D.N.

Since there are no gods, the only purpose of religion is to manipulate people, usually for control. To use religion is to misuse people.

Re: Susan – Hurrah!

Since there are no gods

Why not?

the only purpose of religion is to manipulate people, usually for control.

Lady, I pray in my fucking closet.

Now’s your opportunity to troll D.N.

Ding dong dilly, libs.

Since there are no gods, the only purpose of religion is to manipulate people, usually for control. To use religion is to misuse people.

There are cases in which manipulation is desirable: before the establishment of modern anthropology that manipulation played (alongside a major role in spurring on such nonsense) a central part in fighting racial discrimination.

And even in our fairly demon-free world, we do have to face pretty terrible things with a set of tools designed, again, to survive in the southern Ethiopian scrub savannah long enough to fuck. I don’t think I’d be comfortable gainsaying the role of religion in the life of someone with self-destructive addictions or crushing bereavement.

It’s when the people who offer that manipulation go into the salesmanship and rent-seeking business that manipulation begins leaving any acceptable parameters.

I think you’d have to speak to the holy father about that one.

And this is hypocritical….how, precisely?

The Pope made his proclamation. Like it or not, agree with it or not, it still supports what The Cat says: The Church is interested in the sanctity of life.

I can live with that. I might not agree with the Pope (usually I don’t) but there’s no denying that at least they maintain a position on principle. That *governments* abuse this and manipulate and twist it for their own aims is a different issue.

Since there are no gods

Prove this.

The only appropriate “use” for religion is and always has been the accumulation of wealth and power for an inner circle using the most profound fear-mongering tactics, particularly around death’s inevitability.

Jesus would disagree with you.

Look, religion is easily abused. Look at Henry VII for a prime example of how religion and politics simply don’t mix, nevermind the recent Christian Coalition activities.

Nonetheless, I take comfort in my religion and I’d appreciate it if you respect my beliefs, as I try to respect yours and anyone else’s. My religion, my Jesus, teaches me to forgive and forget and MY Jesus gives me lessons on how to suffer fools gladly.

Hennry VIII, I mean

Hmm … that Memeorandum link gives me a PNG file that’s a whopping 11×12 pixels in Firefox, & does likewise in Internet Extorter. Either this is some more of that newfangled edgy-yet-subtle “Sadly, No!” meta-humor as to the breadth of American political discourse, or something’s gone awry.

Or both.

Why not?

1) God himself is a logically ridiculous proposition. We can explain the world pretty sufficiently (by which I mean systematizing it rather than fully understanding it, as the human understanding of the universe may always be more holes than cheese and certainly is now) with what we see with our own eyes. It’s not just a matter of Occaming God out of the equation – it’s a matter of God providing nothing by which he could profitably Occam out anything else.

2) Suppose we accept that, as many of us do as youths and young adults. It becomes easy to explain it away in terms of God being an absentee figure, not responsive to human demands. We can morally resolve the matter of religion down to who I call Enlightenment Jesus.

3) Enlightenment Jesus is the guy who appears in Scripture after most American Christians have abandoned the mythology. He is an entity of complete love, an activist, strongly in favor of treating other people right and a general role model. (He is replaced in those areas that spit on the Enlightenment by Germanic Warrior Jesus, who is an awesome Armalite-toting abortion-hating capital-punishment-loving quarterback who died to help you find your keys.)

4) The use of Enlightenment Jesus as a role-model becomes problematic in that it is fairly universal: the same rough figure appears as a sort of human ideal in amessianic religion within the grasp of the Enlightenment, and outside of the vaguest tangential theology, you will find the same enlightened Messiah in Christianity, Buddhism, Bahai, even lay Scientology. You name it, you’re going to find a loving self-sacrificing tolerance head in it if it’s integrated into American society. Enlightenment Jesus is both who we want to be and who we feel comforted in imagining the world cannot fully oppose.

(I’m dead serious here: have a long ethical conversation with an American who has no real reason to agree with you on theology – a Sikh, maybe – and note the aggressive similarity.)

5) If there is nothing in the physical world requiring God and nothing in the moral world requiring Jesus (substitute a hodgepodge of Moses and the Hebrew Hammer if I’ve pegged you wrong), why bother with religion at all?

Lady, I pray in my fucking closet.

As a connoisseur of the cheap joke, I’m vacillating between “is that what the kids are calling it these days,” “we need more pragmatism like this in architecture”, or plain old “I gotta get me one of those” as the worst response to refrain from making. Don’t hate me because I’m dutiful.

#

actor212 said,

December 17, 2008 at 21:08 (kill)

Since there are no gods

Prove this.

Can’t see ’em. Can’t smell ’em. Never met one. Can’t find any evidence of their existence. I’d say logic and reason, not to mention occams grooming tool compels me to conclude that nope, nothin there.

Seems to me if a god’s all worked up about having peeps worship just him and not some other idol, and certainly not to allow them to believe the universe runs along perfectly well without divine intervention, it would be pretty goddam (sorry) easy to just pop up and say hi, or just do something on a large scale that provides SOME evidence for his existence.

Nope, I’d say it’s proved to my satisfaction. If you choose to see it differently, well, that’s ok with me, as long as you don’t bring your superstitions and taboos around my doorstep…

mikey

MY Jesus gives me lessons on how to suffer fools gladly.

in re my last post, WHEW, I am SO very relieved to read this.

Look at Henry VIII for a prime example of how religion and politics simply don’t mix, nevermind the recent Christian Coalition activities.

I too find it shocking that people don’t practise religion the way I want it practised and instead go about it in some way that is not the true way that I imagine when I am in a swell mood.

And this is hypocritical….how, precisely?

When someone burns your house down and makes a great show out of giving you soup I think hypocrisy applies.

