It's funny, you can literally recite the definition of a straw man attack, but then misuse it in the next sentence.

What I said was:

The Texas school board is currently trying to get history textbooks to do for the Great Depression and the New Deal what they've done for evolution. I say that's about a thousand times worse than your hint of a whiff of ideology you don't like in a Saturday morning cartoon.

But, apparently the cartoon struck a deeper chord with you because it's got a slight whiff of something you think is evil, when the blatant historical revisionism towards your view doesn't warrant comment.

I'm making my own argument there -- mostly I'm accusing you of having a double standard. Something that seems like a pro-liberal manipulation, you scream. Something that's blatant conservative manipulation, well, you probably hadn't even heard about it. I was inviting you to condemn what they're doing, and apparently you couldn't muster even a "I don't like what they're doing, either".

But in the spirit of fairness, I'll confess the above was an ad hominem argument, if a fairly gentle one that you could have easily deflated by conceding my point.

This particular case was a blog entry made by someone who claims to have first hand knowledge of being influenced by these groups, and collectivists find that threatening, so the only form of attack they have is to dip into their shameless partisan bag of tricks and pull out the "evidence" card for something this man obviously just remarked about as an aside in a blog about a Saturday morning cartoon he used to write for.

I admit I can be quite the conceited jerk at times, especially when I'm gloating a little bit, but blankfist, sweetie, asking for evidence isn't a dirty partisan trick.

In part, you're making my argument for me here by minimizing what it was you presented. My point is that you're trumpeting it like it's a big revelation of a sinister plot -- you even suggested that the only reason "teamwork" might sound good is because of indoctrination by cartoons -- when it sure sounded to me like Evanier's main point was "I just think that 'pro-social' message was bogus and ill-conceived", not "your children are being secretly brainwashed by mysterious parties to further their secret agenda".

You yourself said in your first comment that it sounded "a bit conspiratorial", and then recounted your belief that it's not just children's cartoons, but independent films.

I think my skepticism is perfectly healthy.

@NetRunner. I see what you did there, you big silly sophist. I was talking about the Sift Talk post itself not being speculation, but yes my personal opinion is that I believe pro-social messages are bad, and I believe this writer is telling the truth because I don't think you've offered any proof to the contrary. I'm personally not trying to convince you that he's genuine and not lying to prove a point, because that is speculation and I can't prove that.

Debating a mob of collectivists in a single post makes it difficult to keep the arguments straight. But, then again, collectivists aren't known for their temperance.

Point of information. A straw man argument is, as implied by its title, attacking a substituted position in place of the opponent's original position. That's what your silly New Deal and Texas school board analogy was - a straw man. In fact, that's mainly how you personally like to debate: by building straw men to set afire. I feel it's important to point out this character flaw when debating others, because I truly feel you can be above that.

This particular case was a blog entry made by someone who claims to have first hand knowledge of being influenced by these groups, and collectivists find that threatening, so the only form of attack they have is to dip into their shameless partisan bag of tricks and pull out the "evidence" card for something this man obviously just remarked about as an aside in a blog about a Saturday morning cartoon he used to write for.

But, no, you're right, I should launch a massive investigation to prove a Saturday morning cartoon writer isn't being a manipulative liar on a non-political blog he uses to write his personal musings. Yes, that will certainly require some hard-nosed sleuthing to ensure no stone goes unturned while I... um... google it? Here, does this sound like a man with a political agenda: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Evanier

>> ^blankfist:
The guy who is making the claim about the cartoon is actually the writer of the cartoon. He claims (with undeniable first hand knowledge being that he's the writer of the cartoon) that he was forced by special interests groups to write pro-social messages where the group is always right and the complainer was wrong.

Right, your evidence is one person's say so.

If he had said something like "special interest groups told me that they want to curtail individual thought", then we'd at least be able to say he was a witness of some unknown credibility. But he didn't say that, he just made an accusation.

Now, if the article you were linking was written by someone who was part of the supposed special interest group(s), and had a stack of internal memos about a secret plot to destroy independent thought, then you might have a pretty good case.

It's not that I think the guy isn't who he says he is, and it's not even that I necessarily think he's being intentionally dishonest, it's that he's speculating, and speculation isn't the same as proof.

The videos might be evidence of the existence of some scenes that might be interpreted as being "pro-social" in the cartoon this guy wrote for, but that's evidence that he did in fact put those messages in the cartoon, but not evidence that parental groups put him under some sort of duress to do it, and certainly not evidence that the parental groups wanted to indoctrinate children to never use their own judgment.

