For those that want to continue to live in the dark
Posted By: that's your businsess, but sm on 2008-10-16
In Reply to: What? What does that have to do with Obama? nm - independent
I do not care to do that. As a democrat, I have watched this man whom so many think will be their saving grace. This man was raised Muslim, is Muslim through and through, and only went Christian on us after he came here and started attending Rev Wright's church.
He is very careful about skirting around questions posed to him. He has never been able to prove US citizenship...refuses to put forth a legitimate birth certificate proving it, and is now facing a suit to hopefully force him to prove just that. I am not so easily led as some O lovers.
I have a close friend in Atlanta, GA, who is an aware winning journalist. This is where one of the most recent honor killings took place. As all campaigns are questioned when something important surfaces, they want to know how the candidate feels about certain things. Well, knowing Obama is Muslim by birth and upbringing, this question was posed out of Georgia to his camp, who would not give a straight answer. They refused to let Obama speak to this. They went round and round the question, but wouldn't even come out and say he would condemn such things. Not even a condemnation of these acts.
Just not easily led about this man.
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Any of you live in the midwest? Just in case you live down the road from me...
I live in Wisconsin and am often also in Minnesota.
No, I'm not a stalker or a weirdo (my opinion, anyway).
Yeah, tell me again how liberals want to live and let live....what a joke!!!! nm
why not just tell the truth? That only extends to liberals.*I have had it with Republicans...* a whole group of people tossed out like garbage. *I will not respond to your posts nor read them.*
As to Ann Coulter...the left has their share..Michael Moore, AL Franken...do you ever look at your own party?
That is the most INtolerant post I have seen here in a LONG time.
Liberals true colors always come out...regardless of how much they say they are the MOST tolerant, and want EVERYone to live and let live...everyone if you happen to be liberal.
We are all Americans...and America is about debate. Tell me, liberal Democrat, again how you care about ALL Americans. Talk about ringing hollow.
You are in the dark......just the way O wants it
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Dark Hole Sun
I hope some day, the medical community can figure out how to remove those sticks from up these self-righteous a$$es. Oh, I am so offended. Cover my eyes! You said the a-word!!!! Oh, oh........don't read 'em - it's that simple.
Seems you are really into dark foreboding.
floats your boat, go fo it. I prefer to take my comfort in, "...to those who would tear the world down, we will defeat you."
I'm praying for you and your dark soul.
"I am sorry your future is so dark and meaningless"
x
He has got to paint as dark a picture as
pretty good job of it, so when just a glimmer of light shines through, he can tell you, Yes, I Did!
But, I sure hate to bust your bubble, we are noncombustible, we are not going extinct, we ain't going anywhere! We just here praying for our country.
Tonight: Frontline -- The Dark Side
Click on the link check local listings to see when it is on where you live.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/darkside/
The Dark Side
(60 minutes) On September 11, 2001, deep inside a White House bunker, Vice President Dick Cheney was ordering U.S. fighter planes to shoot down any commercial airliner still in the air above America. At that moment, CIA Director George Tenet was meeting with his counter-terrorism team in Langley, Virginia. Both leaders acted fast, to prepare their country for a new kind of war. But soon a debate would grow over the goals of the war on terror, and the decision to go to war in Iraq. Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and others saw Iraq as an important part of a broader plan to remake the Middle East and project American power worldwide. Meanwhile Tenet, facing division in his own organization, saw non-state actors such as Al Qaeda as the highest priority. FRONTLINE's investigation of the ensuing conflict includes more than forty interviews, thousands of pages of documentary evidence, and a substantial photographic archive. It is the third documentary about the war on terror from the team that produced Rumsfeld's War and The Torture Question. (read the press release)
My dear....during some of this country's dark days....
whites with mental illness were also sterilized. How about slavery? How about thousands of white soldiers who died on battlefields to free them? How about the thousands of WHITES along the underground railroad who helped escaped slaves find homes?
YES, the preacher is hateful, the theology is racist.
Yeah, he turned....gone over to the dark side...nm
well, i would call it dark but not necessarily meaningless
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The dark side of faith (title of article)
(Considering how much importance the *right* religion is going to play in our future Supreme Court, I thought it was ironic that I found this at the Professional Ethics site. http://ethics.tamucc.edu/article.pl?sid=05/10/01/1656216)
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-brooks1oct01,0,3034570.story?track=hpmostemailedlink
The dark side of faithBy ROSA BROOKS
October 1, 2005
IT'S OFFICIAL: Too much religion may be a dangerous thing.