Haidt’s five moral foundations aren’t equal. They vary quite widely in how objective they are
You have to remember that the Five-Factor Model of trait psychology established a precedent: if you are trying to stake a claim on some area of psychology as your personal research territory, then five is the number of organising principles you should pull out of your arse and turn into eternal verities by giving names to. Four is too few organising principles; and six is right out.

This isn’t really related to the main post
With time, people here will forget and forgive you.
We can now return to arguing about religion.

Actor, you are, of course, right. “Big Picture” right, anyway.

And I’d LOVE to live my god-and-religion free existence happily tolerant of any supernatural belief structure that anyone else wanted to adopt.

But I can’t. Here’s my problem. They won’t keep their god out of my peanut butter. They want to make me act like they believe their superbeing wants THEM to act. But I neither want to, nor do I accept that they own the functional expressions of morality and ethics.

So I’m one of those aggressive, nasty, angry atheists who sees a serious problem, perhaps not with religion itself, but with religion’s efforts to inculcate it’s ridiculous rules in my world. This maddening arrogant hubris that makes “people of faith” (yes, that’s intended as a sneering insult) think they can tell other people in society what they can do with their bodies, who they can marry, what they can say on television, indeed, whether they can actually acquire the prescription their doctor wrote for them.

Tolerance is as tolerance does. When my life choices and those of my fellow humans are accepted without challenge by “people of faith”, I’ll be delighted to live in peaceful coexistence. Until then, any small thing I can do to reduce the power of religion is something I WILL do…

mikey

Five is the number

editorial from local paper supporting shoe thrower.

There’s nothing wrong with a shoe-throwing patriot
Iain Hunter, Times Colonist

There’s a little hooligan in a lot of us who will have cheered at the sight of George W. Bush being pelted with shoes in Baghdad on Sunday.

A lot of people in places where the U.S. commander-in-chief has sent armed invaders probably think Bush deserves worse. Wild-eyed types anywhere with a perpetual itch to take on the establishment or authority in any form will be sorry that the shoes, as missiles, were a misfit.

I’ve never wished physical harm on Bush, who minces around in cowboy boots. That he’s leaving office, finally, after making such a botch of so many things, is quite satisfactory as far as I’m concerned.

It doesn’t surprise me that the fellow who threw the shoes is regarded as a hero by so many Iraqis and others in that part of the world. It does surprise me, though, that many Americans, for whom the office of president is as sacrosanct as the flag, haven’t expressed outrage.

Security types around the president don’t seem to have reacted until the second shoe was thrown. Blackwater agents didn’t spray the room with machine-gun fire.

Bush himself not only showed an impressive agility in ducking, but wore a rather sheepish smile through it all as if he felt he’d asked for it, sort of.

I must say that I can’t understand why the president finds it necessary, on the eve of his retirement to parade, like Alexander the Great, through the territories he has subjected. I can imagine that the manifest for the presidential luggage aboard Air Force One contains an item: “Salt, wounds, rubbing into, for the use of.”

The shoe-throwing incident was more than a spontaneous gesture by one of the boulevard demonstrators that we’re used to around here. The use of shoes to show contempt has special meaning in the Arab world, as does calling someone a “dog” as the assailant did Bush.

Muntadar al-Zaidi had been planning this for some time, apparently, and Iraqi authorities, for whom insulting a visiting head of state is a mark of national dishonour, have reacted severely. There was a report yesterday that he had been beaten while in police custody.

The television station for which Zaidi works won’t apologize. Shiites are marching in his support everywhere, a Saudi has offered $10,000 for the famous shoes and over in Libya Moammar Gadhafi’s daughter has awarded him a medal for bravery in absentia.

From little things like this, like Bob Jenkins’ lopped-off ear in the 18th century, wars are made. At times like this, people wait for the other shoe to drop. Around here we wait for the other shoe to float by.

A lot of people, though, seem to be focusing on odd things. The Globe and Mail editorialists, for instance, seems to think this has something to do with standards of journalism and, indirectly, freedom of the press.

Over their coffee-stained blotters in downtown Toronto they’ve concluded that Zaidi should be fired, his employers should apologize and outfits like Reporters Without Borders should condemn “the attempted assault” because it could have ramifications for journalists anywhere “to do their jobs.”

Well, really. This fellow only worked for a TV station. He wasn’t even assigned to cover Bush’s press conference. He had about as much official reason to be there as a journalism student at a Buckingham Palace tea party or an undercover police officer at a demonstration with a camera and a card in his hat saying “PRESS.”

What Zaidi did he did as an Iraqi fed up with U.S. troops occupying his country and blowing up houses and killing people. He’s said to be as much fed up with the way Shiite clergy in his own community seem to be serving Iranian interests more than Iraqi ones.

I don’t know what Peter Mansbridge’s political leanings are, but I can’t imagine him throwing his shoes at a visiting U.S. president. I can’t imagine him being rude to anyone. In fact, I can’t imagine him getting angry about anything — that’s what makes him so appropriate to anchor our national perspectives.

It sounds to me as if Zaidi is a patriot, and I see nothing wrong with “journalists” in countries where patriotism is tested so much more than here, expressing it.

The patriotism of American journalists — including those embedded with combat troops — is never questioned.

Seems to me if a god’s all worked up about having peeps worship just him and not some other idol, and certainly not to allow them to believe the universe runs along perfectly well without divine intervention, it would be pretty goddam (sorry) easy to just pop up and say hi, or just do something on a large scale that provides SOME evidence for his existence.

On that note, in before Pascal.

Invoking god doesn’t actually simplify anything. One may think that “explaining” the epistemological boundaries by asserting it’s due to god reduces the complexity. Au contraire! Invoking god as a “higher order” only makes the problem bigger as you now have to account for an even greater complexity.

