"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes that you can do these things. Among them are a few Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or businessman from other areas. Their number is negligible, and they are stupid."

- Dwight D Eisenhower 8 November 1954

>> ^Lawdeedaw:

You know, huge ants like that are actually weak. It is the small ants that are the great destroyers... For one, food...for two, you can stop these but small ones can go anywhere... Just saying--all horror films should be based on real life


Then, watch the crappy Empire of the Ants.

*history *music

FYI from the video's description:

List of films used:
00:06 - A Fistful of Dynamite (aka 'Duck, You Sucker!') (1971)
00:26 - The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
00:32 - The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954)
00:33 - The Bridge on the River Kwai ("Madness") (1957)
00:35 - True Lies (1994)

00:43 - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
00:45 - Hogan's Heroes (1965)
00:47 - The Wild Bunch (1969)
00:52 - Monsters vs Aliens (2009)
00:56 - The Core (2003)
00:58 - Tropic Thunder (2008)

01:06 - Mission: Impossible III (2006)
01:11 - I Am Legend (2007)
01:18 - A Bridge Too Far (1977)
01:21 - The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)

Music:
Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture, Op. 49 (by Bernard Haitink, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra)"

I find it interesting that "Under God" itself wasn't added to the pledge until 1954, and that the original salute was the "bellamy salute" - which looked just like Hitler's preferred method of recognition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Students_pledging_allegiance_to_the_American_flag_with_the_Bellamy_salute.jpg

People who are outraged about these small changes over time clearly have no grasp on history.

A little background for those who are interested.

During the beginnings of WW2 the Polish saw that the Germans were amassing armies of some magnitude and were certain that they couldn't hope to fight them. So they worked on cracking the codes that the Germans were using for communication. This was a fantastic piece of mathematics and was eventually put into practice via a machine called the Bomba.

The poles handed a copy of their findings to the British intelligence through a man called Knox, who would eventually become Turing's superior at Bletchley Park. It was later found out that Knox was also a homosexual, despite being married.

The enigma machine was altered after the Bomba was made, Turing analysed the code and mathematics and created a machine known as the Bombe. This was capable of cracking the enigma code by looking for contradictions.

This machine was later re-invented as The Colossus machines by a gifted engineer, Tommy Flowers. These machines were capable of cracking an enigma message in roughly 10 minutes. By the end of the war, the British were cracking the broadcasted Enigma coded messages before the Germans could themselves as they decoded messages manually using the enigma machine.

In 1945, Turing was awarded the OBE for his wartime services. He committed suicide in 1954, although this is disputed, especially by his mother.

In 2009 as the result of a petition, a government apology was issued by Gordon Brown for the way Turing had been treated.

"Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him ... So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better."

I've had the chance to learn a lot about Bletchley park in my studies of computing history, and what a remarkable man Turing was.

A personal hero of mine too. *promote

Touched.. by tragedy?

What, a fucking, understatement. Given a choice between imprisonment or hormonal treatment? As if they can.. cure the gay away. Touched by tragedy doesn't even begin to describe the kind of stupidity exhibited in this case, by society, no less.

In January 1952, Turing met Arnold Murray outside a cinema in Manchester. After a lunch date, Turing invited Murray to spend the weekend with him at his house, an invitation which Murray accepted although he did not show up. The pair met again in Manchester the following Monday, when Murray agreed to accompany Turing to the latter's house. A few weeks later Murray visited Turing's house again, and apparently spent the night there.[48]

After Murray helped an accomplice to break into his house, Turing reported the crime to the police. During the investigation, Turing acknowledged a sexual relationship with Murray. Homosexual acts were illegal in the United Kingdom at that time,[49] and so both were charged with gross indecency under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885, the same crime for which Oscar Wilde had been convicted more than fifty years earlier.[50]

Turing was given a choice between imprisonment or probation conditional on his agreement to undergo hormonal treatment designed to reduce libido. He accepted chemical castration via oestrogen hormone injections.[51]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing#Conviction_for_indecency

On 8 June 1954, Turing's cleaner found him dead; he had died the previous day. A post-mortem examination established that the cause of death was cyanide poisoning. When his body was discovered an apple lay half-eaten beside his bed, and although the apple was not tested for cyanide,[54] it is speculated that this was the means by which a fatal dose was delivered. An inquest determined that he had committed suicide, and he was cremated at Woking Crematorium on 12 June 1954.[55] Turing's mother argued strenuously that the ingestion was accidental, caused by her son's careless storage of laboratory chemicals. Biographer Andrew Hodges suggests that Turing may have killed himself in an ambiguous way quite deliberately, to give his mother some plausible deniability.[56] Others suggest that Turing was re-enacting a scene from the 1937 film Snow White, his favourite fairy tale, pointing out that he took "an especially keen pleasure in the scene where the Wicked Witch immerses her apple in the poisonous brew."[57]