This is the implication of a study reported in the current issue of the Journal of Religion and Society, a publication of Creighton University's Center for the Study of Religion. The study, by evolutionary scientist Gregory S. Paul, looks at the correlation between levels of popular religiosity and various quantifiable societal health indicators in 18 prosperous democracies, including the United States.
Paul ranked societies based on the percentage of their population expressing absolute belief in God, the frequency of prayer reported by their citizens and their frequency of attendance at religious services. He then correlated this with data on rates of homicide, sexually transmitted disease, teen pregnancy, abortion and child mortality.
He found that the most religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. Of the nations studied, the U.S. — which has by far the largest percentage of people who take the Bible literally and express absolute belief in God (and the lowest percentage of atheists and agnostics) — also has by far the highest levels of homicide, abortion, teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
This conclusion will come as no surprise to those who have long gnashed their teeth in frustration while listening to right-wing evangelical claims that secular liberals are weak on values. Paul's study confirms globally what is already evident in the U.S.: When it comes to values, if you look at facts rather than mere rhetoric, the substantially more secular blue states routinely leave the Bible Belt red states in the dust.
Murder rates? Six of the seven states with the highest 2003 homicide rates were red in the 2004 elections (Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina), while the deep blue Northeastern states had murder rates well below the national average. Infant mortality rates? Highest in the South and Southwest; lowest in New England. Divorce rates? Marriages break up far more in red states than in blue. Teen pregnancy rates? The same.
Of course, the red/blue divide is only an imperfect proxy for levels of religiosity. And while Paul's study found that the correlation between high degrees of religiosity and high degrees of social dysfunction appears robust, it could be that high levels of social dysfunction fuel religiosity, rather than the other way around.
Although correlation is not causation, Paul's study offers much food for thought. At a minimum, his findings suggest that contrary to popular belief, lack of religiosity does societies no particular harm. This should offer ammunition to those who maintain that religious belief is a purely private matter and that government should remain neutral, not only among religions but also between religion and lack of religion. It should also give a boost to critics of faith-based social services and abstinence-only disease and pregnancy prevention programs.
We shouldn't shy away from the possibility that too much religiosity may be socially dangerous. Secular, rationalist approaches to problem-solving emphasize uncertainty, evidence and perpetual reevaluation. Religious faith is inherently nonrational.
This in itself does not make religion worthless or dangerous. All humans hold nonrational beliefs, and some of these may have both individual and societal value. But historically, societies run into trouble when powerful religions become imperial and absolutist.
The claim that religion can have a dark side should not be news. Does anyone doubt that Islamic extremism is linked to the recent rise in international terrorism? And since the history of Christianity is every bit as blood-drenched as the history of Islam, why should we doubt that extremist forms of modern American Christianity have their own pernicious and measurable effects on national health and well-being?
Arguably, Paul's study invites us to conclude that the most serious threat humanity faces today is religious extremism: nonrational, absolutist belief systems that refuse to tolerate difference and dissent.
My prediction is that right-wing evangelicals will do their best to discredit Paul's substantive findings. But when they fail, they'll just shrug: So what if highly religious societies have more murders and disease than less religious societies? Remember the trials of Job? God likes to test the faithful.
To the truly nonrational, even evidence that on its face undermines your beliefs can be twisted to support them. Absolutism means never having to say you're sorry.
And that, of course, is what makes it so very dangerous.
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I watched it and I have no idea where this is coming from....dark orifices? nm
v
It's a dark day in America when voters dare to feel inspired and hopeful?
rasberries
It may continue until........sm
about 3-1/2 years before the end of time.
Your refusal to pull your head out of the sand, in my opinion, regarding what will happen makes any further discussion of this issue futile. Hope the sand protects your little head when all heck breaks loose.
why do we have to continue with what others before
did wrong?
Tit-for-tat and 2 wrongs doesn't make anything right.
Obama is a very promising and respectable 44th President of the United States of America and if you do not see that, I feel very sorry for you.
and yet you continue...
to slander everyone on this board who doesn't agree with you.
I will continue to care for the little guy
Well, you go ahead and defend big corporations and the rich..frankly, they could not care about you one bit. I will continue to care for the middle class, the poor, the disadvantaged.
Why must you continue to post?
Nah, just someone who cannot imagine why a neocon dinosaur who knows she/he is not wanted or needed on the liberal board would continue to post.
go ahead...continue...
....being rude.
Life's too short to be so full of hate, directed at every member of the opposite viewpoint.
But as you say, the silence is deafening....maybe you need a hearing aid??