Hey, anyone is free to posit god and believe in god and yada yada. But it doesn’t work as an explanation. In other words, go ahead and believe whatever the fuck you want the notion of god doesn’t work in any logical or reason-based argument.

phtphppthtttptt

If I may “shorter” ya mikey: religion is a disease.

Although I think it’s curable, the recovery rate isn’t what one would hope for.

1) God himself is a logically ridiculous proposition. We can explain the world pretty sufficiently (by which I mean systematizing it rather than fully understanding it, as the human understanding of the universe may always be more holes than cheese and certainly is now) with what we see with our own eyes. It’s not just a matter of Occaming God out of the equation – it’s a matter of God providing nothing by which he could profitably Occam out anything else.

2) Suppose we accept that, as many of us do as youths and young adults. It becomes easy to explain it away in terms of God being an absentee figure, not responsive to human demands. We can morally resolve the matter of religion down to who I call Enlightenment Jesus.

3) Enlightenment Jesus is the guy who appears in Scripture after most American Christians have abandoned the mythology. He is an entity of complete love, an activist, strongly in favor of treating other people right and a general role model. (He is replaced in those areas that spit on the Enlightenment by Germanic Warrior Jesus, who is an awesome Armalite-toting abortion-hating capital-punishment-loving quarterback who died to help you find your keys.)

4) The use of Enlightenment Jesus as a role-model becomes problematic in that it is fairly universal: the same rough figure appears as a sort of human ideal in amessianic religion within the grasp of the Enlightenment, and outside of the vaguest tangential theology, you will find the same enlightened Messiah in Christianity, Buddhism, Bahai, even lay Scientology. You name it, you’re going to find a loving self-sacrificing tolerance head in it if it’s integrated into American society. Enlightenment Jesus is both who we want to be and who we feel comforted in imagining the world cannot fully oppose.

(I’m dead serious here: have a long ethical conversation with an American who has no real reason to agree with you on theology – a Sikh, maybe – and note the aggressive similarity.)

5) If there is nothing in the physical world requiring God and nothing in the moral world requiring Jesus (substitute a hodgepodge of Moses and the Hebrew Hammer if I’ve pegged you wrong), why bother with religion at all?

Because it’s none of your damned business.

it’s just not going to work until we’ve actually got the class of Proletarian angels it’s reliant upon
Am I alone in reading that sentence and imagining a Class War in Heaven?
I am?
[goes back to humming “Hey Mr Telemann].

I would get along much better if I had a guide umlaut

Because it’s none of your damned business.

Is too.

Look at all the gods in history–fakes. We know they were made up. We see ample evidence our god is fake too. Yet our god, of all the gods that came before him, existed during his era, and will exist afterwards, is the only real one? Our natural world shows no sign of being created by a god. No god has demonstrably communicated with anyone. No supernatural events take place to prove our laws of physics are wrong. There’s nothing but belief. That’s not enough. Gods don’t exist, and that’s the only reason we need to be against it, although the damage done to our ability to reason and empathize is incalcuable.

We only think we need it. We don’t.

if I had a guide umlaut
Would you settle for a seeing-ï diaresis?

Since there are no gods, the only purpose of religion is to manipulate people, usually for control. To use religion is to misuse people.

Try telling that to my congregation at the Reformed Aryan Church of White Butte.

Because it’s none of your damned business.

This is the thing about asking questions, sir. You occasionally get answers.

Would you settle for a seeing-ï diaresis?

A word of warning: the way the ï’s follow you around the room can be disconcerting.

Is too.

Is not.

There’s nothing but belief. That’s not enough. Gods don’t exist, and that’s the only reason we need to be against it, although the damage done to our ability to reason and empathize is incalcuable.

I’m…sorry? And here I thought my closet made it all quiet.

This is the thing about asking questions, sir. You occasionally get answers.

This is the thing about asking questions, sir. You occasionally get answers.

Would you settle for a seeing-ï diaresis?

I have no puns to offer tilde other helper animals come to mind.

Christianity is stupid.

Jesus won’t let me buy beer on Sunday in Georgia.

Jerk.

why bother with religion at all?

The social grouping thereof, I would say. I’d do it for that reason, if I could hack the preachin’ (which I can’t).

Blast you RB! I was going to offer up a companion tilde.

Stop arguing in the back, you lot. Don’t make me stop this Great Vehicle.

No supernatural events take place to prove our laws of physics are wrong.

Now you’re just playing with semantics. Ghosts are assumed not be real because they are “supernaturual”, i.e. no explaination can be provided. If a mechanism comes along that might explain such occurrences, then it becomes “natural” and was there all along (Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia).

I find “I don’t know” to be a much better answer than “that cannot be”. “I don’t know” is also the correct scientific answer. “That cannot be” is a religious one, in that one has made assumptions about reality that cannot be demonstrated (can’t prove a not).

I’d rather fuck in my praying closet than pray in my fucking closet.

But since arguing about religion is boring, what could be better than the saga of little Adolph Hitler Campbell and the Birthday Cake that only a Walmart could love?

A supermarket is defending itself for refusing to a write out 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell’s name on his birthday cake.

He said about 12 people attended the birthday party on Sunday, including several children of mixed race.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/12/16/national/a162200S22.DTL&tsp=1

Via Atrios, kindling.

Jesus won’t let me buy beer on Sunday in Georgia.

You can still buy water, can’t you? Follow in his footshteps and make your own!

The Iraqi people are a bunch of ingrates for failing to show respect for the President of the United States, and the American troops who liberated them.

This just goes to show you what I have suspected all along. Muslims are backward, tentdwelling savages who have no sense of honor, and no respect for human life. I feel bad for all the poor goats and camels that the filthy muslim dogs rape on a daily basis.

Lets compare for example the actions of the Iraqis after they were liberated from tyranny, to the actions of the Germans and Japanese after they were liberated from tyranny.

