Hey Roy, (and others): I remember when Pat Robertson decided to run for President. He said God told him to. I always wondered how a person could lose with God backing him. I know that people are upset with Bush mentioning Jesus a few times, but I don’t have a problem with it. There can be positive effects on a person because of their religion. I see people complaining about religion what seems to me to be too often. Obviously I don’t think the government should push religious beliefs on it’s people, but being religious does not mean that you have to do that.
I often hear people say that Christianity has killed more people then anything else, but that is bs. It is the people using religion as an excuse to do atrocities. The people should be blamed, and not the religion. Just like you cannot blame Islam for all of the terrorism. But you can blame the people running the mosques in the Mid-East who teach children that certain people or religions are evil. When children are taught, “one, two, America is the Devil, three four, kill Americans…” you end up with a generation of brainwashed children who grow up into terrorists.
I find atheists to be the most annoying people in the world. A whole group of them are running around trying to destroy religion and religious thought, under the guise of separation of church and state. It is my theory that many of them are not actually atheists, but just pissed off at God. Maybe they prayed for a pony as a child and didn’t get one, I don’t know. With all the problems that can and should be dealt with being ignored so a Christmas tree can be removed from public property.
On a similar note, my daughter was trying to be rebellious and complained that since I was an atheist (surprised?) that I wouldn’t let her go to church with her friends. I told her that I never said that, and if she wants to go to church then go ahead. There were a lot worse things she could be getting into, and church wasn’t one of the things I was worried about.
I consider the church of the dark ages as a major impediment to scientific thought. Any idea that was not church approved was blasphemy. If the church was a little more relaxed, the world might have proceeded quicker, and we could all be using flying cars right now. (Cool.) Again this was the church leaders trying to maintain their power and control. This is too similar to what goes on in the much of the Mid-East now.
Now that we really went off topic, lets get back. I am seeing this discussion degrading into ignorance. I am beginning to think that rational thought has left the building. My discussions on this forum reminds me of a discussion I had recently about high protein diets. The person I was talking to was taking a class, and her nutrition teacher mentioned the “dangers” of a high protein diet, especially to kidneys. When I told her there were no studies showing any damage to kidneys, she told me that her teacher covered that too. The teacher said that the reason there were no studies is because they never could find enough people to study. I mentioned recent studies that did show the safety of high protein diets on healthy kidneys, but she didn’t believe what I was saying because her teacher obviously knew more then me. I later brought in a printout of an article discussing a recent study where a Zone diet was shown to be safe on the kidneys of diabetics. She barely glanced at the papers, looked at me and told me I was funny. She had the information right in front of her, but was so caught up in her belief that she refused even to look at it.
On various threads I have seen it stated that people who join the military don’t expect to go into battle, and shouldn’t because they weren’t expecting it. I am sorry but that is pure ignorance. When I joined the Navy years ago, I knew full well that I could end up in some battle. And there was the possibility that I could die. And being that I would have been on a ship, I expected that if I were to die, it might be to drowning. A very horrible way to die.
I also saw that only poor people join, and risk death, but then it is mentioned that Bush joined. Wasn’t he rich? With all of the “wealthy” friends why would he have to join?
My last post was done too quickly. I had too little time to respond. Squat mentioned Bush and conservatives in his post, connecting the two. I wanted to show that Bush fit the demonstration of a liberal more then a conservative. Apparently this pissed off Squat. He did prove my point about a double standard though. I didn’t specifically say it, but when I showed his statement could equally be used with the Kennedy family, he seemed to become irate. Obviously a Republican political family is “fucked up”, and have “inferiority complexes” for seeking powerful positions, yet Democrat political families are only good, pure, and innocent. This is an accurate comparison, as it is either ok for both, or it is bad for both. But if it is good for one family, and the other is fucked up for it, well this is a double standard. I thought we were supposed to be fair. Isn’t this hypocrisy? If so then by Squats definition he is a neurotic conservative.
And this great comparison to Ancient Rome is ridiculous. They did have a congress, but also an emperor. Also they had 10 slaves for every roman citizen. And it was considered to be more sophisticated to sleep with boys, and less sophisticated to sleep with women. 180 plus holidays a year with people thrown to the lions, or some other such form of violence, for entertainment on all of them sure wasn’t a positive thing. The comparisons just are not that good.
