?

If so, who will redeem us from our fallen condition?

As Marx said, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce." Although I'm sure it repeats itself, I oscillate between regarding it as all tragedy or all farce, depending on the mood I'm in. Right now it's feeling rather farcical. See my farcical account below.

Helen Thomas to Israelis: "Why don't you just go back to where you came from?" Israelis: "We did already. What are you so pissed about?" Helen Thomas: "That was too far back." Palestinian Arabs to Israelis: "We are a persecuted minority that doesn't fit in anywhere and is not allowed to fit in anywhere. Give us our homeland back. It is where we belong and where we can be who we are. " Israelis to Palestinian Arabs: "What claim do you have to this land?" Palestinian Arabs to Israelis: "It used to be ours." Israelis to Palestinian Arabs: "Ridiculous. Who ever heard of a people making such a claim? Why don't you just accept reality and learn to try and fit in where you are at now?"

If you don't agree, feel free to bomb me or accuse me of anti-semitism at my yahoo email account.

of Eden the same or different? If they are the same, then why can we not go back in time and reuinite?

within the economic system? I've know more than a few union workers who vote Republican, love to grumble about taxes, but don't realize or don't care to acknowledge that the only reason that they are in any position to consider themselves middle class, is because of the strength of their union.

Union power and membership has slowly eroded under Republicans and DLC style Democrats. Once the unions are busted completely, "middle class" union workers will no longer be in a position to grumble about taxes as their biggest complaint or to consider themselves middle class.

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similar to the one he got enacted in Massachusetts? Will he just try to avoid the question entirely?

Or will he try to claim that it's ok to do this type of reform on a state level, just not on a federal one.

Has the big brouhaha over health care reform doomed Romney's chances in the GOP primaries or am I underestimating the Republicans capacity for ignoring glaring hypocrisies?

from bloggers than you do from the mainstream media (newspapers, nightly news etc)?

and should we applaud them for doing so? Hip hip hooray.

show? My understanding is that she initially objected but relented upon agreement that royalties would go to PETA and the fact that her grandma liked Rush might have played a factor.

I know a lot of conservatives (I live and grew up in the Bible belt) that I regard as misguided and essentially wrong about a lot of things, but people of good will, living in a confusing world, that are at least trying to honestly come to grips with it.) The problem I have with Rush is that he more or less screams, bully and dishonest, in everything he does. First, I will try to intimidate you and if that doesn't work, I will try to lie. Rush, is entitled to his 1st amendment rights just like anyone else. But since he isn't contributing anything useful to debates, and is positively golldern toxic it to it, I think we should shun him. Treat him like he is a moral leper and try to avoid the spreading of the contagion.

Ok, back to Chrissie Hynde, I think Rush Limbaugh is shun worthy. And people who are interested in serious political debate shouldn't give him anything other what is legally obligated (which is the right to speak his mind).

Allowing him to work out some sort of bargain where he donates to PETA tends to mainstream him.

reproduce through coitus? Copulation is inherently unhygienic. Double dipping a chip in salsa is positively sterile compared to copulation. Why not external fertilization like frogs? True, humanity would probably have to be redesigned as amphibious. But considering God's emphasis on purity and cleanliness in other things, this whole coitus mechanism for reproduction just seems completely out of character. What was he thinking?

theory it is they are rejecting? I asked this of global warming deniers and more or less asked them to explain "What do you think people who believe in human induced global warming believe is happening?" I got the usual stuff about solar cycles and previous fluctuations in global temperature throughout Earth's history,and just use your common sense.

But none of them addressed the basic question of what the theory of greenhouse gases entails. Seemed that none of them could or would describe what theory they were actually rejecting.

The reason why I asked this is that I think your average non-scientific layman doesn't actually understand the theory that they're are rejecting. I had a conversation with a co-worker who said, "How can human activity raise the temperature more than a volcano eruption would?" Apparently he didn't even realize that a volcano eruption actually decreases global temperature. This is the idea behind one of the more radical suggests at geoengineering. That we try to mimic the effects of a volcano eruption.