For that matter, the whole moral of this guy's story is that he too made the decision to bow to powers greater than him, rather than stand up for what he thought was right. If we needled him about why he didn't quit in protest, he probably would've talked about the damage to his career and livelihood, and that ultimately he didn't care that much about the effect his actions were having on kids relative to his own self-interest.

He's whining about it now, and trying to blame other people for what he himself did, and say "I couldn't stand up to the group, I mean they might have asked me politely to leave!" But that just seems like he's still trying to process the guilt, and wishes he could blame some scapegoat rather than face the (alleged) consequences of his actions.

I guess I'm not being clear? The guy who is making the claim about the cartoon is actually the writer of the cartoon. He claims (with undeniable first hand knowledge being that he's the writer of the cartoon) that he was forced by special interests groups to write pro-social messages where the group is always right and the complainer was wrong.

Now, whether or not its had any lasting effect on children or whether or not we think pro-social messages are negative or positive is incidental. What's clear, however, is that the writer of the cartoon has said special interest groups forced him to add the pro-social message to the cartoon.

What's there to speculate? Is the guy lying on his blog? Who knows? He doesn't appear to be. If you look at his blog, it seems like an ordinary blog by an ex-cartoon writer with no hidden agenda. It's just a place to file his musings. In this one particular blog he had a confession to make about being bullied by special interest groups to write a pro-social message into each of their episodic cartoons. Did I also mention he was the writer of the cartoon with first hand knowledge of whether or not there was in fact an interest group influencing the writing of the cartoon? No? Well, he was the writer of the cartoon.

If you don't care about the possible existence of a god, then you are an atheist. It's a very broad category.

Theist - A person who operates under the assumption that a specific God exists.

Atheist - Everybody else:
* People who admit that they don't believe in a specific God.
* People who are afraid to admit they don't believe in God, and pretend to believe.
* People who don't care whether there is a God or not.
* People who say "I don't know one way or the other", but in practical terms operate under the assumption that a judgmental God is highly unlikely to exist.
* People who say "How can you believe in something that cannot be defined?"
* People who have a concrete belief that there is no such thing as God. (Contrary to what crazy theists claim, this is a very small category.)

Gnostic - People who claim it is possible to have first hand knowledge of God, revealed by the divine being himself.

Agnostic - People who don't think revealed knowledge is reliable as evidence.

As you might notice by the above definitions, all agnostics are atheists, since all religions are based on revealed knowledge.

Deists are a very strange category. These are people who really like the idea of an all powerful conscious being, but don't like any of the definitions given by religions. Still, the entire concept is derived from religions, so I tend to lump deists into the theist category. They are, however, just a breath away from admitting they have no idea what their definition of God really is, and falling into the atheist category.

But as joedirt insists on reminding us, the common usage of the terms is that agnostics "don't know if there's a God" and atheists "know there is no God". The problem here is that using the terms in this way is divisive. The current political climate of the United States is such that everybody who does not practice a particular faith would be better served if we could all come together under the correct label so that we might be counted correctly in surveys. The larger our group appears, the easier it will be for more people to admit to themselves and others that they don't believe, and that they will start thinking for themselves rather than simply do as they are told.

Perhaps instead of arguing about agnostic vs. atheist, we can simply call ourselves Free Thinkers.

Sorry, but unlike most other Republicans, I don't like Bush and I vote with logic, not the bible.

In reply to this comment by thinker247:
You're a Republican, MG. You should keep the specifics out, and replace them with "Jesus" and "gotcha media."

Thanks for the in-depth answer. I was hoping someone with formal training in weaponry would provide a response.

In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
Ugh. Not a one of you has first hand knowledge of these things. I wonder if anyone here does?

OH, THAT'S RIGHT!
1st of all, this is an Israeli-made bomblet. Not American. So all of you can redirect your anger there.

Secondly, American forces do EVERYTHING in their power to reduce and eliminate collateral damage. We fired about %15 of all the fire missions we received because higher command would not clear them due to being too close to civilian structures.

Thirdly, American cluster bomblets are equipped with self-detonation timers.

The two I have worked with are the RAAMS and the ADAMS systems.

ADAMS: Area Denial Artillery Munition System - Anti personnel clusters.