After the fascist governments of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan fell, the people of both nations cooperated with the Allies in installing democracy and enforcing the rule of law. There was no armed resistance, no bloodshed, only a sense of gratitude and respect towards there liberators, with whom they largely cooperated with.

After the Baath regime fell in Iraq however, the Iraqis, unlike the Germans and Japanese, have been anything but cooperative. They have waged a war of armed resistance against their liberators, and have engaged in acts of terrorism not only against American and British troops, but against their fellow countrymen, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths and billions of dollars in property damage.

No such thing happened in Germany and Japan after the Second World War. In fact, one of the biggest fears of both Western liberals and Iraqi ingrates alike, is that America will become a permanent occupier. All that needs to be done is to look at modern day Germany and Japan, and such unfounded fears will be proven ridiculous. Germany and Japan are both independent, modern democracies, which happen to be the second and third richest nations on earth, respectively.

So, if Germany and Japan turned out well, and their people cooperated with there liberators, and otherwise acted very peacefully, but the Iraqis have done just the opposite, then what’s the problem?

The problem seems to be the Islamic religion itself. Muslims will never accept democracy. They are a bunch of homicidal ,backward, goat rapists, who believe that a demon possesed pedophile was God’s prophet. Islam is evil, and unless the inhabitants of that region abandon the Islamic faith, the world will continue to be plagued by terrorism.

Follow in his footshteps and make your own!

A Maranatha member once told me that it was grape juice SO THERE.

While you’re probably sick of hearing about Mr. Commander, it is crucial that you read this letter. Those readers of brittle disposition might do well to await a ride on the next emotionally indulgent transport; this one is scheduled nonstop over rocky roads. As soon as you’re strapped in I’ll announce something to the effect of how Commander’s methods are much subtler now than ever before. Commander is more adept at hidden mind control and his techniques of social brainwash are much more appealingly streamlined and homogenized. His bumptious, shameless platitudes punish dissent through intimidation, public ridicule, economic exclusion, imprisonment, and most extremely, death. News of this deviousness must spread like wildfire if we are ever to justify condemnation, constructive criticism, and ridicule of him and his blockish prophecies.

Commander’s overbearing declamations are an evil without remedy. What’s my problem, then? Allow me to present it in the form of a question: Is Commander’s lack of intelligence genetic or the result of too much time spent with incontinent finks? Apparently, even know-it-all Commander doesn’t know the answer to that one. It wouldn’t matter if he did, given that he thinks it would be a great idea to create a new cottage industry around his reckless form of materialism. Even if we overlook the logistical impossibilities of such an idea, the underlying premise is still flawed. I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people. I can therefore assure you that if he gets his way, none of us will be able to break the neck of Commander’s policy of racism once and for all. Therefore, we must not let him place the worst kinds of sophomoric perverts there are at the top of the social hierarchy. I would like to close by saying that many of Mr. Commander’s ebullitions are seriously flawed, frequently fail to meet minimal standards of logic, and, on balance, are garrulous.

Rick Warren? Sheesh. When will he get caught doing meth with a male prostitute? Y’all know it’s just a matter of time.

The extended version of the Campbell family saga, which includes the following heartwarming tidbit:

The Campbell home is kept neat aside from scattered toys and other evidence three children live there. It’s small, but it’s what the Campbells can afford.

“It doesn’t mean hatred to me,” he said. Deborah Campbell said a swastika “doesn’t really have a meaning. It’s just a symbol.”

http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/warren-county/index.ssf?/base/news-0/122923112231930.xml&coll=3

Yeah, that is the first thing Obama has done that really raises my hackles. I expected him to be a middle of the road Democrat. I did not expect him to cater to the lunatic right.

And don’t give me any shit about Warren being some kind of centrist evangelical. The two are mutually exclusive. Hate is hate.

Oh, and fuck the Cambells in their Nazi asses. And Walmart, to boot.

Yeah, that is the first thing Obama has done that really raises my hackles. I expected him to be a middle of the road Democrat. I did not expect him to cater to the lunatic right.

Same old thing IMO.

HeinrichLynn Himmler Braun Campbell
Hitler Mmmmm Mmmmm Good Campbell
Goebbels Evildead Bruce Campbell
John WayneLynn Mengele Campbell

After the fascist governments of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan fell, the people of both nations cooperated with the Allies in installing democracy and enforcing the rule of law. There was no armed resistance, no bloodshed, only a sense of gratitude and respect towards there liberators, with whom they largely cooperated with.

doesn’t this contradict previous, pre-surge wingnut talking points about how the insurgency isn’t anything to be worried about, since a little bit of insurgency happened in occupied Germany, too?

Or is that So Last Year?

A Maranatha member once told me that it was grape juice SO THERE.

Heh, I heard someone admit it was wine, but it was OK because things were different back then when the water wasn’t safe and wine had to be drunk for health reasons.

the first of dozens of swastikas seen by the Campbells’ rare guests.

I guess we know why they don’t have many guests. Specially repeat ones.

“Health reasons” still works at my house.

Indeed, I’ve read that dihydrogen monoxide stuff can KILL you DEAD. Not a risk I’m willing to take.

HeinrichLynn Himmler Braun Campbell
Hitler Mmmmm Mmmmm Good Campbell
Goebbels Evildead Bruce Campbell
John WayneLynn Mengele Campbell

John W. Campbell Jr. Campbell

The Iraqi people are a bunch of ingrates for failing to show respect for the President of the United States, and the American troops who liberated them.

Good grief, are you still on about that?

Move on! Jeezus, get a life!

tigrismus said,

in re my last post, WHEW, I am SO very relieved to read this.

Trust me, Tig…He’s helped me not take a gun and shoot up any number of Baptist churches…

Howard W. Campbell Jr. Campbell

Campbell Scott Campbell.

