@mgittle (and also indirectly @chilaxe)

I said the scientific method works--in the long term--for coming close to the objective truth about something. In the here and now, though, those doctors used reason and observation to draw a conclusion. And they came to the wrong conclusion. My point being that science sometimes comes to the wrong conclusions--which you agree with, according to your post.

Science is a tool for understanding the world around us. If it leads us to the wrong conclusions, then indeed it has failed. We may as well have cast stones, read the winds, or gazed into a crystal ball for the answers. But in the long term, such failures will be corrected. That's science's strength over superstition. Which is why I stand by the statement that science usually works--or rather it works in the long haul. And it certainly works much better than superstition for understanding the physical world.

@braindonut

Actually, if the climate change debate is any indication, I think technology is leading to data overload that actually makes it harder to form a consensus, rather than easier. I agree with you though that any time religion tries to make pronouncements about the physical world it will be smacked down by science.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'crystal, balls, mesmerizing, illusion, fire' to 'crystal, balls, mesmerizing, illusion, fire, miss frix' - edited by Deano

netrunner

wow..
no..really.
i am actually at my desk in ..i dont even know what to call it.
ya know netrunner.
i dont know you but i have never had a problem with you OR your posts.
go check and see who voted for them..i'll wait.
but since you called ME to the table..
allow me to retort.
you sir are one presumptuous piece of work.
do you know WHY i didnt use your name in my post?
because it was never directed at you nor intended to be a passive agressive swipe at you.
if i had a problem with YOU specifically..YOU would know about it and can you guess why?
because i am open,direct and most of all honest.
how dare you sir!
how dare you presume to know anything about me based on what?
what exactly do your base your premise on?
my profile?
my comments?
some magical crystal ball?
you dont fucking know me and to TELL ME my intentions and that i dont have the BALLS to confront you up close and personal?
boy..let me tell you somethin.you better check your pussy shit at the door.
i dont play that game.you wanna call me out?
fine.
but you better know what the fuck you are talking about before you do.
and by your comment above you dont know the first thing about me.
and to think i defended your presumptuous ass when talking with the chogster.
well dont i look like a douchebag now.
you just made his case.
choggie my hero?
what the fuck kind of surrealistic dali nonsense is that?
do you think i admired choggies tactics?
i told him all the time that was no way to get people to see a different view.
but..that was his choice and he paid the consequences.
choggie challenged popular and rigid thinking.
he did so by poking and prodding and yes..trolling.
he was colorful and vibrant,original and entertaining.
he made sense some of the time and babbled conspiratorial nonsense the rest..and even that was entertaining.
i was not privy nor did i FUCKING CARE about the two of you and your homoerotic little drama.
choggie pissed off a lot of people.
i may have understood his reasoning why,even agreed with it but i never agreed with his oftimes vitriolic verbosity.
and fuck you for assuming i did netrunner.
pffft..choggie my hero.are you fucking serious?
your post alone is my poster child for the very point i was making.
choggie challenged groupthink.
his tactics sucked balls but his heart was in the right place.
do you see it yet netrunner?
are ya starting to understand just a wee bit?
YOU..sir.thought you were RIGHT.
and convinced of your own intellectual superiority you stepped forward to make a claim.
a claim based on????
nothing.
and now you find yourself reading this and i hope..dear god i hope..you are starting to feel something.
lets call this new feeling "WRONG".
you dont know everything.
your intellect is not the end all-be all.
and sometimes people just step in it..knee-deep in it.
sometimes we are WRONG even though we were so cock sure we were RIGHT.
THIS is the fundamental reason i liked choggie.
he forced people to defend a position that they were so cock sure was RIGHT.
to defend a position we have to think it through and sometimes..not every time..we find the flaw in our own presumption.
and that is how choggie referred to you specifically.
a passive agressive know-it-all presumptuous prick.
now netrunner.
hear me well.
i am mighty pissed off right now.i dont take kindly to people calling me a pussy(you did it nicely.same deal though) but i will get over myself.
your deal is with choggie..not me.
but by your comment you have made a case for what choggie claimed you to be.
prove him wrong netrunner.
because i dont really think that is who you are.i think you assumed too much and too fast and you jumped without thinking.
prove him wrong.

They must have had a crystal ball.

A young charismatic minority against an experienced old-timer. It's like the writers had a crystal ball.

"I was like everyone else when Obama was elected - optimistic. Everything we had been saying about racial integration was vindicated, but he's incompetent. He will be defeated for re-election."

With such a long intellectual history, it's a pity no one taught him how to think. I understand many of the advances in scientific thought weren't here yet when he was growing up, but he doesn't have any excuses for not reading up on things when he still had his mind a decade ago.

His wording predicting Obama's defeat in 2012 implies maybe 80%-99% certainty, depending on how literally you interpret it. His crystal ball must be amazing. Contrast that with the odds at Intrade, which gives the Democrats almost 2 to 1 chances of winning that election, and gives Obama an 87% chance of winning his party's nomination.

Intrade is a political futures market, and it's considered more accurate than polls, etc. Meanwhile, know-nothings like Gore Vidal and Joe Scarborough continue assigning certitude to whatever pops into their addled minds.


(Thanks for posting the link, though )

Can I have some of those christmas presents you all are finding back there in the closet?

I wanted to say something about how BF sucks greater than a new england clambake minus the muscles and smells worse than the space around both death stars when they blew up... but i dont know him and im not very clever.

I did make a better version of my pic exemplifying how Blanksfist looks like a broke down Rob Thomas, only instead of a necklace he has a comic book and a cat that both make me cry.

Someone should have him beaten with a tricycle. He is gay for moleman. He makes my crystal balls go clack-clack-clack.

And what's with this California Pizza Kitchen? If I wanted cheese and bread... (trails off mumbling to no one...)

