I used to be able to open my eyes under water no problems, but after doing it for months my eyes just got fed up with the chlorine I guess and that was it, I couldn't do it anymore, and required goggles from then on.

It's not my list, (though it tends to be accurate) But that's exactly why I'm calling for more active moderation on this site. I'm sick of the logical fallacies. When it goes unchecked, you get people who fed up and fire back. So it cuts both ways. It stops QM from making his ad homs and it stops people from making ad homs against him. Win win.

I'm also sick of EVERY GODDAMNED THING being turned into a left v right shitfest. I consider myself to be a left leaning centrist and I think both parties are full of shit (sure I think one party is more full of shit than the other, but that's not really the point) but I think the founding fathers were right to not like parties and this two party system is killing this country.

Quite frankly though, if someone makes some quality posts, you don't earn the right to make some ad homs and otherwise make some shitty posts. if someone ad homs you, you don't get to ad hom them. It's not a tit for tat system.
>> ^Payback:

Oh, believe me, I know his "Kenyawaiian" schitck by heart. As "The Obamanation" isn't here as a participant, I guess I am just drawing too fine a line, but I have yet, in recent memory, to see QM attack someone personally for their views.
However... HE gets attacked, ad hominem, CONSTANTLY.
Also, the others on your list barely contribute BEYOND their political rhetoric. QM comes up with some brilliant, actual-lol-worthy AND NON-POLITICAL comments quite often. I guess that's his saving grace with me, his sense of humour.
>> ^VoodooV:
I'm sure I could probably find one if I looked hard enough, but it's not me that QM does his ad homs to. It's anything associated with the left or especially the man in your avatar pic. Or have you forgotten his favorite nickname for Obama? I have yet to see QM make a rational argument in regards to politics without resorting to a strawman or an ad hom or some form of logical fallacy
>> ^Payback:
>> ^VoodooV:
>> ^Payback:
>> ^vaire2ube:
BillO or Choggy
starring as Winstonfield_Pennypacker
as Bobknight33
Here on Psychos Of the Sift.
Don't worry kids, Quantum Mushroom is still in there as well, go figure!!

Please don't include QM with that list. Of all of them, QM doesn't argumentum ad hominem. He might be out to lunch, but it's a classy lunch.

where have you been? QM argues Ad homs all the time. It's his bread and butter.

Show me a post where he tries to deflect what you say by attacking you personally. That's what ad Hominem is. Attempting to discredit someone to win an argument, rather than debating their view.
VoodooV: I believe (place anti-rightwing-wacko argument here).
QuantumM: Your feet stink. Look everyone! VoodooV's feet stink!

My dad... Vietnam veteran and lifelong Republican says he won't vote for any of the current Republican candidates. He told me "They've tossed out any sort of common sense or common decency to secure the votes of paranoid idiots.">> ^VoodooV:

Look at it this way. Doubling down on stupid like this is just hastening their demise. I live in a red state and I work with a lot of Republicans and more and more of them are just fed up with this ludicrous bullshit. They have no love for Obama, but the feel alienated from their own party because NONE of them buy into this insanity.

Look at it this way. Doubling down on stupid like this is just hastening their demise. I live in a red state and I work with a lot of Republicans and more and more of them are just fed up with this ludicrous bullshit. They have no love for Obama, but the feel alienated from their own party because NONE of them buy into this insanity.

Shit like this will either be the end of the conservative movement in the US, or it will finally drive rational Republicans to take their party back from the whackos.

This nonsense is just guaranteeing Obama's win in November. Maybe you don't agree with Obama, but odds are, you won't buy into this charade so it just drives them away from Republicans.

How much you want to bet that NONE of the remaining GOP candidates will touch this with a 10 foot pole. Even they're not that stupid.

I guess on the one hand, I agree with part of his rant -- elections don't matter enough, and there's too much continuity in policy from President to President, from Congress to Congress.

On the other, I think it's largely spun in a self-serving way from a right-wing ideologue. His big complaint is that the parties are too similar, but then largely misidentifies this as somehow inherently a liberal confluence of policy, when the real issue is that we haven't had a liberal shift in America's policies since before I was born.

A lot of the problem, IMO, is that conservatives like to sell people on the idea of "divided government" and the whole idea that adding opportunities for the minority to stop things from happening (like the filibuster) are the essence of "limited" government.