“I don’t know” is also the correct scientific answer.

I don’t agree. Science doesn’t force a radical skepticism on us. While “that cannot be” may not be strictly logically the outcome of the scientific method, it’s a pretty good shorthand for “all available empirical evidence indicates that X thing does not exist and you are a fool for believing that it does.” That is a lot stronger than “I don’t know”.

I have a running debate with my fellow non-believers about whether atheism or agnosticism is the logically superior breed of naturalism. I think the agnostic’s position of “I hold no belief about a supernatural god because there can be no evidence either way” is equivalent to being agnostic about unicorns. We know that unicorns don’t exist and we have a good reconstruction of how the belief in them was perpetuated. It would be overly skeptical to be agnostic about all mythical beings. The only reason god gets a different epistemological standard is because of all the godbags out there. I am an atheist about god and unicorns.

Rodney King Campbell
Jesse Jackson Campbell
Henny Youngman Campbell
Orrenthal James Campbell
Jesse Ownes Campbell

Tolerance is as tolerance does.

Fair point, Mikey. I can’t argue with you.

Except…

Well….

See….

How has religion specifically and individually interferred in your life?

Mind you, I’m not taking any of the statements made here personally as a Christian, and my request to “respect my beliefs” was more about letting you know how I feel than telling you or anyone else you’ve stepped on my toes. I understand and comprehend atheism and agnosticism and even other religions.

Indeed, a healthy atheistic streak in me has me often questioning my Jesus as to his point and purpose and the quasi-scientist in me has me looking to prove He doesn’t exist.

And yet, I keep finding holes and corners of the universe that not only can He exist, but I’m convinced He does exist. Uncertainty principle, quantum communication between atoms, and all that.

There’s too much organization where it doesn’t belong for me to believe there is no God.

I’m a Spinozan, I guess: God made the universe, and then decided it was time for lunch and we’d sort it all out anyway on our own.

Our natural world shows no sign of being created by a god.

Oh really?

What existed before the Big Bang?

When you’ve worked that one out, then maybe we can talk about no gods…

And yet, I keep finding holes and corners of the universe that not only can He exist, but I’m convinced He does exist. Uncertainty principle, quantum communication between atoms, and all that.

Ahh, God of the Gaps. He seems to be found in only the darkest, unlit portions of the believer’s mind.

… not only can He exist, but I’m convinced He does exist.

Spirituality, yes; religion, bite me.
There’s that darned “He” thing, for starters.

Blagojevich reminds me of Martin Sheen in Badlands.

What existed before the Big Bang?

What existed before whatever existed before the Big Bang?

What existed before whatever existed before the Big Bang?

That answer’s easy for me, MzNicky, but then I’m not the one claiming gods don’t exist.

What existed before the Big Bang?

What existed before God?

Ahh, God of the Gaps. He seems to be found in only the darkest, unlit portions of the believer’s mind.

I suspect He prefers it that way.

MY Jesus gives me lessons on how to suffer fools gladly.
This is another of those misprints. If you check the original edition, I believe you will find that Jesus wants you to suffer foals gladly.

So God has always existed, but the universe, not so much?

What existed before God?

What part of “omnipresent” is unclear to you?

This is another of those misprints. If you check the original edition, I believe you will find that Jesus wants you to suffer foals gladly.

Well, He did give me a stern look about the goats.

That answer’s easy for me, MzNicky, but then I’m not the one claiming gods don’t exist.

It’s easy enough to make the claim that particular gods don’t exist: the Mormon god, for instance, is a bogus one. The cargo cult gods, also fake beyond reasonable belief. The fundamentalist Christian god: false also if we are to take the written proof of him as evidence. Mushier interpretations of that writing…well why should they be credited at all?

What part of “omnipresent” is unclear to you?

The credulity required to imagine that God is in your toilet while you poop on him.

From Baron Bodissey to theology … wow, when you guys derail a thread, you don’t fool around, huh?

Oh, what the frack, I’ll pitch in my $0.02-worth.

Query: after being the author of centuries of larceny, torture, mass-execution, ignorance & slavery (& continuing to exhibit those charming traits in every nation where theocracy still reigns supreme), what inherent right does religion have to my or anyone’s respect? We’ve already had a major tutorial as to what society is like when religion is the dominant institiution in society – the Dark Ages. Fun if you were clergy or nobility, living hell if you weren’t. Now we’ve got those wacky Dominionists lusting mightily after “The Dark Ages 2: Electric Boogaloo” & yet we’re all expected to just shrug & sigh when other folks say MOST religious people aren’t like that?

I’m not talking persecution (reason precludes that sort of barbaric behaviour) – just not respect … its abysmal track-record seems to demand nothing less … I don’t see anything noble or commendable in an adult approaching moral issues based on faith alone. Always be wary of any mental artifact claiming to be non-fictional that insists upon suspension of disbelief as a predicate. Where I’m from, that’s a cue to keep my hand firmly fixed on my wallet – & watch my back.

I’m not even that confident of my OWN ability to morally judge my actions correctly, so I’m awfully skeptical of someone else’s ability to do so – for either of us.

TL;DR – superstition bad, reason good.

Other animals seem to do just fine without religion.
We could do worse than to learn from their example.
Religion has this funny habit of starting wars.
Like in this thread, for instance.

The credulity required to imagine that God is in your toilet while you poop on him.

You don’t find that comforting?

There are different ways to interpret what you call the “omnipresence” of “god.” Buddhism likens existence to the air in a room: No beginning, no end.

Again, it’s largely the patriarchal appropriation of spiritual concepts that makes me an atheist. (a-theist)

what inherent right does religion have to my or anyone’s respect?

The fact that billions of your fellow human beings believe should be sufficient, unless you’re psychopathic.