Big 3 talks continue....... sm
According to the article linked below and others I have read, the two of the three auto makers who will be receiving these emergency loans will be required to either show a viable plan for their industries by March 31, 2009, or face repayment of the loans. While I agree with the premise of this requirement, I have to wonder if, given the amount of time that it took them to get into this situation in the first place, will 3 months, more or less, be enough time for them to find a way to save their dying companies? Is this bailout/loan just a temporary fix to a more permanent problem? What happens, if on 03/31/2009, the automakers have spent the money fronted them, are unable to come up with a plan to satisfy the stipulations, and can not repay the loan? Is it fair for taxpayers to bear the burden of this as well as the other bailouts that have been given and are likely yet to come?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/11/business/11auto.html?ref=us
Not what I said. Just wondering why we continue getting
and not a single person can stop and show a bit more humanity....that's all.
And I suppose you would rather we continue...(sm)
to run that torture chamber in Guantanamo. Yeah, that would be the one where they can hold supposed SUSPECTS for how long without trial? Maybe you should rent the documentary "Taxi to the Dark Side."
Not that I feel I need to continue.... sm
this seemingly endless and mindless banter, but rather to just satisfy your apparent thirst for blood, I went back and looked to see what I had posted that I felt the need to apologize for. Here is the post that I made to abc that sent her off into a tizzy about it being her body and her embryo, etc.
""And I prefer an abortion to giving up my baby for adoption. I would not be able to sleep a single night, having given my baby to strangers." (Note: This was a quote from abc that I was addressing. )
But you could sleep knowing that you took your baby's life? I am not trying to criticize but simply trying to understand this line of reasoning. " (This was my answer to her quote.)
Now..... go cool off! 
Why can't I continue to discuss
You all carry on about Obama's palling around (re: believing things that simply cannot be substantiated), but you sure can't take it when someone turns around and comments on your precious heroine. How very sad for all of you who hold this vapid, undereducated, unqualified, power hungry example of hollow charm in such high esteem. Perhaps we should be discussing your judgment instead of hers.
Why do you continue to ask "where" when you have
=>
Obama will continue to act like he did regarding
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and the personal attacks continue
Go ahead continue to talk about which you know nothing about
Go ahead, then, continue to talk about what you know nothing about other than news reports and slanted history books and we, who truly know a bit more about jewish issues and Israel will sit back and continue to smile and, of course, like I said in my previous post, there are always courses in the local synagogue that you can take. Join a jewish discussion group either in the net or in your home town, that is if your home town even has a jew in it, and learn the truth. Not what is being put out there by radical orthodox jews. Those are the ones that you see fighting in Israel to stay in Gaza. The radical orthodox jews. Sharon, as much as I dont like him, is right in what he has decided. It is unfortunate but it is just and right.
The gullible continue to hit themselves with hammers.
It's really amazing to see. In the first place, Bush's tax cuts mainly affected investment income. Do you think the ultra wealthy 1% do 9 to 5 at Burger King and report their wages like the rest of us working slobs? Please. They don't have wages and so, do not even contribute to the Social Security coffers (though that doesn't stop them from accepting huge chunks of OUR hard-earned money in Bush free for all tax refund giveaways). Bush took OUR money and gave it to his friends - and himself, by the way.
But here's the real story without the skewed numbers (excerpt):
Grossly Unfair: Evaluating the Bush Proposal
By Ron Sider, President
Evangelicals for Social Action
It is true that the wealthy pay a lot more taxes than others. But even though the Treasury Department reports that the top one percent pay only 20 percent of all federal taxes, Bush wants to give them 40 percent of the tax cut. The bottom 40 percent get only four percent of Bush’s tax cut—i.e., about 1/9 of what the richest one percent receive. The bottom 80 percent receive only 29 percent.
The more closely you look at what has been happening in the last few decades, the more outrageous this 40 percent tax cut for the richest one percent appears. The income of the top one percent has grown vastly more that the rest of the population. From 1989 to 1998, the after-tax income of the bottom 90 percent grew by only five percent, but the richest one percent enjoyed a 40 percent jump. That means the income of the top one percent grew eight times faster than the bottom 90 percent. (That explosion of after-tax income happened even though President Clinton and Congress raised the highest income tax rate to 39.6 percent in 1993—a small tax increase that apparently did not discourage investment, harm the economy or prevent the richest from significantly widening the gap between themselves and everybody else.) Furthermore, the total effect of changes in the tax laws between 1977 and 1998 has already lowered the federal tax payments of the top 17 percent of families by over 14 percent ($36,710) whereas the bottom 80 percent of families saw their average tax payments fall by just 6.9 percent ($335).
