Because historically, Australia was fulla drunks and rounders, the exiled and the wild-
Blame Prohibition in the U.S. for the terminology: “Soft Drink” refers to most beverages that do not contain an inordinate amount of alcohol (hard drink)-Booze bees the culprit, although a lifetime of soda on the tummy is as hard a drink as you can get as far your stomach-lining is concerned.

Or perhaps the scumbags are the ones that force Snowden to remain in exile. By the way, in Snowden's interviews he made it very clear he knew what he was getting himself into.

does anyone else think Greenwald is a total scumbag. He has all of Snowden's leaks. He's selling them to the highest bidder..started his own multimillion dollar journalism outfit, with billionare backers. Snowden is getting the big fuck you financially, while he sits in exile in Russia, and it's only a matter of time until Snowden's locked up in the Pen. Bet you anything you'll all be sneering at Greenwald in 3 years time when it turns out he is just using these leaks to further his career, while Snowden rots away in jail penniless.

Point of clarification, I know there is lots of evidence of localized flooding, I'm speaking of a lack of evidence for the Bible's description of a world wide flood.

Also, my understanding of the first five books were that they all come from 4 older documents, which were segmented into the Pentateuch... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentary_hypothesis for more. I haven't followed up with more recent hypothesis regarding the books, but I was under the impression the general idea, even if it isn't the the specific four books originally thought composed the books, with Genesis being a combo of all four, which stretch into 500 BCE. The Noah story itself is combined of the "Jahwist (YHWH) source and the Priestly (Elohim) source", and the Priestly would be after the exile, though the Jahwist would be well before the exile (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_flood_narrative and it's link to flood myths overall). I know Wikipedia isn't the most reliable of sources, and without taking the time to vet the sources they quote, I'll go with the explanation given for the moment.

Also, I'm into seeing it. I'm sure it will be entertaining. Aronofsky alone makes it worth considering at the very least... Biblical epics (and semi Biblical movies such as Ben-Hur...) can make for great cinema. So count me in... Even when I was a Christian I started doubting the flood story as anything more than a parable or allegory, much like the Creation story, Jonah, Sodom's destruction and the rescue of Lot... and there are some good stories to tell... perhaps some exposure to other myths would be nice, but I think the Abramic stories are more familiar to more Americans and world wide audiences than say trying to make a movie about some Celtic god... or Nordic god (Thor doesn't count...)... most of which they'd butcher in Hollywood anyhow...

They wouldn't have learned about the Epic of Gilgamesh during the Babylonian Exile! The exiles were WAY later than the book of Genesis was written. They would have learned about it in Egypt or before. As I understand it, the book of Genesis was written during the Israelites' flight through the wilderness (what the book of Exodus is about).

But yes, I agree there are flood myths pre-dating the Hebrew scriptures and I'm eager to see what the Christian community does with this movie.

Also, I agree with charliem. There is evidence of localized flooding that could have given rise to the many flood myths among Ancient Near Eastern peoples. One fascinating theory is that a major flood happened when the Bosporus Strait collapsed and the water levels of the Mediterranean and Black Seas equalized. It's in the book "Noah's Flood" - http://amzn.to/1ieH4GX

First poor Tugger, now an ark... LOL.

I wonder how they will explain how all the animals got there, and how all the animals in the world fit in a rather small boat (large for its age to be sure)... and how it is nearly a word for word copy of a much older Sumerian flood story that the Hebrew people would have learned about during the Babylonian Exile period... and how there is no physical evidence of the flood, let alone the 4500 years ago it would have happened according to the Bible...

It's not revelational, it's powerful.

That said, I think I'm too much of a realist and still believe leaders like her require people protecting them with the force required to stop people like the Taliban. Benazir Bhutto was in many ways a grown version of many of Malala's own ideals, and she is now dead at the hands of the same militant fanatics that tried to kill Malala. Female politicians in Pakistan have a regrettably short life expectancy, much like any male politicians who support them or anything remotely secular. For example the two politicians assassinated in the last year and a bit for asking to lift the death penalty for the crime of blasphemy.

Pakistan is in the middle of a very bloody war between the people like Malala and the people who tried to kill her. The trouble is the side we relate with is being decimated by assassinations which are either killing the moderates outright, or forcing them from the country to safety but more limited impact within Pakistan. Bhutto was similarly in exile for a long while for the same concerns, which proved out to be all to well founded.

The difference here is between "punishment" and "treatment".