Again, it’s largely the patriarchal appropriation of spiritual concepts that makes me an atheist. (a-theist)

I don’t really give a crap if God turns out to be a hamster. It’s just nice to know SHeIt’s there.

You don’t find that comforting?

Depends on what part of him I’m pooping on. The tentacles freak me out.

actor212: So, do you maintain the same level of respect for agnostics and atheists that you seem to expect from them?

If it took an omnipotent god to create the universe in all its complexity, what created a god capable of doing that?

See, I understand that it all looks too complicated to have just come about by chance. But those who assume the existence of a god are saying that the god came about by chance. And how likely is that, with our understanding of how planets and stars are born, the processes a planet must go through to be habitable for life, how life originated as a very simple form and over eons and eons until it evolved one creature that could perceive, or conceive, the notion of a god.

So, even with the intervention of a god, it took billions of years for things to get to where they are now, but that god was just popped into existence by…what? You’re proposing a very complex organism at the beginning of the cycle, setting everything into motion, when the cycel itself suggests to us that complex organisms do not come into existence but through billions of years of chance and evolution.

There’s the problem in a nutshell with supposing there’s a god.

I don’t agree. Science doesn’t force a radical skepticism on us. While “that cannot be” may not be strictly logically the outcome of the scientific method, it’s a pretty good shorthand for “all available empirical evidence indicates that X thing does not exist and you are a fool for believing that it does.” That is a lot stronger than “I don’t know”.

Science doesn’t force you to call people fools that disagree with your beliefs, either. That is a personal choice on your part, like your perception of how the world works. We’re all just tinkering with the definition of what is real.

I mean hey, I don’t *know* that you are not omniscient, I just really doubt it.

actor212: So, do you maintain the same level of respect for agnostics and atheists that you seem to expect from them?

I’ll go that one better, MzN. I expect to be challenged and often by them because how can I understand my faith if I only surround myself with believers?

But those who assume the existence of a god are saying that the god came about by chance.

Not necessarily. I can’t speak to that particular aspect of my God’s existence, and I refuse to embarass myself by trying…goodness knows, religion has produced more than its fair share of stupid answers to good questions, but it doesn’t follow logically that He came about by chance.

This is part of where faith must take over.

Please, please, let that be a mistake about Rick Warren giving the invocation at the inauguration.

Sadly, it is most likely true. Damn.

What existed before the Big Bang?

When you’ve worked that one out, then maybe we can talk about no gods…

Sorry, but this is the silliest possible reason for believing in a god; it’s sooo wingnutty. “The complete lack of evidence for my belief only confirms it! Your partial but highly effective empirical explanation has a hole that is an affirmed consequence of your methods and that proves everything I believe is not only possible but necessary!” It’s a fetishization of a total explanation, which is contrary to the humble aims of good science.

actor212: So, do you maintain the same level of respect for agnostics and atheists that you seem to expect from them?

ADDENDUM: I save my ridicule for the conservative Christians, MzN, the folks who think that God has all their answers.

I have a good friend who remains a friend precisely because we never discuss religion or politics.

What existed before the Big Bang?

This not only has no answer, it’s really not a valid question.

In it’s strictest formulation, it cannot even be asked.

To say “nothing” is not accurate, for nothing implies a quantitative, measurable zero. There was no physical laws before the big bang, so there was no way to quantify what was there. Without dimensions, without mass, without acceleration, there is simply no way to have this conversation. Therefore, to try to use it in support of some superbeing is invalid.

On the other hand, some of the mulitverse theories do a good job of proposing empirical answers to this question. Again, every scientific discovery that is made is another place where a requirement for “god” is eliminated. And oddly, there has never been a discovery that includes a rquirement for god. I don’t know what anyone else would call overwhelming evidence, but I’d say we have it.

Heisenberg and quantum mechanics are part of the physical laws of the universe. I don’t know why you choose to believe that these laws alone require the existence of a supernatural being. Why not gravity, or the standard model, or the stability of the proton? You can just plug god in if you want to end the scientific discussion, but it’s meaningless and valueless to decide “god did it” and walk away satisfied.

mikey

That’s what’s funny about all the right wing nutjobs freaking out about the “radical” Barack Obama. President Hussein X is about as radical as tapioca pudding.

Sorry, but this is the silliest possible reason for believing in a god; it’s sooo wingnutty. “The complete lack of evidence for my belief only confirms it! Your partial but highly effective empirical explanation has a hole that is an affirmed consequence of your methods and that proves everything I believe is not only possible but necessary!” It’s a fetishization of a total explanation, which is contrary to the humble aims of good science.

Not at all.

If anything, it’s an acknowledgement that I may not ever know the answer, that science will continue to march forward long after I have left this existence.

Science’s job is to find out where God does NOT exist. I’m happy to have the rest attributable to Him.

There was no physical laws before the big bang, so there was no way to quantify what was there. Without dimensions, without mass, without acceleration, there is simply no way to have this conversation. Therefore, to try to use it in support of some superbeing is invalid.

Not necessarily. On what plane are we discussing “existence”?

Pre-Big Bang, I would maintain, the physical and meta-physical were indistinguishable. As you point out, physical law had no meaning, therefore to physically prove the existence or non-existence of anything before the Big Bang is, well, impossible.

Ergo….we may look to alternative explanations.

actor212: I don’t think you answered my question, in either of your responses.

Look, I didn’t mean to hijack this thread to get into a religious discussion. I merely started this by mentioning that people ought to respect folks like me, good liberal people who also happen to believe in a Christ that teaches compassion and peace, and this is not the direction I thought this would head.

For that, I apologize. It was not my intent to turn this into some perceived proselytization. I ended up being asked to defend my faith and you know us Christains 😉

Science’s job is to explain the real, physical world. God’s left to reign over the unreal. He exists just for your imagination.

Jeez, MzNicky, would “Yes” be sufficient?

