I'm not Christine O'Donnell because:

• I haven't dabbled in witchcraft
  
• I didn't lie on my resume
  
• My college didn't sue me
  
• I don't think there are mice with human brains
  
• I believe in evolution
  
• I don't think I can stop the country from having sex
  
• I masturbate
  

This is a geographical phenomenon. Where I live, there are nothing but far left liberals that bother protesting, holding signs in the streets, etc. However, I never hear a peep out of what I'd consider the common every day democrat (such as my parents), their honest thoughts, etc. It's always the extremes that have the loudest -- and usually most annoying -- voices.

Also, keep in mind that if the only exposure you have to the news media and pop culture is through sifting (or the Internet), than you are only seeing the most sensational of the sensationalized, and the most popular of pop culture.

You completely lose me, however, when you say people are misguided because they fear, hate, or distrust the government. To top it off, you claim to say this with authority? Far be it for me to correct you on this, but no, you don't. You simply say it because you can, and it's of your opinion, and the word authority doesn't belong anywhere in the sentence. Now, I realize you worded it that way to add emphasis, but there are better ways to add emphasis other than to elect yourself the authoritative voice of reason on VS. Keep this in mind, the reason that this country (and many others) exist, is because of this misguided distrust, fear and hate of governments the world over. Sometimes this distrust, fear, or hate is within reason and is counter-detrimental and necessary. I'm not saying it is or not, as I do not know yet. But time will tell.

>> ^peggedbea:

i wish i could feel that way that "the news media sensationalizes" this stuff, but my reality is that
1. i dont own a television to get sensationalized by. literally the only exposure i have to the "news" media and popular culture is through my sporadic bouts of sifting (i'll go 2 weeks and watch a bunch videos or i'll 2 months and watch 1), or whatever my facebook friends post and i chose to watch.
2. i live/work for/am related to/ very literally surrounded by people with this world view constantly. there is at least one tea party rally at least once a month here. there are right now, literally, 6 tea bagger signs in peoples front yards on my street alone. i do realize this is kind of a very loud minority movement. and that in other parts of the country, or the world at large, this just seems like a few people who are being pumped up by the media to look like dumbshits for profit. but the reality in, what i imagine is most of the southern states, is that this shit is absolutely everywhere. and it is having an extremely real impact on legislation and education, especially in texas (which will impact the education of 46-48 other states because of its sheer size, spending power, population and influence). the growth and popularity of this movement, particularly in texas, is having a very real and lasting and detrimental impact on what will eventually be the rest of the world. (with the dumbing down and godifying of educational standards, which has already happened, and the intense popularization of climate change denial, and making science denialism a populist movement).
and while i love the people i know who buy into this, and empathize with the fear and misguided hatred of the government, i can say with some authority that this world view is absolutely, detrimentally, batshit. and one that feeds and thrives and exploits ignorance and fear.
>> ^hPOD:
As for the other guys comment about tea baggers and sanity, he/she needs to understand that just because someone has a different view of life/set of opinions than he/she does, doesn't make them insane, retarded, stupid, or otherwise. I'm so sick of this kind of crap on Sift and other such boards. Not for nothing, but the media loves to sensationalize the idiocy of society. You almost never see a regular democrat/liberal, republican/neocon or tea bagger in the news...you always see the extreme idiot that makes them all look stupid.

>> ^bobknight33:

Darwin is wrong. When you look at the Cambrian explosion, for the most part everything suddenly appears during this event is such a rapid time frame. Darwin's theory alone can not explain this event. You go from bacteria type to animals. However we all see that each species adapts and evolves as is needed.

Cambrian explosion.


"Sudden" in the Cambrian Explosion context means everything but what we normally think of as sudden. When biologist say sudden, they are talking about tens of millions of years. compared to hundreds of millions of years that are relatively uneventful evolutionary speaking, 10-100 million years of faster changes look "sudden" and "explosive". This effect is due to the fact that evolution occasionally reaches an equilibrium, where a stable environment ensures that the balance in nature stays the same over very, very long periods, followed by new "explosions". This is called punctuated equilibrium. This effect is actually exactly what you would expect from Darwins theory, and attempts at computer-modelling evolution has show this effect. Take a look at a video I posted a while back to see this effect: Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Look, Christine: education is true, and there are still morons.

i wish i could feel that way that "the news media sensationalizes" this stuff, but my reality is that

1. i dont own a television to get sensationalized by. literally the only exposure i have to the "news" media and popular culture is through my sporadic bouts of sifting (i'll go 2 weeks and watch a bunch videos or i'll 2 months and watch 1), or whatever my facebook friends post and i chose to watch.

