Yeah, keep changing the topic and ignoring my statements.
Ours is not a pure secular democracy, even though it was intended to be one, so not as different from a theocracy as you suggest by far. (that does not mean there's no difference, it means you imply they are near opposites) Perhaps if the clear intent of the founders was the rule, we would be, but it's not.

Try having a religious discussion in the deep south as an atheist and see if you don't feel at risk for your life. In public, maybe surviveable, but get religious people together where they feel 'safe', you'll see the bile and vitriol for the 'other' come out in spades. Hitchens knew full well it was not gone, and that the 'other' was not safe, and that religion doesn't always wear the smiley face even today.
Bye.

You're right. I don't remember every conversation I have ever had.

Besides, people can change their mind.

So I go by what they say.

All the various Christian sects go back to the same book. Well, the Mormons have their extra bit, but they read the bible too.

There are plenty of Muslims who interpret their holy book in different ways.

I stand by my downvote as perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

PS Plenty of smiting and capital punishment in the Bible. No different than the Quran.

I agree that choosing between Hillary and Trump is like being forced to choose between being punched in the face and having your arm broken.

Why wouldn't you choose a third option?

Oh, that's right, because you get you arm broken anyway.

Exactly what do you think is going to change by not voting or voting 3rd party (effectively the same in the US)? All you're doing is basically allowing someone else to decide which shit sandwich you have to eat.

It's naive in the extreme.

If you really think there is no difference between Trump and Hillary, then go ahead and don't vote or vote Kermit the Frog or whatever.

But if you have been paying attention the last year or so, then you have to vote for the lesser of two evils. This isn't the time for grandstanding.

Let's put it this way. If you want political change in the US, do you think that's more likely if Trump gets elected?? Seriously?

I know it's Colbert's shtick and I never really got into it, but still...

"I have friends who live and work in London. They said "don't worry,we're very sensible people."

What's sensible for people in London might not be sensible for people in Salford. Or Boston. Or Wolverhampton. London, or the South-East in general, is as representative of the UK as the East/West Coast is of the US.

The hinterland has been drained at the expense of the center, on both a global and a national scale. If you live and work in the City of London, things might look quite ok, and whatever issues there are only need some reforms to no longer be an issue. But if your factory, the factory that provided jobs for the people in your home town, closed down ten, twenty years ago and now the best you can get is zero-hour contracts, then no, things are not ok.

People up top keep telling you that the economy is growing, that everyone's gonna be better off, that it's ok for multinational corporations and rich individuals to optimise their taxes, while they cut your welfare. Banks get a bailout, you get to pay the bedroom tax.

So no, your sensible friends, if they exist, live in a different universe than many of their countrymen. That's the disconnect we've been talking about.

-----
"The British economy is tanking. The pound has plunged to its lowest level since 1985... The Dow lost 611 points."

Again, so what? If the economy is growing and it has no effect on you, why should you give a jar of cold piss about the value of the pound or the stock exchange? Arguably, a drop in the exchange rate of the pound makes it easier for you to export your goods and raises the prices for imports, thereby encouraging you to produce the shit yourself. The UK does have a sovereign currency, unlike the Spanish, the Greeks, the Portuguese or the Italians who have to suffer internal devaluations, because Wolfgang Schäuble says so.

"Equity losses over $2 trillion"

Why should that matter? QE has pushed up stock prices beyond any resonable level, so what meaning do these book values hold? Not to mention that a lot of people made a shitload of money by shorting these stocks, including George Soros against Deutsche.

"There'll be no more money"

QE never trickled down anyway, makes no difference. Corbyn's people call their version "QE for the People" and "Green QE" for a reason: the previous version was only meant to prop up banks and stock values.

--------------

On a more general note, the hatred, the racism, the xenophobia... in most cases, it's a pressure valve. You leash out against someone else, you need someone to blame. The narrative is that we're living in a meritocracy, which makes it your fault that you didn't inherit an investment portfolio. So you start blaming yourself. You're a fuck-up. You worked hard and not only didn't climb the ladder, you actually went down. There's depression for ya. Guess what happens if someone, a person of perceived authority, then comes along and tells you it's not your fault, it's the fault of the immigrants. That narrative is very appealing if history is any indication. Even the supposedly most prosperous country in the EU, Germany, has the very same issue in the eastern parts, where there is no hope for a meaningful job.

People need work, meaningful work. Wanna guess how many of those "xenophobes" would be out in the street protesting against immigrants if they had a meaningful job with decent pay? Not to many would be my guess.