As God is my witness, I will be 400th! What? Too Soon?! I toss my shoes at the heavens.

As someone determined to stir up trouble and entirely lacking respect for those who will have the temerity to disagree, I’d like to declare that tapioca is utterly disgusting. TAKE THAT, TAPIOCA LOVERS.

What existed before the Big Bang?

When you’ve worked that one out, then maybe we can talk about no gods…

Let’s say that I’m much, much older than you. Let’s say I have a memory, just to make a point, of what I was doing in 1900. But what existed in 1900, can you tell me from your own experience? You can have absolutely no frame of reference for that year, because you weren’t born then, cannot go back any further in time than your own lifespan, and can only infer from second hand sources what might have occurred then. Does that mean that I’m therefore God, because you can’t work out what I might know? Of course not.

So… The Big Bang is a point in our universe of which we cannot as yet, possibly never have any direct evidence of conditions, as the laws of physics which govern our current existence probably don’t and can’t apply to that time. But the Big Bang is just another veil of ignorance, it’s not a magic boundary in any sense that allows us to imagine any old thing behind it. If a God exists behind it, but never comes out of there, and we never roll back that veil, we’ve got nothing and will never get anything better than your vague hope that he’s behind that veil. If he comes out, and expresses himself in this, our world with our scientific laws, we can apply those sciences to verifying his existence.

As it is, just because you like to imagine inter-galactic sparkle dragons made of raisin bread out there somewhere (bonus points to those who spot the not-so-obscure reference) doesn’t give you or D.N. Nation, as others have pointed out, the right to demand questions and then dismiss them with more questions but no answers of your own. Either your God is unknowable, or he’s knowable, and if the latter you’d better have some convincing evidence that everything else we know about the universe is seriously wrong… otherwise you are just indulging in a form of arrogance.

And those scientists who explore and explain the principles you mention, “Uncertainty principle, quantum communication” aren’t using or dependent on God for a mechanism…. indeed the Uncertainty Principle is a satire of certain (And usually religious) interpretations of QM, not an actual description of how QM works:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat

So it actually argues for the opposite of your claims.

Meanwhile, back to the “That Must Make Us Gods” problem, Quantum Communication across a distance of 144km has been replicated in our godless laboratories;

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/1361

So which is more likely; that it’s just an inherent part of our physical universe, or that God set it up for us to do… what? Supplant him as our own Gods?

Meanwhile, back at Sadly central, just to illustrate that Scottish Commander is indeed another of The Truth’s endless sockpuppets; the post where he obsesses about DrDick again…

#

I guess thats what passes for a professor nowadays, one who’s willing to both ignore and rewrite the facts of history in order to condemn America and Western Civilization.

http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/14698.html

All this talk about God and the universe, and it’s sobering to realize, as Monty Python puts it,

“Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding,
In all of the directions it can whiz;
As fast as it can go, that’s the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute and that’s the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you’re feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth;
And pray that there’s intelligent life somewhere out in space,
‘Cause there’s bugger all down here on Earth!”

How much expansion do you think The Truth’s life has witnessed over the years…? Not much, of that I think we can be certain. I pity him, I really do. Having to keep making new identities because he keeps ruining the only thing which gives his life meaning, offending people he hates but has never met on an internet forum. And how small and insecure would you have to be to think trolling Sadly No! (and countless other blogs) for years makes any difference?

On the subject of the Rick Warren invite:

Salon.com (War Room) is reporting that the selection of GoateeMan was the brainchild of the Congressional Inauguration Committee, not Barack Obama or the Transition Team.

God, apparently, is in the details.

Please, please, let that be a mistake about Rick Warren giving the invocation at the inauguration.

I get the impression that it’s not Obama’s choice, but the Congressional Inauguration Committee. I suppose they have to get his say-so, but it’s a crappy decision anyway you look at it. Warren is a total douche-nozzle.

I wish they had chose Palin’s witchdoctor.

As God is my witness, I will be 400th! What? Too Soon?! I toss my shoes at the heavens.

Woohoo!

indeed the Uncertainty Principle is a satire of certain (And usually religious) interpretations of QM

I think you mean Schroedinger’s Cat, and not Heisenberg, which is clearly operative in the quantum world.

TAKE THAT, TAPIOCA LOVERS.
You want to start a fight? I sago ahead with it.

Jeez, MzNicky, would “Yes” be sufficient?

Why yes, it would.

This has got to be the worst possible argument for teh existence of god: “I don’t understand this particular natural phenomonem.” It’s the Intelligent Design argument. “Well, the eye is so complex it could never have evolved all by itself. Must have had some help.”

I don’t understand alternating current, but I don’t pray every time I switch on the light.

I’d like to declare that tapioca is utterly disgusting.

Those among you who like or dislike food should take a look here:
http://crookedtimber.org/2008/12/16/cooking-with-campbells-soup/

Do what? Schrodinger’s Cat demonstrates that the Copenhagen Interpretation breaks down on the macro level – how does that tie back to what you were talking about?

Tapioca pudding is the Creed of desserts.

I wish they had chose Palin’s witchdoctor.

‘Ladies and Gentlemen, oo ee oo ah ah, bing bang walla walla ting tang…”

Tapioca pudding is the Creed of desserts.

SHOCKED INTAKE OF BREATH!

I don’t understand alternating current, but I don’t pray every time I switch on the light.

And yet, Stephen Hawking would tell you there will come a time, somewhere down the infinity probabilities of time, when you turn the switch and for no reason whatsoever, the electricity won’t come on.

Just a thought.

TAKE THAT, TAPIOCA LOVERS.

I declare tigrismus an apostate to all tapioca lovers and permanently subject to unannounced attacks of lumpy pudding on the head by any and all tapiocites at any time.

Maybe the electric bill was unpaid?