2. i live/work for/am related to/ very literally surrounded by people with this world view constantly. there is at least one tea party rally at least once a month here. there are right now, literally, 6 tea bagger signs in peoples front yards on my street alone. i do realize this is kind of a very loud minority movement. and that in other parts of the country, or the world at large, this just seems like a few people who are being pumped up by the media to look like dumbshits for profit. but the reality in, what i imagine is most of the southern states, is that this shit is absolutely everywhere. and it is having an extremely real impact on legislation and education, especially in texas (which will impact the education of 46-48 other states because of its sheer size, spending power, population and influence). the growth and popularity of this movement, particularly in texas, is having a very real and lasting and detrimental impact on what will eventually be the rest of the world. (with the dumbing down and godifying of educational standards, which has already happened, and the intense popularization of climate change denial, and making science denialism a populist movement).
and while i love the people i know who buy into this, and empathize with the fear and misguided hatred of the government, i can say with some authority that this world view is absolutely, detrimentally, batshit. and one that feeds and thrives and exploits ignorance and fear.

>> ^hPOD:

As for the other guys comment about tea baggers and sanity, he/she needs to understand that just because someone has a different view of life/set of opinions than he/she does, doesn't make them insane, retarded, stupid, or otherwise. I'm so sick of this kind of crap on Sift and other such boards. Not for nothing, but the media loves to sensationalize the idiocy of society. You almost never see a regular democrat/liberal, republican/neocon or tea bagger in the news...you always see the extreme idiot that makes them all look stupid.

actually ... yes... you can smell it too
like theres one part when a t rex roars in your face and you get in the face with water and a blast of air that smells like bad breath. also the chairs vibrate and roll around and you can feel wind and breath and stuff. so yeah, you're occupying space while watching a 3D movie.. but in a 4D movie there are phsycial effects that cause the movie to also occupy your space. it'd be cool if that film thing wasn't just propaganda invading my science museum.
In reply to this comment by pavel_one:
Aren't all 3D movies actually 4D? I just don't see how you can leave that 4th D out.
Are you really saying that it's a 3D movie with smell-o-vision? The awesome of shale gas in a 3D movie with stench is mind-boggling.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
yeah yeah ok... sure
but the oil and natural gas barons who fund this tea bagging nonsense publicly acknowledge science and the fossil origins of fossil fuels.

example: i live in on top of a previously impossible to tap natural gas shale. they just discovered how to tap the shit out of that gas. the shale is a huge deal here and has brought a lot development and growth to my adorable little cowtown in the last 3 years or so. so much so in fact, that the natural gas companies funded massive renovations to our science museum. so a room in the museum is now dedicated to the science of natural gas. one of the attractions is a 10 minute long 4D movie about how natural gas got underneath fort worth, and how these genius's are getting it out. the movie takes you back in time all the way to the big bang and fast forwards to different periods, clearly acknowledging that the earth is far far far far older than 6,000 years and that god didn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

soooo, i understand that shaping and funding a movement that denies climate change is good for them, but a wonderful justification for denying the science is the godly origins of the earth... but at the same time they're spending thousands to educate an entire city on the ancientness and godlessness of fossil fuels.....

so nothing about this fits. i've never met a teabagger (and i'm probably more inclined to meet more teabaggers than most of the sift because of my geography) that 1. didn't deny the scientific origins of the universe 2. didn't deny climate change and when hard pressed with facts, didn't resort to "jesus is coming back" and 3. didn't looooooove the shit out of some fossil fuels ...... are they really really just too stupid to notice that the circle doesn't close? this makes me sad.

or is it just a cultural thing?? like, texas has been an oil rich state for over a century now. oil is just kind of embedded in our culture and is just accepted as something positive and a point of pride. and the discussion doesn't go much further than that. i grew up in a city who's football mascot was a fucking oil rig. when i think of symbols that mean texas to me, i see an oil rig. oil=texas. texas=home. home=good. done. thought circle complete. i hope that's it. and it's not just outrageous stupidity and a short few years of brain washing alone. i'm sad.

