Jerk. You have a problem with someone using the word "irony" correctly?

In reply to this comment by jwray:
According to the moron at 2:30, suing to get "in god we trust" removed from the currency is "millitant"? What fucking planet is he from? That's just enforcing the establishment clause of the first amendment through the courts. That's about as millitant as Gandhi.

You can't expect people to always tell the truth when they get a random phone call under the pretense of a survey. Especially on such a topic that could expose them to more bigotry than any other minority. People lie to the opinion polls. There aren't enough churches in the country to hold all the people who say they go to church every sunday.

"The 2001 ARIS report found that while 29.5 million U.S. Americans (14.1%) describe themselves as "without religion", only 902,000 (0.4%) positively claim to be atheist, with another 991,000 (0.5%) professing agnosticism."

Everyone is somewhere along the spectrum "theism...agnosticism...atheism". Of course that depends on which version of god you're talking about. But "without religion" can't be theism, so these people simply aren't accurately describing themselves.

Dawkins is not militant. Don't be ridiculous. He has no inclination towards violence or coercion.

Stalin and Mao did not suppress religions for atheism's sake, they did it to eliminate competitors of the state -- organizations that might lead to an uprising against the tyrant. Their actions have nothing to do with atheism. They have much more to do with Machiavelli. Their beliefs were rooted in Marxism, and Marx wouldn't know the scientific method if it slapped him in the face. Marx simply up shit and treated it as fact, like any religious prophet (it would be a bit redundant to say false prophet). None of this is connected to the atheistic beliefs of modern scientists.

Looks like windows media - check out #3 in the FAQ.

In reply to this comment by jwray:
<embed type="application/x-mplayer2" src="http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Colbert-Formidable-Iraq.wmv" width="320" height="240" scale="aspect" AutoStart="true" ShowDisplay="0" ShowStatusBar="0" AutoSize="1" AnimationAtStart="1" AllowChangeDisplaySize="1" ShowControls="1"></embed>

It appears to be something other than flash. It works on firefox.

Could you link me or direct me to the paper in which the clinical trial demonstrating the 1 ppm effect on rats is detailed? The video you commented on is teetering towards the edge of getting the boot from the Science channel, and I thought it might be fun to see if it could be rescued before it flails its way into the abyss.

In reply to this comment by jwray:
TV news is so reminiscent of http://www.videosift.com/video/Monty-Python-The-Argument-Clinic-Full-Version

They don't actually go into the details of the placebo-controlled clinical trial that shows 1ppm of fluoride ion in drinking water causes a pattern of behavioral deficits in rats, or the studies of the biochemical mechanisms of its neurotoxicity. Dental Fluorosis is the most benign of the problems excess fluoride can cause. http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=fluoride+varner

Thanks for the *dead and new code.

In reply to this comment by jwray:
Here's new embed code that'll work:

but asserting that Iraq has an influx of fast food from america...
you won't find me disagreeing with you that nutrition plays a large part in the development of a fetus. And I would also agree that they have a very large stress factor, (having bombs going off, foreign troops invading your homeland and numerous other factors Iraqi's have to live with on a daily basis)
But imagine the scale of fast food joints that there would have to be to accomplish what your talking about. Heck, do they even have any of our westernized food joints over there ? Before the war we had sanctions placed against them and U.S. businesses could not do business with Iraq.

we are the original fast food nation (many more FF joints for a much longer time), so where are all the reports of birth defects due to FF?

noting there is a difference between "birth defects" and things like being born malnourished, jaundiced, IBS, etc...

In reply to this comment by jwray:
Poor nutrition, such as folic acid deficiency, has been proven to cause birth defects. Most vitamin/mineral deficiency in the mother could possibly harm the fetus. 3 out of 4 deaths in the USA are caused by diseases or complications of diseases that are strongly linked to diet, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. Stress and greasy fast food can aggravate inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome, which can both cause malabsorption.

and nothing from Burke ever will, so long as i am made aware of it.

djsunkid has it in his save list. just let me know when.