And the fear of retaliation, or the idea that we shouldn’t do anything if anyone else might get upset and try to attack us, is a pussy statement. I am a T-man, and refuse to let fear prevent me from doing the right thing.
Back to what you were saying about peoples IQs, it is found that people with high IQs tend to say in school, get a degree, and end up working for a person with a normal IQ. The ability to do well in school means an easier time getting a good paying job, while people with lower IQs are more likely to start businesses. Other factors are obviously involved, but this tends to be an accurate generality. If a person has a problem with school, then starting a business is an easier route to wealth, while a person who finds school easy, getting a high paying job is an easier route. There has been recent discussion of basic IQ being only one of seven IQ’s people have. High emotional IQ tends to lead to success more then any of the other IQ’s, though each seems to be related to different strengths, and successes.
I doubt the MM is going to be a super strong power, and I doubt they are the extreme organization you purport them to be. Remember how our system of government works. I personally like the fact that there are two parties in the government. Each seems to keep the other from going too far. If something is not working, then it most likely will be voted out. I at first thought about supporting Bill Clinton, until I started watching him. I became afraid of someone like that becoming president, and yet he did. When America also became disgusted with him, congress flipped to republican. This was society’s reaction to extreme intentions. I realize that many here want government run healthcare, but have you ever seen the government run anything? The government can’t seem to keep track of the money it spends. How would you like to have every toilet in every hospital cost the same as the toilets cost on ships or government buildings? This fear took over Americans, and they voted a congress that blocked his actions.
I would recommend that you just forget about things while you go to sleep. There is no benefit to your health to maintain these thoughts if they are not helping you. I personally realize the number of people suffering, being tortured, rapped, killed, abused, or forced to listen to Richard Simmons voice. If I were to keep all of these things in my mind, it would drive me crazy. I care about people, but it does not benefit them if I am sulking over it. The best thing to do is care, but look at what you have. Even the poor in America have it good compared to some countries. I have known plenty of “poor” people with DVD players, decent cars, cable, and the ability to eat out at least once a week. I am here to enjoy life, not waste my life worrying about events. Sure I want to do my part to improve things, but that worry does nothing to help. Every year people get a little smarter (even though it does not seem like it,) and we advance a little further. We are said to be in a recession, but national unemployment rates are at 5.5% (February). I remember when that was considered a low rate, and a booming economy. What will it be like when the economy starts really moving? The only thing I fear is that the unemployment rate will drop to the point that the fed will want to increase interest rates. I don’t want to see those interest rates rise too fast or too far. I know the fed does not want an economy to “overheat,” but they tend to react too fast to slow the economy, and too slow to prevent a weakening economy.
Am I too far off topic for you? Everyone should keep a good eye on the government, regardless of who is in office. People are often worried about bad intentions, but the thing to worry about is good intentions. “Hell is full of good intentions or desires.” - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153) or “Hell is paved with good intentions.” ? Samuel Johnson (1709 ? 1784).
To get back to the original topic of this thread, I did visit the website again, and actually found a picture of downtown Baghdad at the circle where Saddam’s giant statue was pulled down. Although you cant tell too well from the grainy distance shot. He even had to clarify what it was because people couldn’t tell from the picture. It is of such low quality you cannot make out the people. But this person tries to make it out as though practically nobody was there. Funny thing was I watched it live, and often with Al-Jazeera broadcasts. They had to look hard to find a picture that distorted the view of this event. Yet if the picture was of good quality I think you would be able to see thousands of people. They were all around the statue, and yet the picture involves the circle that is at least 580 feet across. The picture is of such low quality that some of the people blend into the background. Much of the picture involves a large area where nothing was going on. Of course no one would be there, they wanted to be at the statue. And they take advantage of the fact that the average person doesn’t realize what a small area people can take up. Given 2 square feet each, which is a lot of room if you have been at a concert, or any public event, assuming the circle was 580 feet across, you could have fit over 81,000 people there, though many would be in the street, but still in the picture, and I am being very conservative.
It also looks like they found a mobile weapons lab, and possibly some radioactive material, possibly weapons grade plutonium based on preliminary tests.