@newtboy - I suspect that the reason you haven't seen it in print that Dems who support Clinton will vote for Sanders is because you don't read anything but Sanders stuff. Dan Savage has even said in print he will support Sanders -- and yet what you repeated was the fact that he supports Hillary. You missed that he will gladly vote for Sanders. How could that be?

We all have our biases. And we all are, more or less, trapped in our own echo chambers.

What bothers me most about the attacks on HIllary is that the vast majority are bogus that were ginned up by the REPUBLICAN SMEAR MACHINE. And nobody looks that nasty beast in the eye and names it. Or when Hillary has done it, she is ridiculed for it. Instead, these lies are repeated as truth. You say you don't like lies -- how about pushing back on that crap, instead of embracing it, since it helps your candidate?

What I don't get from your position is what exactly you want to happen? Hillary is ahead on delegates and the popular vote. You want her to just concede right now? Is that what you think should happen?

I have lost track, but last I read, Sanders needed to win something like 65% of the remaining contests to win the nomination.

So do it. Go out and do it.

And I'll vote for Sanders.

To me, this is all more proof that you want the world to be different than it actually is.

And as I have said repeatedly, as much as idealists annoy the hell out of me with their purity tests and unrealistic, not of this world, points of view -- I am desperately glad these idealistic warriors exist. Because otherwise, nothing would ever change.

(I'm not happy about conservative idealists -- Tea Party purists who are constipated, me-me-and-mine ideologues. And I have to acknowledge that we need them, too. The continual pulling of the middle by the fringes -- that is indeed the way the world works. The pendulum that swings back and forth throughout human history.)

Well, there we differ.

I don't engage anymore with people who are so passionate about their beliefs, they insult others. There is nothing I can say that will change them.

What was posted was just fine, just as it was.

Did you know that there are a disproportionate number of vegetarians in Britian? And there are a lot of them? So they have an interesting population to study.

I read somewhere that vegetarians, on average, have a higher IQ than the general population. Makes sense to me -- they read, they empathize, they question. That all takes intelligence.

It really doesn't matter to me if they "go too far." That is just passion. That is how change happens -- folks on the fringe pulling us sluggards in the middle out of our complacency.

I have more trouble the Sanders contingent than I do with vegans. Same dynamic -- they are passionate about their topic, and they don't differentiate between compromise and selling out, and if they keep this shit up, if Hillary gets the nomination, Trump might actually win.

Now THAT is over the top behavior that has real consequences.

Being passionate on the Sift is fine. If you don't like it, I honestly think it is better not to engage. Keeps your blood pressure down. Since trying to change their minds (on any passionately held topic) is fruitless, you are actually ahead.

You get low blood pressure!

(And I agree that we "should" have a mostly plant based diet. For a multitude of reasons -- health, the environment, limited resources, water usage, the list is pretty long before you even get to the abuse that animals in factory farms suffer. Do I have a plant based diet? No. Do I feel shame for not doing what is right? Yes. Am I going to change? No. "Should" I change? Yes. Do I enjoy the passionate and scolding posts made by friends on Facebook? No. Do I stop following them to "save" myself? No.

Instead of the Art of War, I am trying to practice the Art of Disengagement. Better for my health!)

And I know they could be testing me
The data might be wrong
A preplanned concocted recipe
And played up all along
But at least my graphs are beautiful
With sigma 5.1
This I know
This I know

They told me don't worry about it
Analyze the chirp and
No more
They told me be careful
And doubt it
But I've seen a merger
Of black hole-ole-ole-oles!

LIGO feels when space is rippling through
With a wave of
Gravitation

LIGO feels when space is rippling due
To a tensor
Perturbation

Vacuum sealed interferometer
An L 5-mile long
Split a laser, bounce 300 times
Compare the distance gone
One built in Louisiana and one more in Washington
That's LIGO
Yeah LIGO

A Billion lightyear journey
To cover
Then it hit the Fabry-Perot
Lengthening one leg then
The other
Making fringes dance on
The dio- o- o- ode!