You're really cute in that one where you're nuzzling your cat during treatment. You are a good guy. How many MPG's does that thing get on the highway with all the upgrades?







Seriously thats nice to do for your cat.... *wonders what else his GF makes him do*

No but really. UR a Stand up human. Cats are gentle creatures.



PS: Super cereal, you're a good guy.

PSS: If i guess correctly, you all just got roasted hard(ons)from the pics. Thank me later. Don't hate the player... unless he's QM.

I don’t know where conservatives get their crystal ball, but I hope they kept the receipt. Lets take a look at their track record:

*Prediction: The Iraq war will be over in six months
*Prediction: Our troops will be welcomed as heros, candy and flowers will rain down on them
*Prediction: The oil revenues will pay for the Iraq war.
*Prediction: Overthrowing Sadam will cause a domino effect of stability breaking out in the Mid East
*Prediction: WMD will be found in Iraq
*Prediction: A connection between Sadam and 9-11 will be proven.
*Prediction: The autopsy will prove Terry Schivio had a fully functioning brain
*Prediction: It will be proven that Mark Foley/Larry Craig were set up by dastardly liberal operatives.

Basically, these tools couldn’t predict six o’clock at five-thirty. Additionally, this Gerald Celente has been making the same predictions for the last 20 years. It’s almost as if he wants these things to happen.

Look out your window
That grass ain't green
It's kinda yellow
See what I mean?
Look up your chimney
The sky ain't blue
It's kinda yellow
You know it's true
It's so hard to figure what it's all about
(Chorus)
When your outsides in (inside out)
And your downsides up (upside down)
Yeah, your upsides right (rightside up)
Yeah, don't it make you wanna twist & shout
When you're inside out
Look down your drain pipe
What color do you see?
It's got to be yellow
Don't try to fool me
And don't it make you wanna twist and shout
(Chorus)
Be careful where you're walking
You might step in something rough
Be careful where you're talking
And saying all that stuff
Take care when you are breathing
Something's funny in the air
And somethings I'm not saying
Bout what's happening out there
It's inside out
Look into the future
With your mystic crystal ball
See if it ain't yellow
See if it's there at all
Ain't no shadow of doubt
Don't it make you wanna twist and shout
(Chorus)

In reply to this comment by rickegee:
The next President of the United States.

4 months before he even announced his candidacy. That's a nice crystal ball. Can I get a peek?

>> ^kronosposeidon:
-lowering the maximum amount of videos in a member's queue
That might relieve Sift congestion, and therefore it MIGHT improve overall quality.

I thought about this one for a while. I think the benefit would be minimal, similar to reducing the queue lifetime. Prior to the change to 2 days, there were typically about 300-320 vids in the queue, immediately afterwards that dropped to around 260-280, and it quickly rose back up to about 300. It's a diminishing returns thing - as time goes on, we'll be back where we are now. I'm not saying it wouldn't help at all, just that it would be a minimal benefit. Like KP, though, I don't have a crystal ball - this is just an educated guess.

Selfishly, I wonder if the charter members would be willing to start the idea. Would charters be willing to drop to 5 vids in the queue, while leaving the non-charters at 3? Again, I think the benefit would be minimal, especially considering many charters rarely keep 6 vids in the queue. Just thought I'd throw it out there, though. It may give an indication of how well the larger idea would work without as drastic a change.

One thing Eklek said I found thought-provoking:

-lowering the maximum amount of videos in a member's queue

That MIGHT relieve Sift congestion, and therefore it MIGHT improve overall quality. I don't have a crystal ball, so I don't know if it would work or not. Still, if we lower the maximum amount of videos in a member's queue, this should lower the total number of queued videos at any given time, correct? With less queued videos, members MIGHT take the time to view videos they normally would skip over, and then be pleasantly surprised by a gem that would have otherwise gone unnoticed by them. (Yes, I'm talking about Eklek's videos.)

Mind you that this is all conjecture, if the all-caps MIGHTs weren't enough of a tipoff. Still, I'd be willing to see queues drop from 3 to 2 for non-charter members and from 6 to 4 for charter members for maybe a month or so, just to see what would happen. However I'm pretty sure I'd be in the minority on that, because once you give someone a benefit it's hard to take it away. So feel free to cast aspersions on me, my family, my pets, and my country if you disagree.

oooooooooooo, so close! It's a "Lava Grande" (Big lava lamp) which upon heating up at first created these weird alien looking thingies out of the wax in there...I should send you the better resolution pic, it's crazy...
Then of course there's the old worn "Wayne's World" hat gracing the top, with fern fronds looking like hair!

In reply to this comment by dbot2006:
I'm trying to figure out what your new avatar is...I give up. What is it?
A psychedelic crystal ball on a pedestal with a fern for hair and a baseball cap?

I'm trying to figure out what your new avatar is...I give up. What is it?
A psychedelic crystal ball on a pedestal with a fern for hair and a baseball cap?

IMO Buckley continuously fell back on wordplay, digression and semantics to defend (or escape) his stance. He actually backpeddles so hard that he resorts to calling Chomsky out for "start(ing) your line of discussion at a moment that is historically useful for you". I do believe the whole point of a debate is to present your argument and to back it with facts which support that point. If the facts don't match your argument... well...

Its not as if he was able to refute Chomsky's history. His half hearted attempt to one up Chomsky in that line of discussion ended with Buckley backed into a corner with nowhere to. Instead he resorted to attacking Chomsky for having a well researched argument.

Damn those unfortunate facts.


........



Buckley: "there are people who do believe that america... inherited the responsibility for trying to abort international holocaust..."





Who did we inherit this responsibility from, and what crystal ball are we using to determine what will be a supposed "international holocaust"?