I just finished a book called Schrödinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality by John Gribbin.

He lays out a very well thought-out argument basically positing that all of our understandings of physics are based upon myths.

He does not say that our various interpretations of quantum mechanics are untrue, just subject to interpretation by whatever cultural ‘glasses’ you happen to wear.

Great book.

And of course there is a god. If you believe in it. Isn’t that the beauty of faith?

While I shall continue my jihad against brussels sprouts until I am martyred by their unclean stench, I am and will remain entirely agnostic on the topic of tapioca…

mikey

Maybe the electric bill was unpaid?

God could be a goniff. I don’t know.

t4,

Looks like an interesting book.

Mikey, I’ll take the brussels sprouts, you can have the raw fish. Deal?

I, for the record, am way to cynical to believe anyone who believes anything too strongly. (I’m looking at the atheists and the believers both here))

But I will not attack you for having faith.

I will, however, attack you for being an asshole (I’m looking at the atheists and the believers both here).

Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi talked a good game though.

While I shall continue my jihad against brussels sprouts until I am martyred by their unclean stench, I am and will remain entirely agnostic on the topic of tapioca…

Does that mean when you die there will be 72 asparagus waiting on you hand and foot?

This whole thread is getting curdled. I vote we junket.

I suggest you pick it up and read the Epilogue. He sets up a great interpretation of ‘Strange Action at a Distance’.

He does not say that our various interpretations of quantum mechanics are untrue, just subject to interpretation by whatever cultural ‘glasses’ you happen to wear.

It’s true. I’m partial to the many-worlds interpretation because it means that somewhere I’m banging Angelina Jolie.

I totally had to Google “goniff”. I love this site.

This whole thread is getting curdled. I vote we junket.

I don’t know, I think we could rennet a while longer.

Also known as the Transactional Interpretation.

Spirituality, yes; religion, bite me.
There’s that darned “He” thing, for starters.

It was quite illuminating when I resolved to think of God as “She” instead of “He” for a while. (And if you want to make a Wingnut’s head go all ‘splodey, propose this little exercise for them… just the thought of doing it gets them all sweaty and anxious. Either sex.)

A big step on the road to spiritual freedom; and I agree with MzNicky, that spirituality beats religion any day.

The problem is that spirituality can get bogged down with rules, which makes it organized, which turns it into religion, and then you have dogma, and once you have dogma it’s all screwed up.

However, we seem to need a spiritual connection of some sort, whether it be nature or philosophy or beauty. We can call it “God” or “the Force,” or “FSM,” it matters not.

What matters is that we acknowledge there is something greater that our soul yearns towards.

But that is really all the Universe asks of us.

And to be kind to one another. Like Vonnegut said.

Looks like an interesting book.

It sure does. Amazing how far out of the loop one can get in only a few years. That Afhsar Experiment is a new one on me.

The fact is, ding dong shalom!, gentlemen, where’s The Funny, liberals unable to recognize how ungrateful the Iraqis are, nonetheless We’re Winning!

LittlePig: I don’t think so. Looks like custard’s last stand to me.

And with THAT, I say let’s start a new thread. Heartland.

Moniker WIN.

Looks like custard’s last stand to me.

Nah, it’s a sherbet this thing will last a while longer.

So Steven Hawking doesn’t understnand alternating current either?

I declare tigrismus an apostate to all tapioca lovers and permanently subject to unannounced attacks of lumpy pudding on the head by any and all tapiocites at any time.

Witness the violence inherent in Tapiocism!

You want to start a fight? I sago ahead with it.

If it’s going to get me pelted, I believe I shall wait. It’s pretty yuca stuff.

mingo said,

Both of you are now on my Lizst.

uh-huh, that’s just some bloviating Bartok.

I thought this place was all about Teh Bartoks.

Jacob Singer said,

I totally had to Google “goniff”. I love this site.

Wait.

Your name is *Jacob Singer* and you don’t know from goniff???

OY!

This whole thread is getting curdled. I vote we junket.

I don’t know, I think we could rennet a while longer.

Whey longer.

So Steven Hawking doesn’t understnand alternating current either?

He’s waiting for the electrician. Or someone like him.

So Steven Hawking doesn’t understnand alternating current either?

He’s waiting for the electrician. Or someone like him.

I know a few theoretical physicists and I would bet a dead/not-dead kitten in a box that not one of them could wire an outlet.

Shoes for Industry!

I thought this place was all about Teh Bartoks.

*SWOON!*

@ Pere Ubu:

“Emphyrio” was a great find.

If I were going to start a blog, I think I’d call myself “Jubal Droad.” In today’s political climate, “Jubal” sounds close enough to “jubilant” or “jubilation” and “Droad” close enough to “dread” that I think it evokes the right degree of schadenfreude.

My gift to whoever wants it.

I know a few theoretical physicists and I would bet a dead/not-dead kitten in a box that not one of them could wire an outlet.

On that note, I will now repeat my song for the late lamented John Archibald Wheeler [it started out as a lullaby for our doctorling Sonja, but she doesn’t want it any more]:

Oh dear, what can dark matter be?
Oh dear, heat death and entropy
There’s been, a breakdown, of parity,
Johnnie’s so late at the fair.

He promised to write me a Theory of Ev’rything,
He promised to tie it all up with a superstring,
Instead of a closed group he gave me an open ring
That’s why black holes have no hair.

In all due fairness, what I regard as important in ethical terms is (in short) that you feel compelled to treat other people with dignity.

This is why, our thoughts about metaphysics aside, I would say more comfortably that I share a religion with Fred Clark than Megan McArdle.

What existed before the Big Bang?

When you’ve worked that one out, then maybe we can talk about no gods…

Looks like before long, this too shall pass.

That’s the funny thing about looking for answers – if you’re smart enough, patient enough & persistent enough you usually wind up getting them.