Phi for All

This could actually be a good discussion if you could please curb your stereotyping by a few orders of magnitude. I don't think these groups deserve your blanket condemnation, especially given that this is, what, 2013? Oh, that's just magical misdirection. If you have enough money to buy legislation, you can afford to let the People think their assault rifles will protect them from "the government" (which, ironically, is supposed to be the People). It's much more likely that those freedom-loving, arms-bearing patriots will quickly become "armed domestic terrorists" if they ever cross the 1% who control the real weapons. Until one of them shows up and offers that argument, would you mind not trying to use it to refute what's actually been said? I've been dying to ask you, waitforufo, what you thought of Eisenhower. We know you liked Reagan, but what's wrong with Ike, other than the fact that he's dead and only a few national level Republican politicians seem to remember him?

It took quite a while for the 1% to redistribute the wealth in their favor. It's been happening all my life. You're never going to suddenly reverse that. You're never going to take it from those who have it unless you do it the way they did it, slowly but surely over time. We're in dire straits because of wage disparity. When the US was really strong, our economy was driven by all the folks earning great money for hard work. They made good money and spent it while paying taxes on it all. The government had plenty of revenue. It was common back then that the top people at any corporation were making ten times what the average worker beneath them made, and that was fine and folks were happy and we were prosperous. Now, those middle class wages have been trimmed down, benefits cut to the bone, so the top people can make two-hundred seventy-three times what the average worker makes. Those people at the top got Reagan and the Bush's to drop their tax liabilities, so now that money that used to sustain our economy and procure revenue for the government sits with the 1% where it's now being spent overseas to make them more tax-sheltered money they can keep out of the US economy. Talking about redistributing the wealth plays right into their hands. Even I don't like the thought of giving Popcorn Sutton $50K a year just because he thinks that would be "fair". The 1% can easily make that seem like theft while what they did was simply "tightening the belt" or "downsizing to stay competitive" or "sharpening their pencils" or "cost-cutting", or any of the phrases that hide what they really did, which was robbing from the middle class to give to the 1%. The US will NOT come back as a prosperous country while so much of its wealth is concentrated in the hands of those who really aren't invested in seeing us all prosper.

You're using up your hour on stage with a lot of strutting and fretting. Can you kick your tale up a notch and perhaps signify something?

First, how about a definition of "The Tea Party"? I see them as people who don't want to be sheep anymore but are so woefully uninformed of the bigger pasture that they decided taking the wolves' money was a smart move. Now they're just a magnet for every fear-based argument their leaders can dream up to keep the sheep rabid while the wolves fleece the herd. And the bizarre part is where the sheep praise the wolves for removing most of that cumbersome, itchy wool, except for that patch that covers their eyes.

I saw a TEDTalk recently where the speaker showed results from testing what endorphins were released when we smile. Iirc, it was actually muscle related, since she claimed if you didn't really feel like smiling, you could get the same release of chemicals by putting a pen between your teeth to force the muscles into a smiling position. These chemicals may provide more clarity in stressful situations, definitely an evolutionary advantage.

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24k gold! Grats and thanks so much, Tom!

Peacocks, badgers, bonobos. Greed is hard to distinguish from gluttony in animals other than human, since they don't have many other possessions than food. Sloth, sloth, sloth... hmm, no, nothing comes to mind....

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I'll reprint my answer to another thread entitled What makes something funny? You're looking for the patterns that set up something to be funny, not the material itself, right? Because subject material is highly subjective. One of the funniest jokes I've ever heard is so horribly offensive in its subject matter that most folks can't look beyond that to see how brilliantly funny the joke really is. Triplets are always a good pattern (a priest, a lumberjack and a gynecologist walk into a bar...). Words with b, d, g, k, and p are generally funnier sounding than words without them (aardvark is a funnier word than anteater). The sounds of them are occluded vocally, making them start and stop suddenly, which is good for comedy. Exaggeration is always good, as is a vast disparity between objects and people (an ant walks up to an elephant...). Misdirection is a favorite as well (Steve Martin told this joke about being sad that his girlfriend died. "In a way, it was my fault. She'd been drinking heavily and wanted to leave the party. I told her I should drive and asked for her keys. She refused, we argued some more, she insisted on driving, so I shot her."). Lead the audience down the wrong path, make them think they know what's coming, and then spring something completely off the wall at them.

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So what was your answer?

I think our biggest problem in Speculations is how a concept is presented, so this might work well. Good idea, md65536. If we can get posters to avoid claims of Proof! and GR B Wrong! I think it would stop most of the pile-on, knee-jerk responses and their attendant replies that turn a single page concept into seven pages of WTF?!. We can certainly let members know it's preferable to do an abstract, but I'm not sure how it would work to require one.

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Then you're not discussing this with anybody, you're just preaching. This is NOT a preaching forum.

Wow, really? I highlighted all the words pertinent to my point and everything. overtone states that national level Republican politicians have adopted an ideology of fascism, and you pull that statement over onto yourself and then claim he's wrong in calling YOU a fascist. Are YOU a national level Republican politician, or are you just swinging at strawmen like one? It's such a Limbaugh tactic that I thought next you'd be telling him he doesn't support the troops because he doesn't support the war.

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I see what you did there. Make sure and claim he doesn't support the troops!

These animals have been bred for consumption, they have neither the instincts nor the physical capability to thrive in the wild. We give them a life as free from stress and pain as possible until we need them for food. We need to improve those conditions, not abandon them completely. Free them... where? Where exactly is "the wild"? What keeps them off the roads and highways? What happens to the ecosystems they're introduced into? Once predator populations explode with all the available prey, where will they look for their meals when the cows and pigs are gone? That many wolves and coyotes will eventually bring down the wild animal populations we're trying to save. This is one of those emotional responses iNow was talking about earlier. It's not cruel to raise livestock, it's one of the main reasons you're here today, living in a society that doesn't have to spend every waking minute looking for food. What makes humans eating meat unethical when every other omnivore does? Is it because we're intelligent? It was our intelligence that came up with the brilliant idea to raise animals for food. I think it's much more cruel to abandon animals we've bred to be docile into an environment of constant predation they're not equipped to deal with.

I don't think both of these sentences are addressing the same issue. It's probably the lack of rigor in methodology that makes any scientist "shun" anyone studying non-mainstream explanations. And if the research is respectable, then it probably isn't being "shunned".

! Moderator Note James Redford, linking to your own articles to support your own suppositions is nothing more than soapboxing, which is against our rules. It's also quite obvious you're being less than honest in your "bombardment" approach to evidence. Nothing you've cited lives up to your claim of "proof" in the title, and most of your references are blatant proselytizing. Sorry to the rest of the membership that we haven't already placed a warning in this thread. If this "Gish Gallup" approach continues, the thread will be closed.