"I do believe that every individual should be free to own, buy, and sell gold. If under those circumstances a private gold standard emerged, fine—although I make a scientific prediction that it’s very unlikely. But I think those people who say they believe in a gold standard are fundamentally being very anti-libertarian because what they mean by a gold standard is a governmentally fixed price for gold."

-Milton Friedman

Also:

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/03/the-earlier-you-abandon-the-gold-standard-and-start-your-new-deal-the-better.html

As an atheist, I can see why they'd want to fight this - you can be sure if they had "randomly" found a crescent with a star beside it, they wouldn't be including that in the memorial. This strikes me as exactly the same sort of deception as "Intelligent design" - sure, they mean God did it, they just won't say it out loud, so no one can object. The only reason they want to include this is because of the religious significance of the cross.

That being said, it seems like such a trivially thing to fight over. There are important areas to spend your time and resources on (Intelligent design being a good example), but stuff like this, and the "Seven in Heaven" street sign, just make them look petty and vindictive. I don't think it's doing anyone any favors.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1295660/pdf/jrsocmed00058-0018.pdf

>> ^Boise_Lib:

I was privileged to visit once and the feelings of peace and joy are so great that they are indescribable in human words.
"Science suggests it could be the result of a series of biological reactions that help the body cope." (1:42) Can you show me the studies that suggest this--No, there are none. That is an incorrect use of the word "science". And, how would it be possible to evolve these mechanisms to cope with dying? Being dead means you are out of the gene pool--forever. If these experiences are just random neurons firing the resulting feelings of joy and peace are pretty damn lucky--Does anyone think that we're THAT lucky: I don't. I don't use the words "god" or "heaven" to describe what happened to me; when people hear these words they think they know what they mean and interpret them according to their own ideas. I don't Know what happened, but I believe all life is connected and there is something after we die. I'm not trying to evangelize, or create a new religion. My experiences are completely personal and subjective--I could easily be wrong. I don't think so--I have zero fear of death now.
I would vote for an atheist for president (the right atheist that is).
Anyone who calls themselves an Atheist Minister is a huge douchebag.
I got a huge belly laugh out of the glossolalia, that alone makes this video worth watching.

I was privileged to visit once and the feelings of peace and joy are so great that they are indescribable in human words.

"Science suggests it could be the result of a series of biological reactions that help the body cope." (1:42) Can you show me the studies that suggest this--No, there are none. That is an incorrect use of the word "science". And, how would it be possible to evolve these mechanisms to cope with dying? Being dead means you are out of the gene pool--forever. If these experiences are just random neurons firing the resulting feelings of joy and peace are pretty damn lucky--Does anyone think that we're THAT lucky: I don't. I don't use the words "god" or "heaven" to describe what happened to me; when people hear these words they think they know what they mean and interpret them according to their own ideas. I don't Know what happened, but I believe all life is connected and there is something after we die. I'm not trying to evangelize, or create a new religion. My experiences are completely personal and subjective--I could easily be wrong. I don't think so--I have zero fear of death now.

I would vote for an atheist for president (the right atheist that is).
Anyone who calls themselves an Atheist Minister is a huge douchebag.
I got a huge belly laugh out of the glossolalia, that alone makes this video worth watching.

>> ^blankfist:
I do pretty good impressions. See if you can guess who I am.

You aren't smart enough to get what I'm saying, so I'll now talk down to you.
Majority of people on here agree with me, so I can easily take a more aggressive stand. You however will be downvoted into oblivion and scoffed. Come at me bro.
Do you have enough of an intellectual curiosity to understand me? Do you understand the difference between the number 4 and the letter H?
When you can rub together two brain cells and produce an original argument, I'll be willing to listen.

Give up?


Are you QM?


I want to try...
I'm not smart enough to understand what you're saying, so now I'm going to talk down to you.
The majority of people here disagree with me, so this must be some hyper liberal left wing site where I can take a more agressive stand against them, however I will be downvoted into oblivion and scoffed.
I don't have enough intellectual curiosity to understand you, or to look into the difference between the number 4 and the letter H, Faux news said they mean the same thing, that's good enough for me.
I can't rub two brain cells together to make a reasonable arguement, so I'll act like I'm being funny and insult you instead and pretend that's the same thing and that I just won an arguement.

Who am I?