They've been on a decades-long crusade to stop or sabotage the government from acting effectively on any topic, and now they're complaining that their success means they were right that the government is some unresponsive, ineffectual, cold-hearted leviathan that must be destroyed...even though they had a lot to do with it getting that way, and have worked tirelessly to keep it that way, regardless of whether people vote for them or not.

I don't really know how we're going to get out of this situation, but the solution has got to start with people getting fed up with this blame-shifting excuse coming from the right. Government is not some alien creature acting on its own whims, it's a human institution, populated with human beings, acting in accordance to laws that are voted into existence by people.

People who think "government" is the problem, are letting the actual people responsible for the problem off the hook, because they're too apathetic to figure out who's really to blame. And assholes like Judge Napolitano want to help encourage them to keep blaming "the government" by trying to make it seem like it's some all-encompassing conspiracy that no mere mortal could penetrate, rather than it being the direct result of decades of Republican malfeasance left unchecked by anyone, including Democrats.

And forgive the rant, especially if you're not normally into politics.

In reply to this comment by eric3579:
http://videosift.com/video/Unprecedented-wisdom-coming-out-of-Fox
I dont do politics but this got to me a bit fired up. I know this is something you might be interested in and was curious what you and @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://netrunner.videosift.com" title="member since August 5th, 2006" class="profilelink"><strong style="color:#0000CD">NetRunner thought.

they're right. sarcastic impunity is the essence of French.>> ^Diogenes:

trying to speak french as a foreign language in france is incredibly frustrating
no matter how much you've studied and practiced, your best efforts are met with, at best, disdain (no that's not a stereotype) - heh heh
my french friends used to hassle me about my terrible accent so much that one day i got fed up and decided i'd just go over the top and attempt to mock them with an exaggerated "pepe le pew" accent...
to my amazement and disgust, they complimented me sincerely on how much my french was improving

trying to speak french as a foreign language in france is incredibly frustrating

no matter how much you've studied and practiced, your best efforts are met with, at best, disdain (no that's not a stereotype) - heh heh

my french friends used to hassle me about my terrible accent so much that one day i got fed up and decided i'd just go over the top and attempt to mock them with an exaggerated "pepe le pew" accent...

to my amazement and disgust, they complimented me sincerely on how much my french was improving

Yes, I created an account just to post that but I don't see how that makes what Paul said any less hazardous. I'm very fed up with people romanticizing and elevating Ron Paul to a hero status. Some of his approaches are refreshing, I totally agree, but I think a lot of people get swept up in the hype and ignore the fact that a lot of his key stances are elitist. If you look at his approaches to welfare and class distinctions, it's very quite sickening. His basic position is that people should be happy with their lots in life. On the one hand this means not meddling in others affairs (yay, no foreign wars) but on the other it means not helping out people who need social support. I'm not a U.S. citizen and don't work for Gingrich, if that's what you're wondering.


>> ^visionep:

Really? creating an account and posting your first message to post junk like this? Take a look at the bottom of that article to see how people react to poorly composed, slanted articles like that.

I looked for links to this article on Google and it looks like it is referenced in a ton of comments about how Newt is fighting back against negative ads. I wonder if these posts are related to his campaign.
yopyopyop, are you paid to post?
>> ^yopyopyop:
To everyone who believes that Ron Paul is worthy of supporting for the presidency, please read this article:
http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/98883/ron-paul-incendia
ry-newsletters-exclusive

The bible isn't some mythical book written by some omnipotent being. It is a collections of short stories, carefully selected and complied by the Roman Catholic church 200 years after some guy names Jesus may or may not have lived. They were hand selected and occasionally edited to create a book that the Roman Catholic church could use to control and scare the pagan and outlying sects of early christianity under one banner.....theirs.

The bible is the inspired word of God, and your read of history leaves much to be desired. First, many of the books in the NT were considered canon around 140 AD, just as the early church was getting its start, and there was no conspiracy in selecting them. The only issue in the selection process was to weed out the gnostic writings and the uninspired works from the old testament era. Second, the RCC was not an institution until much later. By the time the bible was canonized in 367, the whole church was in agreement about what should be in it. There is also no evidence of editing. We have the early manuscripts and can check this.