It gets still worse. President Bush says his plan is fair because it lowers the tax rates for everyone. In fact, the poorest 31.5 percent of all families do not get a cent from Bush’s proposal (even though 80 percent of them are working) because their incomes are so low they do not pay any federal income taxes. (They do pay substantial payroll taxes, but the tax cut does not change that.) More than half of all black and Latino children are in families that would not benefit a cent from this plan.
Abolishing the estate tax is also wrong. Of course it needs to be revised so that children can inherit family farms and small businesses (that would cost only a fraction of what abolishing it will cost). When fully implemented in 2010, the repeal of the estate tax would provide a mere 64,000 estates with a tax cut of $55 billion—which is the same amount that the poorest 74 percent of all U.S. families (192 million people) would receive in tax cuts.
Abolishing the estate tax is misguided for several reasons. It would discourage charitable giving and thus undermine civil society. Wealthy individuals today can avoid estate taxes on wealth they give to charitable organizations. Consequently, abolishing the estate tax would almost certainly reduce charitable giving to a vast array of private agencies., including precisely the private, non-profit social service agencies in civil society that President Bush (wisely) wants to strengthen and expand. His proposal on the estate tax fundamentally contradicts his desire to expand the role of civil society in general and FBOs in particular in combating poverty—which is why John Dilulio, the head of Bush’s new White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, recently criticized abolishing the estate tax. Fortunately, some of the wealthiest Americans (including Bill Gates’ father) have launched a campaign to preserve the estate tax!
The whole article can be read at www.christianethics.com, issue 35.
Don't let anybody be misled by the sneaky claim that the rich pay oh so much more of the tax burden than you do. Say you make 30,000 and you pay 20% of your wages in taxes - 6000. Along comes rich guy who makes no wages but has to pay 20% of his 3 million investment income in taxes - he would pay 600,000.
Oh my God!!! The rich guy has just paid 600,000 and you only paid 6000! He paid 100 TIMES what you did!! Oh the poor, poor overburdened rich guy! That's how they devise their 80-90% figures. Never mind about fair share, never mind that you are paying taxes on wages that would otherwise go to rent and food and utility costs, while they are paying taxes on free money they get just for having huge sums of money invested wisely, as the rich certainly know how to do. And why shouldn't they? But let's not pretend they need that money for food or shelter. Let's not pretend that they should be in any way exempt from contributing a fair share to the system that makes their happy lifestyles possible.
Before you continue with your generalization rampage
William Bennett's remarks are definitely NOT representative of conservative views as a whole. However, you and GT's comments do nothing...absolutely nothing but make the division between political views that much worse. If you and your ideology truly want unity and peace you would do the cause much good by not adding gasoline to an already bad bonfire.
Your comments cause as much harm to race/political relations as what Bennett said himself.
No. You won't leave. You'll continue on.
Not unlike Bush, who wants to have world domination, you want to dominate all boards here.
Accidents are exused. There's no reason on earth to excuse you.
I don't think it serves any purpose to continue this. sm
Suffice it to say, I can't imagine how I would feel were I in his shoes. Israel is facing some pretty terrible prospects in the days ahead. Anyway, I'd say it's time to let it drop. It's funny, as I am posting this, I see over to the side on the right under the ads by Google, Christian Jewish tours. I have always wanted to go. I have friends who have gone with their churches. I may never get the chance.
You continue to prove my point. (nm)
nm
oh yea, continue the horrors for the victim
Yes, make sure the mother has the baby of the person that raped her. Make sure she goes on for nine months every minute of the day remembering the horrible incident. A lot of rape victims want to commit suicide. Luckily most of them are able to get through it with counseling but most of them don't have a belly to show. But hey, let that belly get bigger. Let her feel the child of the person that committed the horendous crime and violated her body. Make sure she remembers that. Geez - why not just frame the rapists photo so she can see his picture every day. Then the cherry on the cake will be the actual birth when she can once again see the rapist once her baby is born.
And then we have the wonderful knowledge that a lot of times these tendencies are hereditary (not always but a lot of times). Would you want to raise a rapists child knowing that when he/she becomes an adult the likelihood of them committing the same crime against someone else is there.
Oh yes that's a nice 20-year sentance for the victim.
Good. Let the games continue. nm
nm
While you continue to preach to the choir
su
you continue to minimize the gravity of this...
situation. This is not your normal "crisis" for the love of Pete. Whatever McCain has done on deregulation, and I already said he had been for it, when push came to shove, when this looming disaster was foreseen, it was HE who foresaw it, and it was Obama, Dodd, and Frank who ignored everyone, and not only that, ENCOURAGED them to continue the way they were going.
THAT is the point, THAT is what you ignore, and because ou are so enamoured of Barack Obama you do not hold his feet to the fire for his part in this, nor the Democratic party for this.