I guess this is what they mean by "drink responsibly" (i.e., don't get married)

@hpqp

I've watched a lot of his videos too... not sure why you keep assuming I haven't. Check out some of his other vids on the Sift and you'll see I've downvoted many of them (not all--it's hard for anyone including Pat to be wrong 100% of the time) too. The more I watch, the less I think he is being ironic and the more convinced I am he is being dead-straight honest.

In fact, I don't see how this video can be interpreted to be ironic in any way, shape, or form. If we use Wikipedia again to look at the definition of verbal irony we see that:

Verbal irony is a disparity of expression and intention: when a speaker says one thing but means another, or when a literal meaning is contrary to its intended effect. An example of this is when someone says "Oh, that's beautiful", when what they mean (probably conveyed by their tone) is they find "that" quite ugly.

So how is this diatribe ironic? For it to be ironic, what he is expressing must be the opposite of what he is saying. In other words, he must mean that he really doesn't want them to feel bad after he insults them. In fact, he agrees with their methods. Clearly that's an absurd interpretation of this video.

He is being sarcastic in this video (according to the definitions from my last post), he is being a hypocrite (saying he believes the meaning of life is joy but then arguing its okay to insult other people cuz, you know, they started it), but I don't see how you can argue he's being ironic.

I understand that you believe Pat actually means "criticize" when he says "insult" but taken as a whole I don't think this video gives you much evidence to support that view. Conversely, there's lots of support there to show that when he says insult he means insult. For example at 1:34...

"And for this reason not only do I have a perfect right to insult your religion, I have a right to insult you personally the moment I have to hear about your poxy religion."

FYI according to the urban dictionary "poxy" means: crappy, stupid, dumb.

It's pretty difficult to explain that statement away as a criticism of religion and not a direct insult. Just look at how he says that sentence (his facial expression, intonation, etc.). He is dead-serious.

Just to recap my main points:

1) Claiming that it's okay to insult religion because "they started it" makes it difficult to take your arguments any more seriously than a childish rant
2) Throwing insults around is not likely to accomplish anything--even though you have the right to do something, doesn't always mean it's a good idea to do so.

I absolutely agree with you that we should not let people squelch criticism of religion by claiming that criticism is equivalent to insult. But neither should we, in turn, equate blatant insult with genuine criticism.

As far as Sagan goes... when you have to change multiple parts of someones quote in order to make it sound like they support your views, you're not really quoting them--you're just putting words in their mouth. Sagan was a class-act gentleman who knew how to argue rationally and found no need to throw shit around like some angry ape in order to make a point. Pat could learn a great deal about persuasive arguing from Sagan.

You're most welcome, m'lady. ♥

In reply to this comment by alien_concept:
They mean a hell of a lot to me too. Thanks sweetpea!

In reply to this comment by berticus:
i fucking love this album, including this song, but i obviously never properly listened to the lyrics.. until a recent experience, and now they're fucking profound. thom yorke you are a god damn genius.

*quality

They mean a hell of a lot to me too. Thanks sweetpea!

In reply to this comment by berticus:
i fucking love this album, including this song, but i obviously never properly listened to the lyrics.. until a recent experience, and now they're fucking profound. thom yorke you are a god damn genius.

*quality

@bareboards2, I think if you think the rich are getting too much of a benefit from Social Security, then what you need to do is eliminate the payroll tax cap, not means test benefits. It's supposed to be a defined-benefit program where you generally get out what you put in.

Mostly though I think Olbermann's calling on us to change the frame of the debate. Rather than adopt the right's habit of talking about this stuff in dollars and cents, we should be talking about it in terms of lives saved, and suffering alleviated.

When Republicans talk about "cutting out of control spending", what they really mean is making your grandmother who's living on a fixed income have to make do with less. Or making your granddad have to work a job until he's 70 to keep his health insurance.

When they insist "Social Security is bankrupt" they mean "we gave away the Social Security trust fund to rich people over the last 30 years". When they say they want to "get health care costs under control", they mean they want rich people to stop having to help you pay for it when you're old, not actually do anything to bring costs down.

When we talk about "entitlement" programs, we're talking about promises that we, as a society, made to our poor and our elderly. When people talk about wanting to cut those programs back, they're talking about reneging on those commitments. With Medicare and Social Security, they are literally talking about defaulting on a debt owed!

If someone wants to make tweaks to make them more efficient, or if we as a society decide that maybe other things are a higher priority, that's one thing. But what we're going through now is the bill coming due for the last 30 years of a tax holiday for the rich, and the GOP is demanding we pay that bill by taking it out of the hides of society's most vulnerable.