>> ^RFlagg:

Because Jesus is coming again soon to rapture them away so they don't care what they do to the earth, besides god gave them dominion over the Earth to rape and pillage it as they please. They don't believe in anthropological global warming anyhow since they don't believe in science, though some of them believe in peak oil which is why they think we need to drill "our own oil" by international companies selling it on the international market... Also he put the oil in the earth already made along with fossils, and accelerated light so that a galaxy 12 billion light years away can be seen now even though the universe is only 6,500 years old, and all that other prof that he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. It is that whole god chose the foolish things to confound the wise... and he hid things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children... and all the other excuses they have for explaining such things.
>> ^peggedbea:
i'm super fascinated with how evolution denying teabaggers justify their raging boner for fossil fuels.

>> ^bobknight33:

Darwin is wrong. When you look at the Cambrian explosion, for the most part everything suddenly appears during this event is such a rapid time frame. Darwin's theory alone can not explain this event. You go from bacteria type to animals. However we all see that each species adapts and evolves as is needed.

Cambrian explosion.


Quote from the Wikipedia article you link to: "Over the following 70 or 80 million years the rate of evolution accelerated by an order of magnitude (as defined in terms of the extinction and origination rate of species) and the diversity of life began to resemble today’s."

Considering homo sapiens only appeared around 200 000 years ago, with the latest common ancestor between chimpanzees and humans existing about 4-7 million years ago, 70-80 million years seems like a fracking long time. So if humans evolved in 4-7 million, why couldn't there be an explosion of many but less intelligent/more primitive species over a 70-80 million years period? Plus, the explosion of rationality in modern humans looks to me way more problematic that an explosion of multicellular life considering the humongous advantages of multicellular organisms. They simply had to hit the right balance/combination once, and they did about 580 million years ago.

Aren't all 3D movies actually 4D? I just don't see how you can leave that 4th D out.
Are you really saying that it's a 3D movie with smell-o-vision? The awesome of shale gas in a 3D movie with stench is mind-boggling.

In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
yeah yeah ok... sure
but the oil and natural gas barons who fund this tea bagging nonsense publicly acknowledge science and the fossil origins of fossil fuels.

example: i live in on top of a previously impossible to tap natural gas shale. they just discovered how to tap the shit out of that gas. the shale is a huge deal here and has brought a lot development and growth to my adorable little cowtown in the last 3 years or so. so much so in fact, that the natural gas companies funded massive renovations to our science museum. so a room in the museum is now dedicated to the science of natural gas. one of the attractions is a 10 minute long 4D movie about how natural gas got underneath fort worth, and how these genius's are getting it out. the movie takes you back in time all the way to the big bang and fast forwards to different periods, clearly acknowledging that the earth is far far far far older than 6,000 years and that god didn't necessarily have anything to do with it.

soooo, i understand that shaping and funding a movement that denies climate change is good for them, but a wonderful justification for denying the science is the godly origins of the earth... but at the same time they're spending thousands to educate an entire city on the ancientness and godlessness of fossil fuels.....

so nothing about this fits. i've never met a teabagger (and i'm probably more inclined to meet more teabaggers than most of the sift because of my geography) that 1. didn't deny the scientific origins of the universe 2. didn't deny climate change and when hard pressed with facts, didn't resort to "jesus is coming back" and 3. didn't looooooove the shit out of some fossil fuels ...... are they really really just too stupid to notice that the circle doesn't close? this makes me sad.

or is it just a cultural thing?? like, texas has been an oil rich state for over a century now. oil is just kind of embedded in our culture and is just accepted as something positive and a point of pride. and the discussion doesn't go much further than that. i grew up in a city who's football mascot was a fucking oil rig. when i think of symbols that mean texas to me, i see an oil rig. oil=texas. texas=home. home=good. done. thought circle complete. i hope that's it. and it's not just outrageous stupidity and a short few years of brain washing alone. i'm sad.

