ParanoiA

You know, I think this just might be one of those rare times where bad publicity is actually bad publicity. If he was being edgy during a comedy routine and some were simply offended, then I could certainly see a publicity stunt being a motivator. But in this case, he either blew the stunt or he blew his top.

That's interesting. I like that idea. That would explain the strangeness of dreams and you could go some interesting directions with the different levels of sleep, in reference to your brainwave activity.

Gee...did Sinbad go backstage after his offensive performace and give him this advice? Because, if you would READ, you'd know that Michael Richards claimed to go look for these gentlemen a few minutes later after he cooled down and supposedly realized what he'd done. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,233657,00.html Let me guess...he wasn't looking for them to apologize right? He was probably looking for them so he could hurl more hate speech at them right? But good ole Sinbad came to the rescue... I think I'm starting to get somewhat misanthropic myself. This part makes me sick: Cash settlement for what? Free speech? Does the KKK and the Black Panthers have to make cash settlements to practice free speech? He's perfectly free to be a racist bigot. I'm sure Richards is all cool with it as he just wants to get out of this hole - even if he's selling out our constitutional rights to do it. The money is the real motivator behind Gloria Allred and company.

Absolutely not - or at least not me. I can't wait until we're a minority. As a white man, the only problem I see, is that we still won't get the benefits of a minority status because then the attitude will be that we deserve to be kicked around for awhile - continual supposed payback. So no affirmative action for us. No using the race card. If we complain about being oppressed, the legitimacy won't be relevant, we'll be told that we basically deserve a taste of our own medicine. At least, that's my cynical outlook.

And to actually spend that time. I'll be honest, if I was rich, I doubt I would spend any more time helping anyone than I do right now. But, I'd be more than happy to hand over gobs of dough to let other people spend the time. That is the most prevalent attitude as it is the middle class that gives very little at all - pathetic actually - and the majority is middle class. I'm in that bracket and I give squat. I am impressed that any rich people would care at all, much less enough so to get involved with their time and money. Most of the charity comes from them since they earn and have, exponentially, the most money. They deserve respect for what they do. I doubt most liberals would give them any credit, or very little anyway, while giving even less themselves. And I'm sure they would want you to forget about it when they're crying about tax breaks for the wealthy - or as I like to call it, tax breaks for the employers of the country. I don't know. I would imagine there's plenty of things they consider charity that I wouldn't. Just like there's several things I would consider charity, that they wouldn't. That's just splitting hairs on giving and doesn't mean a whole lot to me. I don't think handing out bibles would be considered charity by anybody but religious folk, and I don't think the author is a church guy. But I don't know for sure. Exactly what it sounds like. Stossel made a distinction between working poor families and government raised poor families. The entitlement trained poor don't give squat. The families that are poor because their jobs suck, while sticking with it and taking responsibility for themselves and their life give the highest percentage of anyone. Now that's nobility.

Well, according to John Stossel, whom took the data from this book for his report, liberal and conservative churches were within a couple of percentage points of each other. I believe the conservative based were more apt to give money, whereas the liberal based were more likely to volunteer their personal time (which is a bit more noble I think). None of the money donated to the church is being counted, just the money that actually goes to the charities or events - supposedly anyway. The religious givers are the most prolific givers. What I find far more interesting is the rich and working poor that give. The rich have a tendency to prefer philanthropy over writing checks, seeming to prefer getting involved themselves in more of the process besides just handing over money and walking away. After listening to several different stories on different billionaires and what they're doing, I'm more impressed with that approach. The working poor give the highest percentage compared with the middle class and rich. Not the leeching poor, the working poor. 20/20 compared a salvation army donation bucket at a high income, highly liberal area in San Francisco with the same set up in some lower income, smaller city or town and the lower income, blue collar town gave twice as much total money. I know that's not exactly scientific, but it's worth noting.

Aaahh..I see. I was beginning to wonder.