People should be out in the streets with torches and pitchforks. I can't understand why they're not.

>> ^campionidelmondo:

>> ^JiggaJonson:
>> ^blankfist:
One word: government.

By that do you mean a lot of government regulations working well to benefit the people instead of letting big businesses Cleavland-steamer every one of us into financial ruin???
If so, I agree. Government.

It's true. The Government opened up the market, which is why we now enjoy fast and cheap broadband (I pay $20/month for 50mbit plus phone).


Well you get better than me. UK's garbage for broadband and is known in europe for being that way. Popular broadband company BeThere (subsidiary of o2 i believe) offers £17.99 (that's about 30(+2?) dollars?) for maximum 24 Mbit, and what you actually get depends entirely on your local exchange, they guarantee absolutely nothing. They say up to, and they mean up to. I know people who pay for "up to" 8 Mbit and get around 2.

Oh, and it's not unlimited. Most "unlimited" broadband in the UK has fair usage policies and the majority of those boil down to a hard download cap.

The worst ones? They offer things like £7 per month but a download limit of 5 gigs per month, with 5 gig topups being another 7 quid. Rediculous things like that. People who don't read up and shop around really do get the utter shaft, and even those who DO read up and shop around don't get good deals. Most of them are even owned by the same damned company too.

They're notoriously bad at administration. When my previous provider got taken over by another company, that company "renewed" my broadband contract for 12 months for DOUBLE the price i was preiously paying. They didn't tell me about the new contract though, so when i cancelled it suddenly they charged my bank for £300 contract termination fee. I didn't have £300 so the bank issued a £20 charge. Then i made another payment (thinking i still had that extra £20) and got charged £20 AGAIN and now i started getting charged for being in arrears too.

I phoned them and it took me a few days to even get rid of the 12 month contract i'd been volunteered into, getting them to pay all the charges (and phone call charges) took a good few weeks work but i was absolutely incandescent with rage.

Er, rant over! In other words, it's not all sunshine and smiles over here, broadband in the UK stinks.

>> ^RedSky:

1 in 3 women in the US have an abortion in their lifetime? If that's true, I'm honestly a bit taken aback.


What they mean is 1 in 3 women who were taught abstinence only sexual education.

>> ^VoodooV:

Yes, I do have a problem understanding. Quite simply, your definition of statism doesn't match up with ANY given by a google search suggested by yourself. By your own messed up definition, it doesn't matter what the police does, it's statism regardless, but I don't see you crying statism on the sifts when the police do something arguably good.
The police officer acted inappropriately, the state upheld the liberty of the individual arrested by the inappropriate officer. Case, quite literally, dismissed.
You haven't demonstrated anything other than your irrational hatred of the 'po-po
>> ^blankfist:
>> ^VoodooV:
Ahh...cuz you say so. Got it.
>> ^blankfist:
>> ^VoodooV:
it's statism if the courts uphold the cop's position.
Nope. Not true. It's statism regardless. You're just making parameters up.


No, because it's the definition of statism. Feel free to google it yourself. The police are a part of a statist apparatus. Whether or not the state deems its own actions illegal or not has nothing to do with whether or not it's statism or not. It just is statism.
Problem still understanding that?



Not true, masked crusader. I think most of cops are the bee's knees. That means I think they're good, and they do a good job, and they mean well. But when they do bad, or when their policies are bad, or if the laws are bad, etc. etc. etc. I have next to zero recourse, because it's not like I can just stop paying for their service now is it? That's the utter failure of statism, IMHO.

Also this. From wiki: "Statism (or etatism) is a scholarly term in political philosophy either emphasising the role of the state in analysing political change; or, in describing political movements which support the use of the state to achieve goals."

I don't think it's sufficient to tell people to ignore it, that just because it's a word it shouldn't hurt them. As human beings, we tend to care about what others, individuals, groups, or society in general, think about us. One needs to feel as if they're being spoken and referred to with the appropriate respect in order to feel accepted. Maybe the words themselves don't hurt, but the intentions certainly do. So while I agree that context is everything, I don't see how you can just brush it off when somebody calls you lazy and means it negatively. Do you not care at all about whether that person respects you? What if it was a loved one calling you lazy? Would that not hurt at all?