So the likes of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson are providing the narrative. But the lack of social cohesion is a result of market fundamentalism, of Thatcherism, of Third Way social-democrats leaving the lower half of the income distribution to the wolves. You can't exclude large swaths of the population from the benefits of increased productivity, etc. Social dividend, they called it. It's what keeps the torches and pitchforks locked away in the barn.

@newtboy "That's why when you are presented with a 'clean' candidate, it's astonishing to me that anyone would continue to support dirty ones."

And this is our real divide.

You want the world to be different than it is. You are astonished? I'm not. There is nothing astonishing about that.

I don't agree that Hillary is "dirty" -- no need to say more than that. Please don't inundate with proof that she makes deals and compromises and takes fees for talks.

And I disagree with your assessment that Dems, if Bernie got the nomination, would not fall behind him. I have seen it in print over and over and over again, that Hillary supporters say they will vote for the Dem nominee. I have said it repeatedly myself. No need to ask the question, because there IS no question.

It is the Sanders supporters who say they won't support Hillary and say there is no difference between her and Trump.

Do what you want. If Trump gets the presidency, we'll come back in two years and here and discuss the state of America and its relationship to the world. I predict, if that happens, that I will woefully be saying -- I told you so.

Trump as president. My god.

You make a good point...kind of....IMO, the media no longer employs 'reporters'. It would not surprise me in the least if NONE of the media there had looked at what had been released. EDIT:but now that we've seen what was released, it made no difference as it does NOT show any officer try to help, only officers partially out of uniform. There certainly should be footage from one of those cars that surrounded the water showing an officer TRYING to enter the water, but there isn't, because it likely didn't happen.

It is impossible to believe that cops don't dehumanize those they chase, because we've seen it all too often. It's impossible to believe that cops act properly after a chase, because we see them act improperly all the time. It's impossible to believe that cops DON'T murder citizens often and then lie about it, because we've seen it all too often. I don't think they murder any citizen they have a chance to murder, but I do think they murder many people for 'contempt of cop' because they know they'll be backed up by the entire force...which is why we can no longer trust ANY self serving statement made by police...they lie, they're trained to lie, they are trained to think it's OK for them to lie, and they are trained to support another officers lies....you can't trust a word they ever say because of that.

This is where drones come in. They can loiter literally all day long and identify targets. Without putting a pilots life in danger like with the A-10.
A fast mover comes in and releases munitions on marked locations if it is in deep territory. Or a helicopter will do it to support close by infantry.

That's the theory anyway. Whether it's realistic and works I have no idea But that's how 70% or so of air support is already done with current planes.

If anyone ever flies a stealth plane low and slow. They're an idiot. So I really hope that never happens.

Pretty much every plane ever built has a had a rough start. The F-35 is no different, expect it has more systems to tune so it takes longer. Although it's probably being milked by the manufacturer by the sounds of it.

Most QR reading apps show you the URL or other QR code contents before doing anything with it. They don't just go to the URL automatically unless you tell it to do so (none that I've used anyway). I'm assuming if there were a program for desktop/laptop PCs that reads QR codes, it would behave similarly. Standard QR codes can't really contain anything other than text data, because they are extremely limited in the number of bytes they can represent. Generally, they're used to store a website URL or similar type of thing.

I've never heard of a web-based attack that would automatically infect you. There would be some sort of confirmation or you'd need to run some piece of software manually in order to get infected. JavaScript doesn't have the ability to actually break out of the browser, so there's nothing it could really do at a system level. If it downloaded software, you would need to let it install before there was any risk.

I've heard of screensavers, back in the like, Windows 95/98 days, where if you used it, you could become infected. But that's no different. Screensavers (at least back then) were nothing more than specialized .exe files, so you're just running a program like any other thing.

If you're dumb enough to click a link and then install the software it downloads, then you're not exercising proper basic security principles and you kind of deserve to learn a lesson anyway.

According to the theory of relativity, there's no difference! :-)

WHAT?!?
What a racist, disgusting thought.
So, you're saying all black men and women are publicly disgusting people that need their actions hidden to be employable?!?
Er Mer Gerd! Did you REALLY just write that? Do you really think that? No wonder you're defending the racist douchebag.

To your other 'point'.
How can I tell he 's taking my tax dollars for certain...I can't...but it's insanely more likely that he is, being unemployed and unemployable, taking unemployment than it is that the protesters are (like he claims). Most ridiculous asshats like this want to THINK they are 'too proud' to take what they call a 'handout', right until that second it's available to them, then it's 'free money they'd be stupid to not take'. The states with the most hard core, anti welfare right wingers are also ALWAYS the states that take the most tax dollars and give the fewest. These 'hard working proud' people ARE the welfare queens they complain about.

