My cat, "Goat", once caught a possum nearly twice his size on the other side of the fence by grabbing his tail. When the arm came under to swat at him, he grabbed that, too. By the time I got to him, Goat had both front paws dug into the opossum's forearm, back paw pinning down a rear leg (also from under the fence), and a tail in his mouth, pulling with all his strength to pull that beast to his side.

When I finally was able to pull him off, the opossum was wedged tightly under the boards to the concrete and couldn't get out. I had to get a shovel to pry the boards up so her could escape. And he just lumbered off without much of a hurry.

How a traditional axe is made:

Find a stick and a piece of flint. Wedge the flint into the stick, fasten it with strips of animal hide.

*commercial

>> ^Darkhand:

>> ^Boise_Lib:
Now if I could just get my relatives to watch this.

It doesn't matter. I showed this to some people I know are conservative and they've all had the same reaction.
I can't understand why people wouldnt' want to just change everything back tax wise to how it was under the Clinton Administration. The economy WORKED back then you know?
It's like, if I'm wearing a size 9 shoe, and then I switch to a size 8 because they didn't have any size 9's and this shoe is REALLY AWESOME so I'm going to try it! After about a year I'm going to be in agony I'd just go back to only buying size 9!
Why does everyone (conservative) want to re-invent the whole wheel?


We've reached that level of divisiveness and partisanship that it doesn't matter how good things were under Clinton, there is always going to be a large amount of mental gymnastics and false rationalization for some people that will allow them to be "convinced" that things were really quite horrible under his administration.

We're already seeing it now. The only way the republicans are going to get the white house is if they convince enough people of the doom and gloom. It doesn't matter how much good he does. He could single handedly bring down North Korea and Iran and the right will still try to argue that he's the worst president ever. All throughout Bush's presidency, all we heard about was Bin Laden this, Bin Laden that. A Democrat Administration gets him, and the first thing we hear is "pshaw....we don't care about him. He's not important." It's completely insane.

We could have time travel and actually witness Obama being born in Hawaii and it just won't matter, the birthers will still find some "rationalization" of their shit.

Speaking of which, I see that the latest "proof" that the birth certificate is fake hasn't gained any traction.

Hell, we had a sift here recently about a group of people who still think the world is flat and it's all just a huge conspiracy that the world is round. It's fucking 2012 and we have people who think the world is flat.

Part of it is the media's fault, they continue to insist that almost every issue could go either way. so that they can sell the conflict and turn it into ratings. It's one thing to have people who honestly believe that Obama wasn't born here, but it's quite another to have a media that gives them legitimacy for the sake of ratings.

The point is, we really gotta stop worrying about the fringe thinks. We live in a era of where we apparently don't care about what the majority wants anymore. We seem to only pay attention to the vocal minorities. Over half the US is ok with Gay Marriage, but yet it's still this wedge issue, 60-some percent were in favor of Medicare for all...yet we still can't make it happen. Most people ARE in favor of higher taxes for the rich...yet it still hasn't materialized yet. Most people have no problem getting along and living and working with people of other ethnicity, yet we still seem to live in a world where race is still an issue. All because we still continue to pay more attention to what the fringes thing than the majority.

>> ^ChaosEngine:

>> ^entr0py:
Sounds like godless liberal elitism to me. Slow down there Lenin H. Rockefeller
http://factcheck.org/2012/02/college-kills-faith/
That's disappointing. College should kill faith. Well, maybe not kill it, but certainly wound it. If you go to higher education for a few years and you aren't exposed to ideas that make you at least question your faith, you and/or your college have failed in your education.


I agree with you, but what you are saying is EXACTLY what doesn't happen. I know many people that hold doctorate level degrees yet they still think creationism is great; even THOUGH the science they (literally) use in MANY instances is BASED on evolution and it working as purposed by many scientists--over a very long amount of time; and the evidence is ONLY getting thicker and higher not falling apart and slimming it's waistline--it's madness. BUT, the key thing here is that all of these people have one thing in common, all of them... They all wanted to learn about THEIR field, but when it came to anything else outside of it--even fields that are directly linked to their fields--it didn't matter, because they are of a single-minded process.

They happen to not be as curious as you or I and of course many other people that even when they learned a lot about what interested them, they realized that there was NO FENCE and that the rabbit hole (as it is said) keeps going. I think many other people have successfully quarantined sections of their life of from other sections. Their mind functions like the CDC and it is why we start ending up with people with seemingly underlying psychological issues like Rick Santorum, as they treat their life like it is literally a world alone unto themselves.

They can hear and see all the information you say, but unless you have gotten their curiosity they will treat it as a contamination and try to find a way to dispose of the information--meanwhile, if they have psychological problems, their brain is actively helping them in their routine.