These 155mm projectiles detonate by a nose-mounted fuze that ignites a propellant expulsion charge, forcing off the baseplate (bottom of the round) so that the projectile's contents are ejected. The 155 mm M692 and M731 ADAM both carry 36 wedge-shaped anti-personnel mines. The M692 (shell body marked ADAM-L) carries 36 M67 mines with a factory-set self-destruct time of 'more than 24 hours'. The M731 (shell body marked ADAM-S) carries 36 M72 mines with a factory-set self-destruct time of 'less than 24 hours'. When the mines reach the ground, seven tripline sensors are released after a 60 second delay, and the detonators are armed to function at any small disturbance. When the mine detonates, a liquid propellant surrounding the explosive warhead is ignited. This breaks up the wedge-shaped body and hurls the spherical warhead upwards. A delay mechanism in the warhead allows it to reach a predetermined height before the contents are detonated to scatter hundreds of high-velocity anti-personnel fragments in all directions.
Cross-section image

RAAMS: Remote Anti Armor Munitions System\
Deployed the same way as the ADAMS, only they are tripped via electromagnetic sensors and there are 9 to a shell.
Cross-section image

I want to upvote because I love explosions, but I want to downvote for other stupid shit this video and commenters are saying.

You're a Republican, MG. You should keep the specifics out, and replace them with "Jesus" and "gotcha media."

Thanks for the in-depth answer. I was hoping someone with formal training in weaponry would provide a response.

In reply to this comment by MarineGunrock:
Ugh. Not a one of you has first hand knowledge of these things. I wonder if anyone here does?

OH, THAT'S RIGHT!
1st of all, this is an Israeli-made bomblet. Not American. So all of you can redirect your anger there.

Secondly, American forces do EVERYTHING in their power to reduce and eliminate collateral damage. We fired about %15 of all the fire missions we received because higher command would not clear them due to being too close to civilian structures.

Thirdly, American cluster bomblets are equipped with self-detonation timers.

The two I have worked with are the RAAMS and the ADAMS systems.

ADAMS: Area Denial Artillery Munition System - Anti personnel clusters.

These 155mm projectiles detonate by a nose-mounted fuze that ignites a propellant expulsion charge, forcing off the baseplate (bottom of the round) so that the projectile's contents are ejected. The 155 mm M692 and M731 ADAM both carry 36 wedge-shaped anti-personnel mines. The M692 (shell body marked ADAM-L) carries 36 M67 mines with a factory-set self-destruct time of 'more than 24 hours'. The M731 (shell body marked ADAM-S) carries 36 M72 mines with a factory-set self-destruct time of 'less than 24 hours'. When the mines reach the ground, seven tripline sensors are released after a 60 second delay, and the detonators are armed to function at any small disturbance. When the mine detonates, a liquid propellant surrounding the explosive warhead is ignited. This breaks up the wedge-shaped body and hurls the spherical warhead upwards. A delay mechanism in the warhead allows it to reach a predetermined height before the contents are detonated to scatter hundreds of high-velocity anti-personnel fragments in all directions.
Cross-section image

RAAMS: Remote Anti Armor Munitions System\
Deployed the same way as the ADAMS, only they are tripped via electromagnetic sensors and there are 9 to a shell.
Cross-section image

I want to upvote because I love explosions, but I want to downvote for other stupid shit this video and commenters are saying.

Ugh. Not a one of you has first hand knowledge of these things. I wonder if anyone here does?

OH, THAT'S RIGHT!
1st of all, this is an Israeli-made bomblet. Not American. So all of you can redirect your anger there.

Secondly, American forces do EVERYTHING in their power to reduce and eliminate collateral damage. We fired about %15 of all the fire missions we received because higher command would not clear them due to being too close to civilian structures.

Thirdly, American cluster bomblets are equipped with self-detonation timers.

The two I have worked with are the RAAMS and the ADAMS systems.

ADAMS: Area Denial Artillery Munition System - Anti personnel clusters.