Where are the Battlestar Galactica people?? The old series was as stupid as a sci-fi series can get. But the new one is such a breath of fresh air. I've been waiting and waiting and longing for a sci-fi something that doesn't insult my intelligence with cookie cutter plots and predictable characters that always do the right thing. Not to mention the make up and soap opera drama style that's taken over the sci fi channel. BSG is the new sliced bread. You never know what's going to happen from episode to episode. The characters are believeable and the storyline is original. Hell, they drew up some twisted drama when the humans were being held in concentration camps and they fought back with suicide bombers while dealing with traitors that helped police them - the parallels to Iraq where interesting, with a bit of a role reversal. Sorry...I really dig this show

Anyone heard of this book - Who Really Cares? This guy, Arthur Brooks, has put together some detailed studies and discovered that conservatives are more compassionate and giving than liberals, in terms of charity and philanthropy. In fact, one thing that surprises me is that religious conservatives give the most. I tend to see religious conservatives as exclusionary, stuffy types. You wouldn't think the same people who kick homosexuals out of their churches would actually care and give more to society. And according to John Stossel, I'm in the category of folks that don't give a damn thing. I'm a selfish, middle class, cheapskate. If it wasn't true, I'd feel better about it...

I already acknowledged this sentiment in post #44 So, yeah I get that. And most people do. The limited discussions I've had with other black folks have confirmed that. Lincoln did a good thing relative to his time, not relative to ours. Yeah, we all get that too. These aren't terribly deep concepts. It's a part of white guilt conditioning. However, King forced everyone to put money behind those words. Sure, we know what our founding fathers meant. They wanted freedom for anglos, slavery and servitude, submission from everyone else. But they didn't use those words did they? King read those words and interpreted them as they were written - and that's what he used to advance civil rights. And rightly so. And who's really doing the misrepresentation here anyway? It's the founding fathers that wrote one thing, and did another. They are the ones that should be held under suspicion, not King. King worked with what he had - facts. The written facts. Everything else is just "he said", "she said", but those words were written - and written very carefully. You touting factual worship should appreciate King's approach since he also worked with the facts, not the gossip. This is juvenile and makes me suspect you of racial overture. You appear to be taking a popularist view and challenging masculinity to prove your allegiance. You don't need to prove your white shame and exaggerate your passion for equality to make your point. Just use intellect and reasoning, it's longer lasting and utilizes the spirit of freewill.

I also enjoyed how he codemns the US action in Iraq and calls it a failure, then later refers to the new Iraqi government as a good thing. He also tries to imply that the US, alone, can control the UN in keeping Israel from being punished for their "atrocities" on the palestinians. He refuses to accept the idea that perhaps the countries that makeup the UN just don't agree with him. No, no, it must be the US and their "bully" tactics. He's taking this bully thing and building on it.

And the problem is...?

This is how I understand it too Gutz. And I believe that fits with what's been said so far. It's probably not quite right, but I think of it like mass squeezing itself into spacetime, creating the pressure or curvature of the localized space. Like taking a full bottle of water and forcing an ice cube in it without increasing the volume (I don't even know if that's possible, but it works in my noggin). In my mind, this creates pressure on the ice cube - the ice cube being mass, the water being space. Of course, the problem with that example is the pressure is distributed evenly in a bottle of water, whereas in space it is localized - at least I think that's true.

Wow, you sure missed that one. I'm saying that I have to call bullshit when everything in the world is Bush's fault. That's like saying greenhouse gases are to blame for Palestinian plight. At some point, you have to get past your blind republican hatred - Bush isn't going to be in office forever and then you'll have to find someone else to blame for rising and falling gas prices, terrorism, the budget, winter, traffic jams....

