This isn't exactly politics, yet it kind of is.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-dudley/christian-faith-requires-_b_8763 45.html
It's an opinion piece that makes a few good points about Christianity, and the pragmatic reasons why a Christian might accept evolution and reject creationism.
Basically, I would say the author points out that evolution is a better scientific theory than creationism (which still fails to adequately explain several things that he lists), and that Christians should respect what God built, not what they think God built. Or something like that.
Yeah. It's actually very interesting how so many people think that they're mutually exclusive.
If you look at the order of creation in the Bible, it runs roughly parallel with the order of evolution.
If you go with the punctuated equilibrium theory (which, btw, is better supported by the fossil record than classical evolution), it's even easier to believe in creationism.
CIA assassinates Hugo Chavez in Cuba - they got him to smoke an exploding cigar! Film at 11.
[ http://goo.gl/JR75s ]
For nearly 70 years now, every $1.00 in new taxation has resulted in $1.17 of new governmnt spending. This pretty much decidedly slams the door shut on any argument that the liberals make that we need to increase taxes in order to fix the economy.
The government needs to be cut down to a tiny fraction of its current size.
It needs to be a lean mean machine that does little more than keep the peace.
A government's answer to any problem is, of course, more government, and until we put a stop to this, the statist leviathan will continue to grow out of control until the whole world collapses.
A government's answer to any problem is, of course, more government,
exactly...
Here's a rather pointed atheistic perspective: why bother debating dogma?
http://www.youtube.com/user/patcondell#p/u/66/I5cXWElb-GE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMN2c24Y1s&feature=player_embedded
wikileaks commercial.
[ http://goo.gl/HA7HM ]
To all the folks who said "McCain would be like a third term of Bush!!!11"
...and to whom we replied, even though we weren't all that fond of McCain, that Obama would be like a second term of Jimmy Carter...
All that's left to say now is ... we told you so.
[ http://goo.gl/VLVxz ]
What is known as the "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to overthrow capitalism by overwhelming the system with impossible demands, which creates (again, deliberately) a crisis and then eventually, collapse.
They've gotten quite far in this strategy. Will America awaken and stop it before completion?
Ahhh yes, the vast left wing conspiracy. the_mgt knows the real story behind that one -- Obama is actually working for Bill Drummond and the KLF, Bill wants his million quid reprinted.
hahaha, never really made that connection, but know that you say it, I remember owning a mixtape in the 80s with some music by them. (I was around 10 yo then and only discovered the books 5-6 years later.)
About the political situation in USA, I believe in the Tzarist Occupied Government theory and the democrans/republicrats conspiracy the late RAW proposed while candidating for his Guns 'n' Dope party. http://www.gunsanddopeparty.com/
Equal rights for ostriches!!!
Gnaaaa, Loanshark! I didn't listen to that tune for about 20 years and now the melody of Justified & Ancient haunts me!!!
TURN UP THE STROBE!!
Subject: Editorial: "compromise" and the unbalanced budget
This was originally posted as a response to a message my long time friend Matt H. posted on his blog [ http://technospiritualist.blog.com/2011/07/30/senator-john-boehner/ ]. It has been slightly edited in its appearance here, mainly to detach it from the context of the original post.
Many people are now calling for our governmental critters in Washington to find a "compromise" that will get us past this nasty little budgetary stalemate regarding the August 2 debt ceiling deadline.
They are calling for a compromise, but on what? The reason the Tea Party exists in the first place is because partisan politics have gotten out of control. Would a compromise involve accepting a tax hike (or as the left now calls it, "revenue enhancements")??
The dirty little secret that the media doesn't tell you is that the government won't pay off its credit cards just because they raised taxes. If you look at their spending history for the last half century (enough of a time span that you can't really blame one political party or the other for this) -- for every dollar of new tax revenue the government brought in, they added $1.17 of new spending.
Lest anyone think I'm making this up, here's the easiest citation, although it can be confirmed elsewhere as well: [ http://goo.gl/katgJ ]
Tea Party reps know this. And they're not loyal to the Republican establishment; they are loyal to the American people and the Constitution. That's why they're taking such a hard line. They know that a "compromise" just kicks the can down the road.
And because they know this, one of the things being rejected by the ideologues on the left is any "compromise" that only lasts one year. One year should be ample time to get things in order, right? But they know it isn't; they know that the Obama camp isn't going to take that year to say "ok, we spent too much, this health care thing is unsustainable so we'd better roll it back" -- no way, no how. They will only accept a plan that raises the debt ceiling high enough to kick the can down the road for TWO years -- in other words, well past the 2012 election.
The "cut, cap, and balance" plan is a compromise. It includes a balanced budget amendment. When you think about it, it's insane that we even need a balanced budget amendment -- the idea of keeping the budget balanced should have been common sense and standard practice ever since the beginning. So why is it a compromise? Because when Boehner's camp tells you that they're willing to cut a trillion dollars, they're talking about cutting a trillion dollars from a baseline of a NINE trillion dollar increase. Where I come from, nine minus one is eight. That's +8.
Google "the penny plan" to see what we really ought to be doing. The penny plan balances the budget by:
- Cutting total federal spending by one percent each year for six consecutive years,
- Setting an overall spending cap of 18 percent of gross domestic product in 2018, and
- Reducing overall spending by $7.5 trillion over 10 years.
[ source: http://minx.cc/?post=319378 ]
By the way ... the idea that rolling past the August 2 deadline without raising the debt ceiling is going to suddenly plunge the Known Universe into a catastrophic chain reaction that implodes the entire space-time continuum -- that's nothing but scaremongering. It will indeed cause a few problems, but the sun will rise in the east on August 3.
However, I'm just a computer engineer who's never had to rely on either, or ever been on a gov't payroll, so there may not be much streamlining to be done to either--though I highly doubt that. Regardless, though, any cuts to either of those programs will be met with a lot of resistance--at least from the constituency, if not the representatives themselves.
Even past that, though, I'd surmise that the Penny Plan would meet resistance on both sides just for the simple fact that it would mean all those pet projects that congress-people like to push would now be under a lot more scrutiny. This may affect Democrats more than Republicans if the party stereotypes hold true, but I think everything would be fair game at that point.
Don't get me wrong, though. I like the simplicity of the Penny Plan, and, with my Libertarian leanings, it would most likely lead towards a smaller government. I just think it would have a bit of an uphill battle, to say the least.
Penny Binder
It's only the libertarians and paleocons (aka "tea party") who actually want to fix the problem. And the reason those groups make up a minority (although the results of the 2010 elections suggest that this may change) is because everyone wants spending cuts, but only to programs which benefit someone else.
Quite frankly I think the government deserves to lose the AAA rating on its municipal bonds. They've proven that they're not financially responsible.
Well, if they don't pay social security out, they should allow the rest of us to stop paying into the damned thing.