>> ^shinyblurry:

Is there a point where you're actually going to contribute something to the conversation, or are you just going to stay in the peanut gallery and snipe at me?
No one is out. Just because different Christians believe different things doesn't make them unchristian. Misled, perhaps, but anyone who believes on Christ is saved. Personally, I am non-denominational.
How is the book of John ruled out? What on earth are you talking about? The passages referring to what people call the rapture could be interperted a few different ways..I accept them, I just read them differently.
Look, it's clear you don't know anything about scripture. Why don't you do some research before you toss around these ignorant statements.
>> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. No, I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.
>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?


ok.
so the pentacostals are out /scratches them off the list.
as is the book of john../more scratching.
any other books i should dismiss?



i am just following the conversation brother.
listening to your witness and taking notes.
so dont dismiss the books but allow for interpretation../check.
read more scripture../check

let me ask you a question.
since you feel im "sniping" from the peanut gallery.( i was being a snark..but snipe is nicer)
if you do not believe in the rapture and find it non-doctrinal,would you consider yourself to be a preterist?
do you consider yourself from ecclestiassitcal,calvinism or maybe even of a arminianism theosophical school of thought?
and if ecclestiassical..how have you resolved the issue of the nicean creed?
another i am curious as to how you may have resolved is zoroastrianism.
how have you been able to separate the seemingly identical stories from both the bible and this pre-christian religion?
i mean one could come to the conclusion that monotheism was actually born from this religion which was influential in judaism and christianity.
reading zarathustra's sermons one may find some close similarities to many of the earliest books of the bible.
or the story of gilgamesh and its seemingly identical recitation of noah,even though gilgamesh was centuries before noah.
how did you rationalize that particular conundrum?
one last question.
since you are christian,as am i,i am extremely curious how you were able to resolve the issue of the resurrection deities:
krishna,osiris,dionysus,mithra.
all were have purported to be the son of god.
to have began their ministry at an early age.
performed miracles.
persecuted and then executed.
dead for three days.
and on the third day were all resurrected.

what about the female resurrection deities?
ishtar and persephone?
they have similar stories too!

i am curious how you dealt with these particular theological dilemmas.

Is there a point where you're actually going to contribute something to the conversation, or are you just going to stay in the peanut gallery and snipe at me?

No one is out. Just because different Christians believe different things doesn't make them unchristian. Misled, perhaps, but anyone who believes on Christ is saved. Personally, I am non-denominational.

How is the book of John ruled out? What on earth are you talking about? The passages referring to what people call the rapture could be interperted a few different ways..I accept them, I just read them differently.

Look, it's clear you don't know anything about scripture. Why don't you do some research before you toss around these ignorant statements.

>> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. No, I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.
>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?


ok.
so the pentacostals are out /scratches them off the list.
as is the book of john../more scratching.
any other books i should dismiss?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Betty White, Sing, Nevertheless, Im in Love With You' to 'Betty White, Sing, Nevertheless, Im in Love With You, 1954, 50s, bw, music' - edited by lucky760

i found the clip at
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/bill-maher-disses-the-daily-show-rally-its-better-to-have-a-rally-thats-about-something/

i looked for the embed. Until my brain started saying... why do they need 1954 lines of code to pass a fucking url to a flash control.



<script type="text/javascript">
if (
(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('iPhone') > -1) ||
(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('iPad') > -1) ||
(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('iPod') > -1) ||
(navigator.userAgent.indexOf('Android') > -1)
) {
$('mvp-media-player-insertion-1').innerHTML = '<video width="1660" height="838" src="/item/video/J3LRXR0RZDCY9CX9?link=http://videos.cache.magnify.net/NBP03B3CY7TR3RXZ-0-31764_Nov_05_010_483_336_384x256.mp4" autoplay controls poster="http://s3.amazonaws.com/magnifythumbs/NBP03B3CY7TR3RXZ-l.jpg"></video> '
}
</script>


what language is "$('mvp-media-player-insertion-1').innerHTML ="
anyhow?

Good point, a hand-held radio is likely a good assumption but not possible.