I've been confounded as well, for a longtime. Like I said if you pay attention the one thing you SHOULD learn from EVERY class you have taken is that the rabbit hole has yet to stop. So it seems like education would in fact drive a wedge between you and any faith as you learn more, the more you should realize how much we still have to learn. It should make your faith seem even smaller than you feel compared next to the Universe if you ask me... Some people must just be too fat and get stuck in their relative rabbit hole.

btw trick to stop your pulse, get a tennis ball, bar of soap or any hard semi large object.

put it in your armpit and bring your arm down putting pressure on it.

the ball or object wedged in armpit will give illusion that your pulse has stopped, you can use 2 objects wedged in your armpits to make both wrists pulse stop.

simple trick found in a 2 dollar magic book at a magic shop, yet street magicians use this crap on tv.

there's a big difference between believing in some religious myth, and quite another to reject reality and scientific FACTS because you are part of a certain religious belief system.

edit: what I mean is, it's fine to be religious and teach science, it wouldn't be fine on the other hand, if you taught science, and wedged in your ignorance in the middle of your teaching, by saying evolution doesn't exit, and creationism is somehow a valid point.

This point doesn't really have anything to do with the newsletter ordeal. I just think the man is an idiot.

I'm not suggesting we silence ourselves, I'm just suggesting we be a little more respectful and a little less evangelical in our approach. Cthulhu knows I've gone through years of spite and aggression - sex on a church alter, ripping the book of Genesis to shreds (in words) at a dinner party and baiting people who are clearly outmatched into a theological debate they have no hope of surviving, among countless other examples. Whatever. It was a phase, and I'm not ashamed of those days, but at the same time I don't really think all that spite accomplished anything but to further alienate people of faith.

I find my older self wanting to be a good ambassador for atheism, rather than a bad-ass, kick-ass sword wielding crusader. I want atheism to appear as calm and mainstream as possible. I want to lead by example. Secular Jesus.

Beyond that, I see how damaging religion is when it's used as a wedge issue, and we contribute to that wedge by terrifying otherwise good people of faith and driving them into the political margins. I believe that people of faith are more susceptible to fear than non-theists, and that in many ways we scare them further to into the arms of fascists and plutocrats when we go on the offensive. Back in the day when democracy was strong, people of faith stood along side the labor movement, the civil rights movement and other importance social movements. All that 'care for the poor, turn the other cheek, love your brother, rich people are going to hell (eye of the needle)' stuff was taken seriously. I'd love to see that altruistic, socially conscious, admirable side of Christianity make a comeback, and drive the free market, homophobic, racist bible belt bullies back into the fucking swamp where they belong.

We don't have to agree, but I want you to at least understand (and hopefully respect) where I'm coming from. Good chat @hpqp.

>> ^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.

I love tea but that's bit too funky for me, hot and with milk? wtf thats how I like Coffee

being from Georgia I like good ol' southern Iced Tea.

best way is to set pitcher of water out with tea bags in the sun and let it steep in the sun or you can boil it on stove

then sweeten with sugar put in fridge to get ice cold

drop couple ice cubes in perhaps garnish with wedge of lemon.

perfect southern iced tea

The optimist in me continues to believe that even the far right is starting to realize they aren't going to win on this issue and know that more and more people are accepting of homosexuality so in a truly political move, they are finally distancing themselves from the gay issue because you can only use it for a wedge issue for so long....if enough people are accepting of homosexuality, they're going to lose if they campaign against it.

So they're still raging homophobes who believe praying away the gay is a viable solution, very little is going to change that, but it seems as though they might be forfeiting the issue in the political arena

>> ^Ickster:

In a 2:40 video, there are 30 seconds of fireworks and 2:10 of people arriving, leaving and credits?


Thirty seconds of action wedged between the foreplay and cigarettes.

Not sure I understand why it's a political issue. We are as we are, and I don't see how we came to be has much bearing on politics besides human necessities and what not.

I mean if some dude gets into office and wants to believe God created us and science is crazy talk.....what bearing does that have on 95% of what this guy is going to be doing? I mean he's clearly an idiot to dismiss thousands of years of study and millions of years of proof, but his belief only possibly impacts what is taught in schools as far as I can see.

And just out right forcing kids to study religious beliefs and trying to do away with scientific research and the history behind it is pure ignorance. You should be suspect of anyone who wants to take a whole idea/concept/ideology and throw it away because he doesn't agree.

People SHOULD be more concerned with job creation, ending wars, corruption, and a myriad of subjects that are vastly more important to the functioning of society than the topic of how humans came to be as they are. Just another subject to divide people on and use as a wedge to push an agenda somewhere else.

>> ^VoodooV:

This stuff plays well for the republican primaries.
But it's going to be Palin all over again should she win and go onto the general
People like her drive a wedge not between just America..but people in her own party. She's insuring a D win in 2012...so she can spout her crazy all she wants


This. She isn't electable.