To say this nation was founded on Christian ideals is a complete and utter fallacy, one that has been force fed to you and every other American for decades. The entire revolutionary war and the rebellion against England had absolutely nothing to do with god or religion. It was due to the occupation of Boston, the taxes levied on everything imported or exported from the colonies and the fact that the colonials were fed up with totalitarian control from a king 3000 miles away. When those men were killed at The Boston Massacre in 1770, their religion, race or background played zero part in the aftermath and the birth of a revolution that soon followed.

That's as biased a read of american history as I have ever heard. To say that Christianity had nothing to do with the founding of this country is patently absurd. If you want evidence, feel free to read my other post, or do some *unbiased* research. I suppose you have never seen the Mayflower Compact?

http://www.pilgrimhall.org/compact.htm

Were members of the first Continental Congress religious? Of course. Were they highly educated and well read? Absolutely. The Bible was one of the most widely available books at that time and I am sure every one of them had read it. I am a staunch atheist and even I have read it cover to cover (ironically reinforcing my atheism). Of course references to the bible are in the early writings, documents and monuments of the day. The bible, while complete, man-made fiction, is still full of fairly useful and often poignant quotes.

It's impossible for you to understand the bible without the Holy Spirit. It might as well have been written in swahili for the good that it did you reading it. The accuracy of the bible is not just a historical matter but also in how it describes the human condition. That's why you have those quotes you have to admit are undeniably true, because the bible tells us the reality of the human heart. Yes, of course the founders read it (many of them went to seminary). There were many books in those days, and many philosophies, but they specifically chose the bible, and books based on the bible, as references to draft our nations founding documents, which itself is well documented. Most of them believed the bible was the inspired word of God, which was the reason they used it, not because it was a "popular book of short stories".

Freedom of religion is as much freedom FROM religion and it is to practice whatever religions you want as you see fit. The separation of church and state was not only to avoid having a state religion, but to also avoid the church taking over the government as it had so many times in history. Sadly, we have fallen right back in the trap where religion, specifically CHRISTIAN religion, has as much impact on policy in the America government today as it did during the crusades in Europe when people's lives were dictated by what the church deemed appropriate and right and not the people as a whole. When you have a president of this nation saying that he went to war, ignoring Congress in the process, in the Middle East because god told him to, shit has gone WAY too far.

Apparently you don't know but there was a defacto state religion; almost every state had its own church, and every state constitution mentioned God. Again, they held church every sunday in the house of representitives. Clearly the founders were not interested in removing religion from government, they were only concerned about the balance of power. The secular dream you think the founders had never existed; they loved God and deliberately included Him in public affairs. After they wrote the constitution, Washington declared a day of thanksgiving and praise to God

"to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God"

"http://www.earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/thanksgiving/"

>> ^Hive13

@shinyblurry:

The bible isn't some mythical book written by some omnipotent being. It is a collections of short stories, carefully selected and complied by the Roman Catholic church 200 years after some guy names Jesus may or may not have lived. They were hand selected and occasionally edited to create a book that the Roman Catholic church could use to control and scare the pagan and outlying sects of early christianity under one banner.....theirs.

To say this nation was founded on Christian ideals is a complete and utter fallacy, one that has been force fed to you and every other American for decades. The entire revolutionary war and the rebellion against England had absolutely nothing to do with god or religion. It was due to the occupation of Boston, the taxes levied on everything imported or exported from the colonies and the fact that the colonials were fed up with totalitarian control from a king 3000 miles away. When those men were killed at The Boston Massacre in 1770, their religion, race or background played zero part in the aftermath and the birth of a revolution that soon followed.

Were members of the first Continental Congress religious? Of course. Were they highly educated and well read? Absolutely. The Bible was one of the most widely available books at that time and I am sure every one of them had read it. I am a staunch atheist and even I have read it cover to cover (ironically reinforcing my atheism). Of course references to the bible are in the early writings, documents and monuments of the day. The bible, while complete, man-made fiction, is still full of fairly useful and often poignant quotes.

