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She does perform live, without auto-tune, and she does a damn good job of it: Q9sLTG52N8o

For what it's worth, I am a fan of Frank Zappa, Rush, Yes, and Jimi Hendrix.

Err, not sure why that frowny face is there... here's a few extra smiley faces to offset it :D That's one of the main reasons I like her. She's giving both Madonna and Christina Aguilera a run for their money in terms of how kinky the stuff she writes about can get, especially in songs like Teeth and Dance in the Dark, not to mention how often she mentions touching herself in So Happy I Could Die.

Some other singer songwriters I really respect: Bob Dylan, Donovan, Neil Young, Roger Waters, John Lennon, Jim Morrison As far as what I've been listening to recently: New Order, Ladytron, Kraftwerk, The Cure, Fischerspooner, Röyksopp, Depeche Mode, The Smiths, Crystal Castles, Komputer, the Gorillaz, and Cut Copy. Some more "classic" stuff I love but don't really listen to as much lately: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, The Doors Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Her Madonna-style pop songs sound a lot different from her Norah Jones-style piano ballads (e.g. Brown Eyes, Speechless, Again Again, Wish You Were Here)

I'm not sure how you got that. Speechless is a song about her father killing himself (figuratively) with alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Could we fix you if you broke? The Fame was certainly a meta album about fame, however, which is pretty daring, considering it was released before she was really famous. So what you're basically saying is you're a pretentious snob? Got it That's certainly not the case for myself, and I think Gaga has emerged as the best singer/songwriter of this decade. The vocals on speechless were phenomenal. Kind of like how tons and tons of modern pop songs use the same chord progression as Pachelebel's Canon? Yeah, I don't really care, that doesn't diminish their value to me musically.

The City of LA general manager has issued a statement reminding Arizona they own the power plants under discussion. Oops.

Let me say this, both O'Reilly and Hannity are better than Glenn Beck. The reason is because they do actually, despite it all, try to be reasonable people. Glenn Beck does not. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedHere's those crazy patchouli smelling hemp-wearing granola eating flower power hippie liberal zealots at CNN in action:

Thanks for consolidating my points there. This really feels like a microcosm of the current political landscape. The Democrats reach, and reach, and reach, and ask for reciprocation for concessions, and in the end the Republicans are just like "f*ck you, we're just going to f*uck up the political process long enough that people vote for us, because clearly the solution when tweedle dee fails is to put tweedle dum in charge" And sorry for an equivocation of the American political parties, but for many "moderates" in this country that's their underlying voting model. Because Pangloss voted for the non-retarded candidate twice in a row, he no longer needs to ride the short bus. jryan, on the other hand, is pretty much a lifer. Oh, I'm sorry, did I imply Pangloss and jryan are retarded? You must've misinterpreted me. It's just rhetoric.

Your wealth of bombastic prose fails to disguise your ignorance of the wonderment that is Lady Gaga. Unlike virtually everyone one of the major female pop stars of our day, Lady Gaga is not only a singer/songwriter but a talented pianist. Honorable mentions certainly go to Christina Aguilera, but I definitely prefer Gaga. Gaga's music falls into essentially two categories, her Madonna-esque synthpop that she's most famous for, and her Norah Jones-style piano ballads. The synthpop made her famous, but her piano ballads are where she really shows her talent. Speechless is one such song, which has not only exquisite lyrics but excellent and passionate vocalization. Lady Gaga really is talented: IhEMxle0yEY (Hint: It's about her father)

To me there's a substantial difference between a tactic such as "his memory must not quite be what it used to because he's forgetting about... [some political point]" versus claiming a politician has a specific medical condition such as amnesia. Perhaps you missed my response earlier in the thread: If you wish for me to specifically denounce a collusion between amnesia and Parkinsons, I'll happily do that after you denounce the NRCC for issuing a statement that John Spratt has amnesia when he assuredly does not. It disturbs me you're deliberately ignoring the outright lies the Republicans are perpetrating here. And for the record, I would certainly not put it past the Republicans to use claims of "amnesia" to instill fear, uncertainty, and doubt about Spratt's Parkinson's. But I will happily put that aside if we can simply reach the middle ground that these statements on behalf of the NRCC are a low blow and in extremely bad taste.

Wow Severian, I agree with everything you said, except I'm way into her music. She has all these wonderful Norah Jones-style songs that are absolutely amazing, like Speechless and Brown Eyes. I love her Madonna-sounding songs too. Dance in the Dark reminds me a lot of Vogue.

Who likes her? I do!

It really is an invalid comparison, Pangloss. It'd be no different than comparing Cavuto to Beck. Sure, Cavuto isn't that great of a journalist, but Cavuto isn't actively making people think the government is expanding out of control and being hijacked by communist Nazi Socialists who are hell bent on taking away our liberties while at the same time trashing the economy. By the way, buy gold! No, Cavuto is just a medicore journalist. If you really think this is a valid comparison, I'd suggest you haven't watched enough of Beck's program to form a proper opinion about the man.

Well, clearly Pangloss, ParanoiA, and others do not have a Republican approach here. I think I'll adopt it myself.

So no conservatives have anything bad to say about the Republican party making statements like this, and just want to blame the victim. Wow. I weep for this country.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10132762.stm From what I can tell from the article, these scientists synthesized the organisms DNA, then implanted it into an existing cell. The cell then functioned normally. Even that seems like a major breakthrough to me, but I'm not really sure about the state of the science.