In THIS issue, NO. The Republicans did NOT have a part in it. They all voted, every single ONE Of them, to push that legislation forward. All the Democrats, eVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM, voted not to. That includes Obama and Biden.
Why on EARTH would you trust him as President? I just don't get it.
I'd rather leap into the unknown, than continue
Republican government. We all KNOW we'll lose our shirts with them. It'll be 'business as usual' with those old fossils. At least with some new blood in office, some of us (who AREN'T corporate CEO's) will stand half a snowball's chance in H___ of survival in the future.
Unlike past elections, which I voted in on ideals alone, this one is different. Lots of us are voting SURVIVAL.
You do if you continue to meet and scheme with
@
Then idjit, why do you continue to post?
//
I'd love to continue to argue with you
but at the moment I have more pressing things to do outside of politics....like making a difference in the community I live in. I'm sure I'll be back to argue with you some more later. LOL
You sank to their level but beyond, and continue to do so.
I give up.
You continue to prove my point.
Yep, their ratings continue to tank while Fox
nm
The pubs will not survive if they continue to . . . .
let the Evangelicals control them!
Independents continue to drift away
Gallup has Obama at his lowest numbers in their polling at 58% approval (down from a high of 69%) and his approval index remains low at +1 on Rasmussen. The approval index is computed as the difference between those who strongly approve minus those who strongly disapprove.
And, both pollsters say that the difference is the growing disenchantment of independents. Republicans and Democrats have held fairly steady opinions, although some Dems are also beginning to have buyer's remorse.
ABC News is going to try to pull Obama's fat out of the fire on healthcare by turning the whole network over to the White House while allowing no dissenting views (bananas, senorita? we have some berry, berry nice fruits here in Banano Republico), but it's safe to predict that it won't work.
Meanwhile, Obama is spending more time denouncing Fox News than Kim Jong IL or the ruling clerics in Iran - and meanwhile Fox viewership continues to grow and grow and grow. None of his folks will come on Fox, of course, so yes - you do hear the faint sound of chickens clucking in the background.
The longer this man is in office, the more cracks we see in his character (i.e., that it really didn't matter to us which Iranian candidate was declared the winner, which betrayed a singular lack of commitment to the principles of democracy) and the more his inexperience shows (i.e., that he doesn't realize that the American people don't want anymore of his programs and spending).
I think that this is the fastest I've ever seen an American public grow sick and tired of a President. The best thing for him to do would be to keep his ugly mug off the TV right now. If he rotates his czars out in front of the camera, one a week, we wouldn't have to look at him for months and months.
Independents continue to drift away
Gallup has Obama at his lowest numbers in their polling at 58% approval (down from a high of 69%) and his approval index remains low at +1 on Rasmussen. The approval index is computed as the difference between those who strongly approve minus those who strongly disapprove.
And, both pollsters say that the difference is the growing disenchantment of independents. Republicans and Democrats have held fairly steady opinions, although some Dems are also beginning to have buyer's remorse.
ABC News is going to try to pull Obama's fat out of the fire on healthcare by turning the whole network over to the White House while allowing no dissenting views (bananas, senorita? we have some berry, berry nice fruits here in Banano Republico), but it's safe to predict that it won't work.
Meanwhile, Obama is spending more time denouncing Fox News than Kim Jong IL or the ruling clerics in Iran - and meanwhile Fox viewership continues to grow and grow and grow. None of his folks will come on Fox, of course, so yes - you do hear the faint sound of chickens clucking in the background.
The longer this man is in office, the more cracks we see in his character (i.e., that it really didn't matter to us which Iranian candidate was declared the winner, which betrayed a singular lack of commitment to the principles of democracy) and the more his inexperience shows (i.e., that he doesn't realize that the American people don't want anymore of his programs and spending).
I think that this is the fastest I've ever seen an American public grow sick and tired of a President. The best thing for him to do would be to keep his ugly mug off the TV right now. If he rotates his czars out in front of the camera, one a week, we wouldn't have to look at him for months and months.
If it's been so nice, why do you continue to come here? Didn't you say you were leaving?
And didn't you say you were going to Iraq, as well? I think you'd be an incredible asset to Bush in Iraq. If you were there, we could win the war immediately. All you have to do is spread your word to the enemy. After five minutes of listening to your skewed logic, they'd turn the weapons on themselves. Masters of surprise terror attacks that they are, this would be a wonderful surprise tactic to use on them.
It doesn't work here any more, though. The only thing that would surprise some of us is if you actually told the truth about something. 
how pathetic your crude jokes continue to be...nm
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