These 155mm projectiles detonate by a nose-mounted fuze that ignites a propellant expulsion charge, forcing off the baseplate (bottom of the round) so that the projectile's contents are ejected. The 155 mm M692 and M731 ADAM both carry 36 wedge-shaped anti-personnel mines. The M692 (shell body marked ADAM-L) carries 36 M67 mines with a factory-set self-destruct time of 'more than 24 hours'. The M731 (shell body marked ADAM-S) carries 36 M72 mines with a factory-set self-destruct time of 'less than 24 hours'. When the mines reach the ground, seven tripline sensors are released after a 60 second delay, and the detonators are armed to function at any small disturbance. When the mine detonates, a liquid propellant surrounding the explosive warhead is ignited. This breaks up the wedge-shaped body and hurls the spherical warhead upwards. A delay mechanism in the warhead allows it to reach a predetermined height before the contents are detonated to scatter hundreds of high-velocity anti-personnel fragments in all directions.
Cross-section image

RAAMS: Remote Anti Armor Munitions System\
Deployed the same way as the ADAMS, only they are tripped via electromagnetic sensors and there are 9 to a shell.
Cross-section image

I want to upvote because I love explosions, but I want to downvote for other stupid shit this video and commenters are saying.

One thing I'd like to point out, especially to all the "Nader is crazy" people. The source of Nader's info is a Congressman from Massachusetts by the name of John W. Olver. This is not a conspiracy theory nutcase (at least, I don't think Olver is one of those) but someone who has first-hand knowledge (read: greater than yours) of how Washington DC really works.

And I'm not even saying that Nader isn't crazy. He may well be. The only way I'd discount this concern is if...

a) John Olver turned out to be a nutjob himself.
or
b) it came out that Nader made up the source of the letter.

In looking at his Wikipedia article and the Congressman's own website, I do not find anything to suggest item 'a' being true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Olver
http://www.house.gov/olver/index.shtml

And item 'b'? Well, who knows? Anything's possible.

oh yeah, i know what you mean

In reply to your comment:
“a nice, healthy bit of propaganda always appreciated thanks.
after all I've got relatives living in Belarus. not exactly first-hand knowledge, but it's close. stories like those make me appreciate how lucky one is living in the EU instead of the C"I"S, of which Belarus might be the most favorable one, if not the most democratic one (if you know what I mean, *wink* *wink*)...

In reply to your comment:
“maybe you want some propaganda?
http://www.videosift.com/video/Belarus-Europes-last-dictatorship



In reply to your comment:
“I just love this. guess it's because I didn't glance at the description before watching it. a really nice vid.

oh, and btw I am from Latvia, MINK.”””

a nice, healthy bit of propaganda always appreciated thanks.
after all I've got relatives living in Belarus. not exactly first-hand knowledge, but it's close. stories like those make me appreciate how lucky one is living in the EU instead of the C"I"S, of which Belarus might be the most favorable one, if not the most democratic one (if you know what I mean, *wink* *wink*)...

In reply to your comment:
“maybe you want some propaganda?
http://www.videosift.com/video/Belarus-Europes-last-dictatorship



In reply to your comment:
“I just love this. guess it's because I didn't glance at the description before watching it. a really nice vid.

oh, and btw I am from Latvia, MINK.””

When I read the review in PCWorld a while back it said that the security between the two was roughly even at the time. However, it also noted that FF made several updates in the time that IE was able to make just one, and expected it to do so in the future. Undoubtedly, if they ever were even, FF has surpassed IE again. (And AOL, as I've just recently had first hand knowledge on.)

Speaking of FF, anyone got any addon recommendations? I've been going through PCWorld's list of essential addons - find.pcworld.com/56100

It's still curious to me that a member of congress who was against every piece of war spending is suddenly giving a tear jerking speech about how a vote against this bill is tantamount to leaving soldiers high and dry with no support or training.

Your lack of sourcing for this opinion made me curious. especially since it was opposite of my thinking on John Murtha, so I decided to do a little digging.

Here is his voting record on defense issues since 1993
for those that don't click the link, he always votes for appropriation bills and has consistently voted against any condemning statements of the military
Here are his rankings according to military interest groups
again, for the non-clickers: he usually rates somewhere in the 80 to 100 percent category
Here are some of his rankings according to peace interest groups
here he runs middle of the road, but their formulas are a bit more complicated because they take into account foreign aid and human rights intervention, not just military spending

And this is from his bio on his website:
Military/defense service

"Congressman Murtha is so well-respected for his first-hand knowledge of military and defense issues that he has been a trusted adviser to presidents of both parties on military and defense issues and is one of the most effective advocates for the national defense in the country. He is the Chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, a Vietnam combat veteran and a retired Marine Corps colonel with 37 years of service, a rare combination of experience that enables him to understand defense and military operations from every perspective."

So basically, I have no idea where you got the idea that he votes against war spending or hasn't always been looking out for our troops. Maybe you are confusing him with Feingold??? Sorry to bring facts into the matter, but somebody had to do it.