"The west F-ed up Africa real bad in the past, and to make up for it they are providing aid (however meager it may be) in the present."

That's true, but people don't seem to realize how much of the wealth variance of different regions is due to the kind of geographic determinism discussed in Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Sahara was a civilizational bottleneck.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
Winston Churchill

^Amen, sister.

The sad thing is that we're making this country worse and worse as time rolls on. We're making in more difficult for our children.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Thomas Jefferson

If the gov't became TOO large and began to impose upon my privacy and the way I raise my family, if they tried to take my gun away and no longer allowed me to defend myself, if they raise income tax to more than 35% of my income, if they take away my right to free speech, if they centralize more power to one branch of the government, if they continue to create laws and policies that depress economic growth, if my vote no longer counted, if the government failed (once again) to keep our borders secure, if the government interfered in the practice of my religion, etc...

If the government continues to flirt with revocation of our God given freedoms, we might have to do something. Does that make me a dangerous "right wing extremist?"

Nope. Not even close. I'm a conservative ...and I remember who has the power.

"In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."

-MLK

I've been a Weird Al fan ever since his first album and it never ceases to amaze me how he can capture the sound of a particular band so succinctly. Dog Eat Dog = Talking Heads, Germs = NIN, etc. And those aren't even parodies of existing songs.

I remember seeing an interview with Mark Mothersbaugh regarding Weird Al's Devo-esque "Dare to be Stupid". He summed it up with:

"I hate him..."

^NetRunner
Essentially, you follow the stereotypical model of a believer to a higher degree than any religious person I've met.


^except for that pesky rationality part.

I didn't say origin of species conclusively proved god does not exist, I said it makes church sermons sound stupid. Kind of like how the germ theory of disease makes the evil spirits theory of disease sound stupid.

How you get from A to C is a mystery to me, but I'm sure its very fun for you.

"God is a racist!"

Anthropologist Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, & Steel won a Pulitzer prize for its exploration of the geographic determinism of human history.

Critics rightly point out that culture (including religion) and other factors likely played a substantial role in global inequality, but the deck was stacked against most cultural areas of the world from the very beginning.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Guns-Germs-Steel-Why-Eurasia-Has-Dominated-the-Globe

Hot water from the hot-water tap, depending on what kind of heater you are using, is in general, a lot more contaminated with heavy minerals and germs than your cold water tap.

Remember kids, cold water is the MOST potable

>> ^quantumushroom:
Sorry, you make a deal with the Devil (ha ha) to let the government indoctrinate your kids, you don't get to decide what is taught. On the bright side, economics, American history and civics aren't being taught, assuring yet another generation of liberal tools.


I think Stephen Colbert put it best: Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Evolution is True. its a FACT, the exact same way germs or viruses are a facts. We know this for the same reason: these theories actually WORK. they predict, they are testable, they hold up to decades of scientific scrutiny. Are there uncertainties?, problems? Of course, thats why we still have researchers, and its also one of the best reasons to pass on our best knowledge to our children, so that they can solve these problems in the future.

We do not know how to cure HIV/AIDS for example, but nobody with a reasonable laymans understanding of the term "virus" thinks that its demon-possession or witchcraft or punishment from the gods. We KNOW, with what is close to a 100% certainty that a VIRUS -tiny, evolving replicators that transmit sexually- is the cause of HIV, we've known this for 20-30 years, and its a fact that isnt going to change.

The exact same thing can be said about the theory of evolution, it is a comprehensive, well established and true explanation for an extremely wide range of facts and evidence collected from not only paleontology and genetics, but also geology, astronomy, medicine, chemistry, physics and even mathematics. If you'd want to defeat this theory with a silly, meaningless phrase like "intelligent design" ,you'd have to undo and outdo evolution's explanatory power in all of these disiplines.

I somewhat agree...
Two sides to this argument (nothing is ever black and white)

Bottled water deprives our bodies of natural minerals found in water that our bodies need and doesn't let us build up the natural antibodies that we need to fight viruses, germs and infection. Plus it tastes god-awefull!!!

Bottled waters only benifit is to aid us in the face of disasters.

Fresh well water and water taken from small streams is still the best water!

Your video, Guns, Germs & Steel - Why Eurasia Has Dominated the Globe, has made it into your personal Highest Rated Videos listing. Congratulations on a job well done. For you contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This video has been declared a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof declared by oxdottir.

OK, I actually checked. This really is a dupe. Very sorry.

*dupeof=http://www.videosift.com/video/Guns-Germs-Steel-Why-Eurasia-Has-Dominated-the-Globe

OK. I am confused. this sure looks like a dupe. The other one is more than an hour long. How long is this one? It's hard to tell. They start out the same, and they are both long: http://www.videosift.com/video/Guns-Germs-Steel-Why-Eurasia-Has-Dominated-the-Globe

"Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies is a 1997 book by Jared Diamond, professor of geography and physiology at UCLA.

"In 1998 it won a Pulitzer Prize and the Aventis Prize for Best Science Book.

"A documentary based on the book was broadcast on PBS in July 2005, produced by the National Geographic Society."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

Jared Diamond is brilliant!


Guns, Germs and Steel
1. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4008293090480628280
2. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6846344734969027300&hl=en
3. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3449100874735282191&hl=en