Freedom of religion is as much freedom FROM religion and it is to practice whatever religions you want as you see fit. The separation of church and state was not only to avoid having a state religion, but to also avoid the church taking over the government as it had so many times in history. Sadly, we have fallen right back in the trap where religion, specifically CHRISTIAN religion, has as much impact on policy in the America government today as it did during the crusades in Europe when people's lives were dictated by what the church deemed appropriate and right and not the people as a whole. When you have a president of this nation saying that he went to war, ignoring Congress in the process, in the Middle East because god told him to, shit has gone WAY too far.

The TEA Party is just fed up with corrupt government and the only way to fight back is to go back to the original intent of the founders and that to to just plainly follow the constitution. How can that be wrong?

There is so many unconstitutional policies on and everyone knows it.

The report on the government officials practicing insider trading just came out and it indicated a 98%+ corruption of elected leaders. How sad. Only 2 republicans were singled out as having not participated in this actions, and that was Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann. These 2 don't have a chance of winning the party nomination because they are deemed too radical or such. Are they? Or have we drifted astray? I would gather there would be a Democrat or 2 also that have clean sheets and they should run against Obama.

We don't need more of the same. We need change. Obama did not bring change. The wars did not end. Gitmo still stands. The Patriot Act is even more intrusive. TSA - need I say more? Spending is totally out of control. Our credit rating took a hit because we yet again raised out debt ceiling. Have we not learned anything from what is going on on Greece and Europe?

We have to wake up and vote for officials who are loyal to the ideals of the Constitution and not to themselves. We the people also need to stop asking for a handout just because its "free". nothing is free only freedom and we are loosing it at a very fast rate.

Stop voting just to beat the other guy. I feel that Gingridge can wipe the floor in an Obama debate but he will never get my vote.
For purely principle sake I would have to Vote for Paul or Bauchmann. Sure I disagree on some things but they would preform their elected duties following the constitution. Isn't that what the a are supposed to do? Don't they take an oath on the Bible to uphold the constitution?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

Yes, the classic Rove strategy of attacking a strength as if it were a weakness, which is a dangerous strategy when so much of the country is fed up with Wall Street. OWS is turning out to be a great wedge issue, putting the right in the position of having to defend the bloated and corrupt corporate state.


It's surprising how much this propaganda in the media is working though. I live in Seattle in more or less and Art commune area and there's so many really REALLY left wing people around me that don't like the OWS protests. They usually completely ignorant of what they're doing or why, and they're not even bothering to do any investigation. They usually just take one situation and grab hold of it like that is the entire crux of the movement.

One person I know hates the OWS movement because she saw a couple of them in line at Starbucks. I can't imagine the amount of brainwashing we have to undo in this country, I'm almost of the opinion that it can't be done.

Yes, the classic Rove strategy of attacking a strength as if it were a weakness, which is a dangerous strategy when so much of the country is fed up with Wall Street. OWS is turning out to be a great wedge issue, putting the right in the position of having to defend the bloated and corrupt corporate state.

The false dichotomy is in Olbermann's call for Jean Quan to resign. It has nothing to do with the tactics that OPD employed.
You misunderstand me if you think I'm in support of Quan and the Police's actions. I simply think that overblown rhetoric doesn't make for good journalism. The debate would better be served by reason and reporting than by appeals to emotion. I don't need Keith Olbermann to tell me how I'm supposed to feel about violence. Perhaps it's a radical thought, but I trust people to be able to make up their own minds.
>> ^rougy:

>> ^Sayja:
"Provocative attention grabbing sentence. Patronizing set up. Shame on you. Hyperbole. Shame on you. False analogy. Outrage. Ad hominem! False Dilemma!"
Fuck this. As a resident of Oakland, I deplore seeing more violence in a city already plagued by violence. I would much rather see the city act in support its citizen's right to speak out against injustice. However, I'm fed up with seeing Olbermann and the clowns he left at MSNBC abuse such childish tactics. I refuse to pat someone on the back simply because they've become a yelling head for our side. Is the intended implication that we're not smart enough to make our own judgements in reaction to this footage?
The way I see it, Olbermann is left with only one false dichotomy: learn how to practice journalism and contribute to the meaningful debate that our country needs or resign.

Yeah?
A false dichotomy? I don't see where that equates to riot gear cops shooting people with rubber bullets and lobbing shock grenades into the crowd.
I think you're on the wrong side here, boy.