LIGO feels when space is rippling through
With a wave of
Gravitation

LIGO feels when space is rippling due
To a tensor
Perturbation

LIGO feels that space is rippling through
From an ancient
Amalgamation

LIGO feels that space because it's crew
Gave it seismic
Isolation

This event's power is
Enormous
Fifty universes
Of suns
We had indirect clues
Before this
All you GR haters
You were wrong -ong -ong

LIGO feels when space is rippling through
With a wave of
Gravitation

LIGO feels when space is rippling due
To a tensor
Perturbation

LIGO feels that space is rippling through
Can you feel the
Excitation?

LIGO's view of space is rippling through
Our collective
Imagination

Howdy Pardon for interrupting. Yes, Puddles is here in Adelaide for our annual Fringe Festival -> link. And that pie & sauce Youtube video had to have been filmed here in Adelaide as well, as the ketchup was a homebrand from Foodland, which is a local independent South Australian supermarket

Man, ever since Fringe I have a real soft spot for Joshua Jackson. Seems a pity he got typecast as Pacey for so long.

@newtboy
well,that certainly would be ironic.

but capital punishment?
i do not think there is grounds for that.
criminal consequences for their actions? maybe a wee bit of time donated to the government?
ok...i think that is reasonable.laws have been broken and they should be held accountable for their actions.

but death?
naw.you would just make them martyrs and confirm the more "fringe" element that their actions are justified.

Paul was the only real "liberal" candidate in recent times.

I mean that with the dictionary definition of liberality - not the political definition.

He was a 'live and let live' person, not interested in shoving the ideals of either end of the political spectrum down the entire nation's cumulative throat.

Fanboys of either end of the spectrum can't support anyone like that. They inherently want their way to be everyone's way, which a voluntarist like Paul isn't about.

His willingness to let persons on either side live freely how they personally want to, and be free to dislike how others live, made him atypical, and hence fringe by definition.

To me, he is a person of most excellent character.
I wish his son was more like him (rather than swinging off the born-again crowd's nuts).

-scheherazade

Ron Paul was not goofy, but he was a (partially) fringe candidate. The gold standard being his biggest kookiness. But as far as just being loved by libertarians, well, that's what the media sold and that's what some poor saps actually believe.

As more a liberal leaning guy I swapped parties to vote for Paul. His honesty was nice but would have been unverifiable. However, his willingness to buck those he could have been bought by and made president from amazed me. He wasn't a populist except insofar as that his message was against those in power.

But what is most funny is this. Paul didn't do bad in the polls for basically being a 3rd party candidate. In that he smashed Nader and most other 3rd party candidates. Even knowing his defeat, those still willing to show their vote to him was astonishing. Now some would argue that he technically wasn't third party since he ceremoniously went under the Republican brand...but that's about stupid logic there.

@gorillaman, I admit I'm veering close to the "No True Scotsman" fallacy, but equally, I never claimed that all feminists were sane and moral people.

The difference is, I think most people these days are reasonably feminist and I think the vast majority of them are not man-hating nutjobs. There's undoubtedly a lunatic fringe, but that's the case for every group/ideology.

I also agree that meanings change over time. "national socialism", shorn of its historic baggage, doesn't sound that terrible. But we know that what it actually signifies is actually national fascism, racism and other abhorrent concepts.

The question is at what point the lunatic fringe comes to represent the whole. For example, at one point the Republicans were once the party of small government and fiscal conservatism, but it's becoming increasingly more difficult to describe them as anything other than the party of religious nutjobs and idiots.

I don't feel feminism has been hijacked to the same extent. I believe there are still a lot of normal rational people who describe themselves as feminists (I'd like to think I'm one, for a start).

Finally, I'm with Joss Whedon.... "feminism" is a terrible word, but ultimately, "You either believe women are people or you don't. It's that simple."

"if this tactic is unsuccessful,they will do what they did to ron paul and demonize sanders.they will portray him as a "kook" a weird,fringe "goofy' candidate.which is exactly what was done to ron paul."

Except that Paul WAS a goofy, fringe candidate. He had no mainstream support from either side. Sure, the libertarians loved him, but the conservatives hated his stance on drugs and progressives hated his stance on, well, pretty much everything else.

Sanders probably has more actual support amoung his liberal base than Paul did amoung the conservatives, but there's a very real chance that he WOULD lose a presedential race against a moderate conservative.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Sanders get in. Ironically, I think the only chance he has is if Trump gets the republican nod.