Well, in all fairness, Bush was doing all kinds of things before 9/11. If you remember, they called him a clean desk man because he was in that honeymoon period of the presidency, signing bills and getting things done. Then 9/11 happened and whether he would like to or not, the media has demanded this kind of attention to terrorism. I don't think Bush needs to be "taught" anything in that regard, as it was his preference. I feel compelled to take up for Bush because at this point his name is synonymous with blame - to a cartoonish extent. Everything is the fault of Bush, Cheney and Halliburton. I swear, I don't know how this country every did a single thing wrong without them to blame. And with all the finger pointers, it's apparent to me we have an aweful lot of perfect people running around with all of the answers to everything. For a minute there, I thought you were serious about the public servant dedication bit...

You really hit the nail on the head. That's exactly what worries me too, and I add myself to that category in that I'm worried about what I haven't heard him say. Some folks, I'm sure, will respond that speakers alter their tone for their crowd - but "death to america, death to Israel..." is a pretty hardcore tone to defend in any audience.

I don't support a hate-group nor an elitist socialist regime either. And I don't support either of your precious parties. I also don't align criminals with political parties or any other extremist mentality. I'm a libertarian for the most part and I vote with my conscience. I don't pick the lesser of two evils, or who I think is going to win or any of that childish BS. I will be happy to tell anyone that the incremental brainwashing and duping of the people of the world's superpower is worse than an open and direct indoctrination of bigotry and hate. I never said I liked republicans. As I've stated before, Southpark creator Trey parker said it best, "I can't stand conservatives, but I f#$cking hate liberals"...a little light on the hate though, I'm softening up in my older age...

I am quite libertarian and even I don't have a nice thing to say about corporate USA. I don't think corporations were what our founding fathers envisioned when they drafted this experiment.

Instead, the democrats lie and pretend to represent the blue collar worker while stealing his money and using it to hold down millions of people in multiple generations of entitlement legislation and victimology, leading to the stagnant advancement of an entire culture. Democrats are republicans with the capacity to cheat the cheated. Ie..They understand that lowering taxes for the rich will increase revenue and they know why it works - yet they pretend to champion the uneducated sheep and fool them into their fold, playing on their class division psychology. This sneaky, underhanded propogation of con artistry is just as much the fault of the american sheeple as it is the propagandists themselves. At least the republicans appear to have the balls to stand up and say exactly what they stand for, so I don't fear them as much. Yes they are hypocritical, judgemental bastards with a flawed ideology, but that's preferred over hypocritical opportunists with a flawed ideology.

http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/iran_pres_letter.pdf Was wondering if anyone has read this and what they think about it. After a quick read I can say that I see some inconsistencies with his logic and I can't help but to be suspicious. That said, it's an interesting idea at the least. I'm saving any other opinions until I've thought about it more.

I would love to be wrong about this, but I'm thinking the Muslim nations would be quicker to condemn turkey for allying itself with the infadels rather than see the sense in prosperity in cooperation and tolerance.

And yet it hasn't caused the middle east to change much at all. I realize the US may not be their neighbor, but Europe arguably is, and watching them prosper hasn't done much more than humiliate them as they retain their archaic framework. They just despise and defame this prosperity by brainwashing their people to believe it's drenched in sin and the result of bedding with the devil. It's too bad too, because I'd love to see them redirect their hatred and obsession with death and religion to building, constructing, educating...advancing.

I have not heard any of this. I do know some things happened before the camera phone captured the rest, but it was said that there were more racist comments by Richards. This came straight from the mouth of one of the hecklers on fox news. If they were being racist first, then it's hard to be so pissed at Richards, but since when has two wrongs made a right? You only get a positive from two negatives when multiplying, not adding...(ok that was stupid, sorry)

Don't worry, I'm not nearly so naive as to expect equal treatment...

I don't see how that's any worse or better than the political correctness worshiped by the left. There is also not a single elected politician that would be willing to violate the PC code, no matter how stupid or harmful that code may be. I don't trust any politician, let alone elected and regardless of party alignment, although democrats are more threatening in my mind.