>> ^RFlagg:

Because Jesus is coming again soon to rapture them away so they don't care what they do to the earth, besides god gave them dominion over the Earth to rape and pillage it as they please. They don't believe in anthropological global warming anyhow since they don't believe in science, though some of them believe in peak oil which is why they think we need to drill "our own oil" by international companies selling it on the international market... Also he put the oil in the earth already made along with fossils, and accelerated light so that a galaxy 12 billion light years away can be seen now even though the universe is only 6,500 years old, and all that other prof that he had nothing to do with the creation of the universe. It is that whole god chose the foolish things to confound the wise... and he hid things from the wise and learned and revealed them to children... and all the other excuses they have for explaining such things.
>> ^peggedbea:
i'm super fascinated with how evolution denying teabaggers justify their raging boner for fossil fuels.

Or, why hasn't survival of fittest selected against them already?

>> ^Fantomas:

She makes an excellent point. Really! If evolution is real, why aren't teabaggers evolving into sane people?

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

I just wanted to say -- FINALLY -- someone gets it.

As for the "joke", it wasn't very funny. While I don't find O'Donnell particularly intelligent, or amusing, he took what she said out of context.

Not to defend her, what she actually meant to get across was this:
If monkeys evolved into Humans, why are monkey's still around? She messed up when she asked this, and Maher made an equally dumb comment on what she said, but everyone gave him a pass. As you said, we didn't, in fact, evolve from monkeys. And Maher is an imbecile in his own right for alluding to that we did.

As for the other guys comment about tea baggers and sanity, he/she needs to understand that just because someone has a different view of life/set of opinions than he/she does, doesn't make them insane, retarded, stupid, or otherwise. I'm so sick of this kind of crap on Sift and other such boards. Not for nothing, but the media loves to sensationalize the idiocy of society. You almost never see a regular democrat/liberal, republican/neocon or tea bagger in the news...you always see the extreme idiot that makes them all look stupid.

>> ^BicycleRepairMan:

>> ^Fantomas:
She makes an excellent point. Really! If evolution is real, why aren't teabaggers evolving into sane people?

Actually both are invalid points, and Maher isnt really making sense in the video either. As I never tire of mentioning:

1. We did not evolve from monkeys (or from chimps or bonobos or gorillas) we evolved alongside them. They evolved, we evolved, fruit evolved, and so on. Its not a matter of time as Maher implies, because monkeys would never, even if you could watch them evolve and reproduce for a billion years, then turn back time and replay the tape a billion times, evolve into humans. Which brings me to...
2: Evolution is not directed towards a specific goal or goals. if that was true, there are something like 10 million separate "goals" on this planet, species that undoubtably will, in the fullness of time, join in death the 99.9% of all "goals" that are now extinct, either by outright extinction, or by evolving into subspecies that look nothing like them.
EDIT: thats not to say I didn't understand the joke, btw

>> ^Fantomas:

She makes an excellent point. Really! If evolution is real, why aren't teabaggers evolving into sane people?

Actually both are invalid points, and Maher isnt really making sense in the video either. As I never tire of mentioning:


1. We did not evolve from monkeys (or from chimps or bonobos or gorillas) we evolved alongside them. They evolved, we evolved, fruit evolved, and so on. Its not a matter of time as Maher implies, because monkeys would never, even if you could watch them evolve and reproduce for a billion years, then turn back time and replay the tape a billion times, evolve into humans. Which brings me to...

2: Evolution is not directed towards a specific goal or goals. if that was true, there are something like 10 million separate "goals" on this planet, species that undoubtably will, in the fullness of time, join in death the 99.9% of all "goals" that are now extinct, either by outright extinction, or by evolving into subspecies that look nothing like them.

EDIT: thats not to say I didn't understand the joke, btw

>> ^Fantomas:

>> ^EMPIRE:

1- Mentally Challenged or at least with a very very low IQ
2- The product of being raised by morons

You write that as if they are mutually exclusive.


Hmm... I guess you're right. I stand corrected.

>> ^EMPIRE:


1- Mentally Challenged or at least with a very very low IQ
2- The product of being raised by morons

You write that as if they are mutually exclusive.

I got to agree as well. AronRa is one of my favorites of the YouTubers. ZOMGitsCriss, dprjones, potholer54, thunderf00t, DarkMatter2525 and a few of the others all rate higher in my book than TAA here. While I often agree with what he says, I agree he is a bit harder to watch. Then again I think I've only managed to sift two of his videos and only one of AronRa's, so not sure what to make of that.

>> ^gwiz665:

I like AronRa or thunderf00t better, since they can calm the fuck down and talk like men, instead of 28 year old virgins with a junebug up their ass.
Still, he's right, even though his form is off-putting.