Punishment demands that one have an absolute and objective moral imperative . Such absolute imperatives quite demonstrably do not exist (save perhaps that the strongest tend survive and prosper which is of little use to us here)

Simply put, unless you want to invoke some absolute ethical standard such as the commandment of God, "punishment" can only ever be equivalent to forcing ones own prejudices and desires onto others. (and if you reject the existence of absolute authorities like God then doubly so)

This would be fine if we had any objective prejudices with which to inflict people, but we don't. We have only mob consensus and this is how human legal systems have worked for most of our history. The Crowd doesn't like something you did so they lynch/burn/flog/exile you for it. (pure democracy at its finest)

While naturally many dangerous and delinquent individuals are effectively dealt with in this way there is an unacceptable price. It enshrines personal prejudice in law and a great many otherwise perfectly innocent or relatively harmless individuals inevitably fall foul of this.
(much) Moreover it also demands that one accept the premise that some people are just born "bad", or rather that "criminals" are a breed apart from the rest of us. This assumption is essential if one is to justify "punishing" some and not others because you are asserting that they are inherently bad and will continue to be so. One is not concerned with improving them as a person or correcting the problem, one is instead concerned with justifying and demonstrating ones own moral superiority. "you are not like us and so we will subjugate you and inflict suffering to prove our way is the superior".

Due to the barbarism inherent in such systems many cultures have moved instead to systems based instead upon treatment of the "criminal" and protection of the victim in recognition of the fact that all humans share the same fundamental condition.
Many of the practicalities remain the same e.g. a need to segregate the perpetrator, set laws to prevent certain behaviours etc. (the need for this I think should be obvious), however there is a fundamental difference in how one deals with "delinquents".

Instead of an aberrant product of nature which must be defeated the unacceptable behaviour is instead seen as simply an undesirable/unacceptable but perfectly natural aspect of the human condition we all share.
All humans share an innate capacity for violence and subjugation, every single one of us has at some point felt the desire to hit someone etc. we only take issue with those that fail to control such impulses.
However rather than seeing this lack of control as anathema we simply see it as an underdeveloped or damaged aspect of the human condition we all share.

We must take steps to control it for the sake of potential future victims but the idea of actually "punishing" people for simply being human is to me patently absurd and backwards.
Further to that pretty much all of the modern psychology and neuroscience on the subject supports this position. There is no "criminal gene" or race, the only common factor that appears to exist is frontal brain damage (the bit that controls impulse and behaviour)

Treat them like humans and you might actually get a human out of the other side. Treat them like animals..............

Lets be clear though, I'm almost agreeing with you. The way you have used the word "punishment" is closer in some ways to my use of the word "treatment". But I've placed the emphasis that little bit more on "treatment" or rather against "punishment". As you've defined it "punishment" isn't the extreme example I have described with the term, but I did so in order to highlight the clear distinction between two positions.
Meaning is use and I don't want anyone to get too hung up on the semantics at the expense of the underlying concepts .

>> ^hamsteralliance:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
>> ^hamsteralliance:
I like these petitions:
Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America.
Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them

That's weird. I was looking at both of these and as I watched the deport one transformed into a mirror of the strip one.
I fully support both of these petitions, but I don't know if I want to sign up.

Or, more likely, I fudged up my copying and pasting of the links.
https://petitions
.whitehouse.gov/petition/deport-everyone-signed-petition-withdraw-their-state-united-states-america/dmQl1bXL
That's the correct deportation one.

The new link works, but I followed the original one to the deport petition--then it changed to the other.

Thanks.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

>> ^hamsteralliance:
I like these petitions:
Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America.
Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them

That's weird. I was looking at both of these and as I watched the deport one transformed into a mirror of the strip one.
I fully support both of these petitions, but I don't know if I want to sign up.


Or, more likely, I fudged up my copying and pasting of the links.

Deport.

That's the correct deportation one.

>> ^hamsteralliance:

I like these petitions:
Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America.
Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them


That's weird. I was looking at both of these and as I watched the deport one transformed into a mirror of the strip one.

I fully support both of these petitions, but I don't know if I want to sign up.

I like these petitions:

Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America.

Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them

>> ^quantumushroom:

When you break it down, the letter sounds like it was written by a nanny-state liberal. Smokers are already exiled, now it's a war on obesity.


troll-bait much?

When you break it down, the letter sounds like it was written by a nanny-state liberal. Smokers are already exiled, now it's a war on obesity.

>> ^chingalera:

Voter fraud. Can any of you in the U.S. with half a brain fail to admit that the PROCESS ITSELF has become a massive ballet of spin, misinformation, & media and political manipulation on a ridiculous scale to the degree that it is done in plain sight without impunity?? The entire process is complete and utter shit.
People involved should be publicly exposed and humiliated and exiled, and you the complicit should be spanked until bottoms are rosy and near bleeding.
Obama is re-elected because he was SUPPOSED to be according to his handlers.


Sorry Honey Boo Boo's on.

EDIT: Ya know what's sad. I made a joke about Honey Boo Boo to point out we're too busy to care about things because we're watching TV. Then the old guy came on the video and I recognized him instantly from a House Episode...I even could quote some of his lines and knew what problem he had (uses too much denture glue). So that tells you a bit about what we're busy doing, and I don't even own a TV.