Bell Laboratories demonstrated the first transistor on December 23, 1947.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_radio

Regency TR-1 — the first transistor radio (circa 1954)
http://people.msoe.edu/~reyer/regency/

This clip was filmed in 1928! (according to the post.)
So the next thing to ask would be, "Is the footage authentic?"



>> ^Edgeman2112:

Could it be a handheld radio and she be hard of hearing?

I could write a wall of text providing detail on everything I've said about solar power. Is that what you want? Humans have been fiddling with batteries for centuries and with solar cells since the 1940s. Progress has been slow not because people haven't been trying or because there hasn't been money thrown at the issue. People have been trying to make solar work for decades, and have sunk billions into research. And yet - here we are - and solar power isn't good for squat except powering calculators and heating water. You can't change the laws of physics.

Until some genius discovers a brand new technology, solar power will remain unviable except for limited applications. Ma Bell made the first solar cell in 1954 and the basic design & technology is still the same. Batteries? New metals haven't changed the fact that they're localized, heavy, toxic, and expensive.

I know some folks wish otherwise. But solar just isn't a good alternative. If we're going to go to an electricity economy then it's going to need to be done with nuclear. This guy's road? A cute idea - but conspicuously absent in this video is any cost analysis or description of exactly how he's going to get the collected power from the road to your house or business. Energy doesn't just magically wait around for you to use it. It's got to be moved from point A to point B, and has to be stored somewhere until its accessed. Currently it costs around 10,000 dollars just to get enough solar paneling (ignoring the batteries, cables, fixtures & labor) to power one small house. Panelling the entire road system? Yeah, right... (b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b...)

>> ^NordlichReiter:
It wasn't under god until 1954. These idiots who think it was need a fucking lesson in history.


I think the guy who was full of bs meant that we were founded on Christain blah-blah beliefs or some such nonsense.

Well, our founders ran from persecution--not toward it. So no, we were not founded on religion or beliefs. We did have religious leaders but that is the extent of god in our nation's creation.

However, that doesn't change the fact that the way history is taught outweights what history really is... To the victor goes the past. Rome was a great example of that... Sorry, I am just rambling... You have a great point Nord... Our "new" history is being rewriten even though we should know its wrong.

It wasn't under god until 1954. These idiots who think it was need a fucking lesson in history.

Here's something Lee Atwater, the architect of the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush campaigns and mentor to Karl Rove, said in 1981:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can't say “nigger” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.”

The idea is to package conservative ideas in such a way to attract racists, and provide them with a cover story so they have plausible deniability. In other words, so people like Southern Avenger here can claim "all they're doing is taking a principled stand based on their well-reasoned philosophy", even if they seem to be tolerating outrageously racist commentary and signage within their midst, and espousing a policy set that is generally condoned by racists due to its negative impact on non-whites.

These days it's less about racism per se, and more of a generalized form of xenophobia. It's the fear of people you don't know, don't understand, and who you don't want to have to care about or feel responsible for. It's why attempts to formally establish a legal responsibility to others (strangers!) are seen as intolerably intrusive.

Personally I think a lot of the rhetoric today is about dehumanizing the poor. It's often an expression of the belief that people who're poor have individually made some sort of choice that directly warrants things like losing their house, not having money for food, being unable to pay for medical care, etc. People who want on the government dime are all lazy leeches who're dragging all of society down, and if we give them help, they'll just stop trying to be productive, and try to leech more.

That started with racism, but I think just like the rhetoric, the emotional core got a lot more abstract -- it's not about demonizing black and brown people anymore, it's more about demonizing anyone who's different, so that the idea of having to take responsibility for them seems tyrannical.

I know that there's a huge percentage of moderately conservative people who don't buy into that emotional core, and want conservative-ish things done for pragmatic reasons. There's also a group of people who are True Believers, and think that the conservative ideology is morally superior to the alternatives, or that a libertarian policy set would benefit everyone greatly, even (especially?) the poor.

Those guys I like, and truly hope they find a way to purge the racists from their political organizations (i.e. the Tea Parties and the Republican party). That is, assuming they cool off on the calls for political violence (but that's a whole other conversation).

Building on what dft said, charges of racism wouldn't really stick if you guys stopped responded to it by saying "we condemn what you're talking about, and we'll take steps to ensure it doesn't happen again because racism won't be tolerated in our movement", instead of always saying "there's no racism here, and you're a racist for calling me a racist, racist!"