It occurred to me that his understanding of global warming theory was a version of the parent's saying to the kid "Whaddya trying to do, heat the whole world" when they leave the door open on a cold day. He didn't realize that this isn't about heat emission. We are not warming the planet with our heat emissions. We are warming the planet by emitting gases that trap heat that previously escaped in a greater amount into the stratosphere prior to the Industrial Revolution.

I realize this must sound pretty mundane to people who understand this stuff. But dealing with this problem requires convincing the public. And if we don't understand why a substantial section of the public doesn't get it, then we won't be able to convince them.

phrase "greenhouse gases" means? I know you don't believe but I just want to know if you have a basic understanding of exactly what theory you are either rejecting or haven't been convinced of yet, or if you are rejecting a theory that no environmentalist is actually proposing?

The reason why I ask this is that I recently had a conversation with a co-worker about this and he seemed to be rejecting the idea of global warming because he thought the theory was something completely different from what the theory actually is. As he stated it, yeah, I would have rejected that as completely absurd. But it bore no resembleance whatsoever to the theory of global warming I've read about and believe there is substantial evidence for. Not trying to convince anybody. I just want to get an idea if we are actually discussing the same thing when we talk about global warming.

Union address from behind chickenwire?

necessary for you to continue to support it. A decisive defeat of the Taliban.

Or would a goal of just keeping the status quo, keeping the Taliban from retaking Afghanistan, be sufficient to justify taking say 200 casualties every year over a period of 10-30 years?

What do you think are the odds that Bin Laden will be captured or killed and does that figure into your calculations on whether or not the mission in Afghanistan remains worth the cost?

be open to revision but a rejection of skepticism as a view that says we can't know anything, that everything is in doubt?

"Prejudices are things that one unavoidably has. But one should not cling to them as a man clinging to a cliff. There is no abyss below."

Constitution that says dead rappers can offer amendments to Congressional legislation. Even if it is to protect babbies.

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/area_man_unsu...

Or is this just me? Theoretically, our enjoyment of a song derives from the melody, lyrics. So once it meets the minimum threshold for us being able to hear it, turning it up louder shouldn't add anymore to our enjoyment of it. Unless, our enjoyment of it derives partly from something other than just the melody, the lyrics.

I do this with rock and country tunes when I'm riding in the car. How come I never hear anybody playing classical music in their car so loud it shakes the car? Do people do this with classical music too?

What in Genesis itself suggests that it is meant to be interpreted literally? There are clearly passages in the Bible that are meant to be interpreted metaphorically such as when Jesus says I will make you fishers of men, he clearly didn't intend for his disciples to go chasing around potential converts with fish nets.

If you're someone who believes in Biblical inerrancy shouldn't you want to go with the interpretation of the Bible that conforms to a scientific understanding of the world? If you were someone who believes the Bible is the inerrant word of God, and your interpretation of it conflicts with scientific facts wouldn't it make sense to conclude that it's your interpretation that is wrong, as opposed to the Bible or science. (Note if you're not a believer in biblic inerrancy, then you may conclude that it's the Bible that's wrong. But that's not mainly who I'm addressing this question too.)

I'm going to venture a psychological explanation for this: anthropocentrism. The creation science crowd is mainly interested in preserving anthropocentrism, man as a special creature in the universe endowed with divine gifts and endowed with special dignity. It is less the idea that Darwinian evolution conflicts with a literal interpretation of the Bible that they find offensive. It's more that they want to retain the view that somehow man is a special creature separate from other creatures and was specially created by God, different from other creatures. That is what really upsets them about Darwinian evolution. You can see it in their rhetoric about how they mock the man idea of a man evolving from a monkey and all their predictions about how morality will disintegrate if evolution is taught.