And FlowersIn HisHair, you're right, people don't say "Jewish" and mean "anything a bit crap". It's actually used derogatorily in very specific situations when referring to somebody who is acting self-servingly. Eg. "You Jew-ed me," or "You ripped me off, don't be such a Jew". Given the obvious negative connotation behind these statements, and the clear connection between the derogatory use of the word Jew and stereotypes about Jews, I can't imagine any Jew hearing the word being use that way without feeling bad.


Which leads me back to the original conversation. I don't actually think the word "gay" is used to mean "anything a bit crap". I think it's meant to indicate that somebody is being "lame" (and yes, I know there's a slight irony in my use of the word. And not just lame, but acting like a pansy, in a non-masculine way. While the use of the word is often more general, it is most commonly to refer to someone who is acting in a way befitting the negative stereotype about "gay" people. It's not just a harmless word that has a general meaning of crappiness, but one that only has meaning because of the existing negative and harmful stereotypes about "gay" people.

However, just because people use Jew or Gay in a negative way, we don't let them have the words and declare them off limits. We continue to use it in an appropriate and respectful way. If people decide to use it in the negative way, that's might be their choice, but their use might infer something about the degree to which they accept and support certain harmful stereotypes. I'm not sure that I agree with Savage that the word is harmless.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:
I do hate to disagree with Mr Savage, who speaks very well about the practicalities of sex, and whose opinion and good sense I generally trust and revere. But to dismiss this as simply the "evolution of language" is damaging, and in fact misses the point. The use of the word "gay" to mean anything "a bit generally rubbish" is itself founded on homophobia. Kids call things they don't like "gay" because they consider homosexuality to be undesirable; now how is that supposed to make gay kids, reluctant to come out for fear of persecution, feel about what they are? What if "Jewish", or "female" came to mean "anything a bit generally crap"? Would there be a serious and concerted effort to stamp out such a perversion of the language that a group had used to describe itself? You bet your ass there would.
And yes, "gay" used to mean something else, language evolves, blah blah. That's fine if the word in question doesn't identify a vulnerable group that is still fighting for acceptance and equality on an individual and global level.

I see your point, and I would never want a kid to feel picked on, or alone. But if that's the way it works, then why doesn't gay still mean happy? And shouldn't gay kids be happy about the fact they're called happy? No, because the meaning of the word changed. Just like it will again.
See, what needs to happen is, you have to let the word move on. If we keep acting like the words "gay" or "fag" are bad, then they always will be. They will never, ever, ever, ever, ever just go away.
I'm incredibly lazy. I've learned not to get offended when people call me that. Even if they mean it in a negative way. What we should really be teaching people is that WORDS CAN'T HURT YOU. We need to move past the era of incantations and spells.
If what you're suggesting actually happened, that the words "female" or "jewish" came to mean "anything a bit generally crap", then people would use those words precisely because they offended people. And the more anyone tried to "stamp them out", they would just become more and more powerful. Seriously.

>> ^FlowersInHisHair:

I do hate to disagree with Mr Savage, who speaks very well about the practicalities of sex, and whose opinion and good sense I generally trust and revere. But to dismiss this as simply the "evolution of language" is damaging, and in fact misses the point. The use of the word "gay" to mean anything "a bit generally rubbish" is itself founded on homophobia. Kids call things they don't like "gay" because they consider homosexuality to be undesirable; now how is that supposed to make gay kids, reluctant to come out for fear of persecution, feel about what they are? What if "Jewish", or "female" came to mean "anything a bit generally crap"? Would there be a serious and concerted effort to stamp out such a perversion of the language that a group had used to describe itself? You bet your ass there would.
And yes, "gay" used to mean something else, language evolves, blah blah. That's fine if the word in question doesn't identify a vulnerable group that is still fighting for acceptance and equality on an individual and global level.


I see your point, and I would never want a kid to feel picked on, or alone. But if that's the way it works, then why doesn't gay still mean happy? And shouldn't gay kids be happy about the fact they're called happy? No, because the meaning of the word changed. Just like it will again.

See, what needs to happen is, you have to let the word move on. If we keep acting like the words "gay" or "fag" are bad, then they always will be. They will never, ever, ever, ever, ever just go away.

I'm incredibly lazy. I've learned not to get offended when people call me that. Even if they mean it in a negative way. What we should really be teaching people is that WORDS CAN'T HURT YOU. We need to move past the era of incantations and spells.

If what you're suggesting actually happened, that the words "female" or "jewish" came to mean "anything a bit generally crap", then people would use those words precisely because they offended people. And the more anyone tried to "stamp them out", they would just become more and more powerful. Seriously.