There's a huge amount of things I don't like about Ron Paul, and I certainly wouldn't want him to be President of the US, but compared to the average Republican I find him substantially more respectable.

padren, It's really an issue of intent, and specifically intent to cause harm in spite of otherwise being a well-thinking human being. Well-adjusted members of society are not an immiment threat, to others at the very least, because they adhere to the social contract. In the case of a mentally ill person, they cannot be expected to adhere to the social contract because they lack the mental faculties to do so. As the adage goes, they "can't tell right from wrong." They may harm others with little understanding of what they're actually doing. That's the crux of the issue to me: is the individual actually violating the social contract, or incapable of accepting it in the first place?

Demented old Pangloss, his reasoning is failing him, and while he cries spin against Anderson Cooper, he completely forgets about that when the politicans in power on the other side do something ten times worse than a mere news personality, and his dementia allows him to give a total bye to Republicans. Oh, sorry, I wasn't saying Pangloss is actually demented. I'm just saying Pangloss is a bad moderator. Of course not! That would be laughable, to think that the senile elderly population that makes up the Republican base would interpret that statement as saying that John Spratt actually has memory problems, and repeat that idea, and spread rumors about it. Certainly that sort of thing has never happened before in the history of the Republican party, like at the Tea Parties. Oh, sorry, I wasn't saying that the Republican base is actually senile and elderly. I'm just saying they're poor decision makers and therefore bad voters. Yes, how dare someone with a disability take offense when their political opponents insinuate they're unfit to lead due to a disability. Clearly John Spratt is exploiting entirely accidental and coincidental conflation by playing the disability card! Perhaps this sort of ridiculous conservative doublethink should be classified as a mental disease. Not that I'm really saying that conservatives who support this kind of thing are mentally deficient. I'm just comparing this sort of mentality to having a mental disease which hinders normal rational thought. That's not to suggest that people who support this kind of thing are mentally unsound and should be institutionalized. I'm just throwing it out there, you know. As a kind of joke... like the Republicans did. If you thought I was actually suggesting that Pangloss or the Republican base are actually mentally deficient and demented that's simply your fault for misinterpreting my rhetoric. If you really do have a disability and what I've said offends you, piss off. You're just playing the disability card. What's wrong with you? You suck. Stop using weasel victim games. -- Seriously though, all I'm looking for here is a "Yeah, that's a low blow, and in poor taste. Perhaps the Republicans can do better" Instead, I'm a getting a "Not only have the Republicans done nothing wrong here, but John Spratt is a douchebag and is leveraging these malicious attacks for political points" And my only reaction is: whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?

Ethics are nuanced, and a better understanding of the world will allow you to better weigh the pros and cons of particular situations and come to the best conclusion. In general I believe more knowledgeable people are generally more ethical.

God is a corporation. I like it. From a purely legal perspective, this is perfectly acceptable, at least under US law. There is no reason why the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit can not be, at the same time, God, Inc. From a philosophical/identity perspective, if enough information were shared between conscious entities I see no reason they couldn't be considered subcomponents of the same entity. Maybe they're all telepathic and capable of instantaneous knowledge transfer.

Meltdown in the style of Chernobyl can no longer happen. Modern nuclear reactors are designed so a coolant failure stops the nuclear reaction, as opposed to Chernobyl, where it caused the reactor to go critical.

Granted there are liberal and conservative issues surrounding immigration policy, but at the heart of the Arizona law is the idea that it can be a crime in and of itself to be out and about with the wrong paperwork. Regarding the specific legislation surrounding green cards, the mandatory carry policy makes immigrant American citizens inherently second class, and I really oppose that. Specifically regarding Arizona's policy, and the federal law, it would seem that the mandatory carry policy for green cards was rarely enforced and that your typical immigrant citizen could happily go about their day-to-day lives and generally get away with not carrying a green card. That is no longer the case in Arizona. If Arizona is pointing out the stupidity of the federal law, and you want to pin that on the federal law, I guess, go ahead. I think the federal law needs changed. But then again, we live our daily lives within a plethora of outdated, unenforced laws, because people generally recognize they are dumb. Even post-9/11, I don't think the mandatory carry policy for green cards was much enforced. In every encounter I've ever had with police on foot, and even in the overwhelming majority involving alcohol, I have not been asked to present ID and I strongly respect that. I certainly recognize the need to present ID in cases involving alcohol or driving. But never have I been asked to present any form of ID or "proof of citizenship" (and for the record I've never been arrested or charged with a crime beyond minor traffic infractions) To Arizona's credit right now there is relatively little offensive case precedent. It's just people mad at the tone of the law. We'll see what actually happens. If you're a primarily Spanish-speaking Hispanic American citizen, and you throw a house party with a bunch of primarily Spanish-speaking Hispanic American citizens in Arizona, and it gets a little bit too loud and your neighbors call the cops, can they ask you all to present proof of citizenship when they respond to the noise complaint? As a libertarian, I'd hope not. Sadly, I'd think ParanoiA, who until today I actually thought of as a true libertarian, might disagree.

This is true. If nuclear waste is improperly stored it can lead to environmental disaster. However, that's the exception, not the rule, versus technologies like coal where polluting the environment is business as usual. There will never be another Chernobyl. Chernobyl had an unsafe design which is not employed by any other operative nuclear reactor in the world.