EDIT:And can you please explain how one kind of 'tax dollar' is different from another 'tax dollar'? All public programs are paid into by tax payers. Public 'unemployment insurance' is no different from any other 'welfare' program...you're forced to pay in, you're allowed to take out if you prove you qualify. That silly thinking is how idiots convince themselves that THEY are hard working upright people and THOSE PEOPLE are just lazy takers, when they are all doing the exact same thing, taking from the public fund for their personal needs.

Obviously, since I have called snuff on many a video to have them removed, no, if his neck was snapped it would not be A-OK.....

BUT....

You continue to completely ignore the clearly stated issue put forth, which is that you labeled this video in such a way that there's absolutely no warning you are going to be seeing any such disturbing thing. I expected to see a man to get his hair or head bitten and watch him be tossed by a camel, not a terrifying (for the camel) poorly done third world live butchering of a large animal. If the title had said any such thing, I would have just ignored the video, since you STILL have up the title, knowing full well that it's tricking people who don't want to see animals be butchered alive into watching, you deserve far more than a downvote in my opinion.

As to your whine that I could have said something about the title before downvoting, well now I and many other people have spoken up and you still have the same no-warning title, so my only regret is that I have but one vote to downvote it with. Clearly speaking up made absolutely no difference. Besides, it's not like I inappropriately downvoted your pure fact comment...like you did to @charliem, I properly downvoted a video I didn't like with a title that tricked me into seeing it at all.

And will you please go learn what censorship is before whining about it again. Being asked to retitle something many people find offensive that you titled with a 'completely misses the point' title is not censorship.

I think if someone is in a particular church -- or not -- or whatever they are personally drawn to -- IT IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS TO JUDGE THEM.

If they need it, they need it. Whatever happened to them in their childhood, or whenever -- the church -- whatever church -- or non-church -- fits them.

You are an atheist, right? I don't know if you grew up in a church or not. I don't know why it is so terribly important to you to be an atheist.

But it FITS you.

It is the height of judgmental righteous behavior to look at anyone else's choice and say it is wrong.

Am I a Mormon? No. I agree with you. How this church started is the height -- or the depth -- of religious absurdity. How anyone can choose this church as an adult? How can that be.

And yet. My brother -- who has a Master's Degree in Aerospace Engineering from USC, military pilot, history buff, wide stripe of artistic urges and talents -- this guy chose the church in his early 20's. For his own reasons. Because he needed it, coming from our family of origin.

To quote Jerry Maguire -- it completed him. And like love, it is illogical and not for anyone else to judge.

You don't like religion being all judgey? I recommend you stop doing it yourself, and let people be.

Now, the Mormon church getting involved in the laws of the land? I got a big beef with that.

But as for individuals, making individual choices, for individual reasons.... I gotta say I don't see much difference between your judginess and any Catholic priest laying down "God's law" about how people are "supposed to" believe and behave.

You see that, don't you? There is no difference between your judgement and any religious person's judgment?

Not to resurrect an extremely old thread, but I happened to stumble upon this old clip, and after having read some of the comments, felt compelled to say this about Hell: that it basically invalidates its own existence insofar as 'nothingness' can be a place.

First, we recall that the Bible makes numerous references to God being omnipresent and omnibenevolent.
Second, as discussed above, we see that Christian dogma says Hell is the absence of God (and His love, since for all intents and purposes they're the same thing, being all-good and everywhere).
So, that means that Hell is a place where God isn't, and God is in every possible place simultaneously, the old throwbacks to pantheism. Therefore, Hell is nothingness.

As an atheist, I think that when I die, my consciousness goes into 'nothingness' anyway- so there's essentially no difference for me in dying and going to Hell and dying in a universe without God.

“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”

Is that a question or a statement (it's worded as a statement, but has a question mark at the end)?

Yes I already knew that. And...? It's no different than Australia in that particular respect. It's an aspect that I would fully expect Americans to rightfully not adopt.

Adding to above NZ allows semi-auto longarms and high capacity magazines for all firearms (basically what Australia has banned from owning), not all firearms need to be registered (unlike Australia), and they have longer licensing periods and yet they have a significantly lower firearms homicide rate and homicide rate overall. America using the NZ model as a template would be a better starting point. I wrote "template" in my previous post, perhaps "model" or "rough guide" would have been better. I don't mean copy it verbatim. I mean use it as a starting point as at least potentially workable.

Are you a citizen of NZ or Aus and are you a firearms owner in NZ or Aus?