In reply to this comment by jwray:
I can't believe this isn't promoted to the front yet! We can't let James Bloody Burke expire in the queue!

I've yet to downvote a song. I accept that musical tastes will vary.

Thank you. Saved me some time looking through YouTube!

In reply to this comment by jwray:
Here's a backup of the same video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJO9Czh12XQ

I can't, I run the Bravo! collective.

In reply to your comment:
“kick me from Late Night please”

fortunately for you I do not have the time to follow up on my threats... do note however that I was seriously offended for that... to single me out for a typo? And send me a link to a site about it? Next time why don't you just say "RAVEN IS AN R-TARD"

I mean honestly, do you really have that much time on your hands that you feel it necessary to correct every tiny grammar mistake? If so I highly recommend you re-evaluate your life... this is the internets... grammar is a dinosaur... learn to put up with it as I have.

I don't mean to start a serious fight here, in fact I'm going to drop it after this, but I felt talked down to... and for what??? an apostrophe!!! in a thread rife with both spelling and grammatical errors... If it makes you feel special to be able to point out such mistakes than I suggest in the future you keep it to yourself.

In reply to your comment:
“You don't need to believe in religion, but at very least respect the point of views of the people that do.

Respect the person, not necessarily his ideas. Elegantly craft lucid debate.

I am against all censorship. Christopher Hitchens put it best in his eloquent rebuttal to a motion to ban "hate speech" in Canada: Hitchens on Freedom of Expression. There is no reason to feel so threatened by mere words of debate. You don't have to read any of it if you don't want to. If you have good reasons for your beliefs, you should be able to do well in a debate with anybody about those beliefs.


the comments here are soooooooooooo much better than youtube and much better than most other forums where religion is discussed.

Agreed.

take note though jwray... correcting a librarian on grammatical issues is never smart... its a pride issue and you've incurred some wrath buddy... do it again and I will personally proofread every mutherluvin' comment you make... you've been warned!!

Bring it on ”

lol the "other guy" is a marxist isn't he?

paintings cannot express ideas as well as words? errr... ok! last time i checked, a picture was worth a thousand words.

I think that big record companies would LOVE to sell more music (i mean, make more profit) and wouldn't give a fuck what style it was, but in their ignorance/apathy/stupidity they churn out crap and put DRM on it. From my experience, the people working in record companies are pretty clueless, they flap about with their office renovations and their expense accounts and the company is so big it can't keep track of whose fault the whole mess is.

The root of the problem is that music is not a commodity, and is certainly now not protectable, but they try and sell it as such. There was that whole debate about 15 tracks on iTunes costing more than a CD, as if music should be sold by weight, like cheese. And the whole mp3 subscription thing hasn't really taken off has it? So music isn't even a service to be piped into your hard drive. That kills the magic. How do you make magic if you are talking about spreadsheets all the time?

Fetishism and rarity of (unduplicable) vinyl... that was what built the music industry. They're still trying to play the same game.

In reply to your comment:
“It's pretty obvious and more general than that. There's often a tradeoff between producing the best work and producing the most financially successful work. TV stations dumb down their programming to reach a larger audience. Cereal companies spend more money on package graphics and advertising than they spend on their actual product. Distributors of digital media use DRM that makes their product far less useful. The best writers, musicians, and artists produce whatever they want to produce without mitigation by finances or popular opinion. Most great thinkers in history were hated by many of their contemporaries, from Socrates to Dawkins.

Art rarely had much use value anyway because paintings cannot express ideas as well as words. The voiceover narrator is spouting a lot of Marxist Newspeak bullshit, but the other guy is interesting.”

Swap out your Stephen Hawking video embed with this...



It will show all 5 videos in one sift...

sorry, misread your comment, never mind my previous profile reply

Fedquip isn't in any danger of being banned. We are looking at new ways to provide bloggers with tools they need to do intensive video blogging. It is regrettable that things blew up the way they have, but (as an admin) i can assure you the fedquip is going nowhere.

In reply to your comment:
“If Fedquip is banned, I will boycott Videosift.”