... so is he claiming that ISIS/ISIL/DAIISH is a all a production? I mean at one point he says that horrible things are happening, but then also that it was just a production? Is he also trying to claim that Jessica Lynch wasn't really a POW? While I agree that the media is overselling the problem to promote a war, which will make the ISIS situation worse, I'm not sold on it being a fancy production.

As to ISIL (or whatever the proper term is now) kill one leader and another takes their place, it'll never end, and as you kill more and more of them and more innocent civilians are killed, human shields or not, you make it easier to radicalize elements of that population. And as more and more people turn against Islam as a whole and not just radical elements, you make it easier and easier to radicalize more people and progressively make the situation worse, which is perhaps what the Republicans want when they and their media arm want... if that is his point, that they are using the situation and making it worse on purpose, then that's one thing, but he seems to be going on fringe territory here and suggesting it is all a production... that whole paragraph is a bit oddly worded, and more ramble than usual, I'll blame being tired...

I'll give it an upvote anyhow, even if I'm not in full agreement with the idea that the whole thing is a production...

Only in the US is this newsworthy.

The rest of the developed world has moved on from this. Yeah, there are creationists in Europe or Australia, but they're considered fringe lunatics and treated with the scorn they so richly deserve.

I'd say your attitude towards it is not all that different than the majority of society. For most of American society (at least), they haven't even heard of this thing and then when they've researched it a little bit they will, understandably, think it sounds absolutely insane.

The difference being - the people who took LSD later attributed their research or creations to it after they became famous and rich and LSD had already become apart of the cultural apparatus, DMT is still fringe and will probably remain fringe for how insane it actually is lol

Are you FBI? lol

I agree with everything you said brycewi. And it would apply here too IF Adam was providing information that wasn't well known by nearly everyone today. Most people believe lie detectors are pseudo science. It is not even comparable to global warming, and even less than anti-vaccines (Or if this is somehow untrue, then Adam doesn't provide how truly well believed this phenomenon is as he prattles on.) So that is where we would vary significantly on, not that the service of providing debunking of something taken as true is important/unimportant.

Yes, some people believe it works. Others watch it on talk shows and such for entertainment and even some law enforcement use it for confessional purposes. We get that. But then again some Africans believe raping a virgin will cure AIDs...does that mean their country is a bunch of degenerates? No, because only a few do.

Adam goes off on this rant based on information in what, the 90s? When everyone had this unshakable faith in the lie detector? My family's entire life rested on one of these machines at one time, so I know. (It didn't turn out good, lets leave it at that.)

Further, we differentiate three "uses" of the lie detector.
1-Entertainment:
A-Nobody believes it works, just like nobody believes Jerry Springer or Wrestling isn't fake.
B-Lumping those people in with those who do believe is disingenuous at best, manipulative at worst.
2-Law Enforcement:
A-They really don't care as long as they obtain guilty confessions. In other words, they already know (think) they have the bad guy and use it as an interrogation techniques.
B-You can argue with this practice as shady and deceptive (ironic isn't it?) but we shouldn't confuse belief with reliance.
3-Excluding the examples above, since they DON'T believe, those in the ultra fringe don't constitute "widely accepted."

Could you explain why you thought my previous post proposed a false dichotomy? It seems sound to me, even after looking at it a second time.

I don't disagree with your analyses of the underlying causes for the current version of the Palestinian conflict. History has shat on them and they're still stuck in it. Although I will nitpick that the tactic of suicide bombing is probably employed on account of specific Islamic beliefs, as relatively few such attacks are carried out by non-Muslims.

The IRA comparison is an interesting one with some meat on it, and I may meander a bit here as I explore my thoughts on it. The Northern Irish conflict, at its core, was not about religion, it was about sovereignty and independence. I don't doubt that both sides attempted to use the bible as a weapon. The very fact that the attempt was unable to create a sect that spread like wildfire across Christendom is a form of evidence that is it less applicable as a weapon. Certainly not proof, but I would count it a point in my favour, not yours.

Note that I'm not saying that there's nothing awful in the Bible, only that it is acknowledged that we don't take most of those parts of it seriously. Any attempt to do so would generate a chorus of condemnation throughout Christian majority countries the world over. Just look at how the we view the Westboro Baptists; they're a farce. Until the Muslim world is willing and able to do the same thing to it's fundamentals and fundamentalists it is not only fair to criticize it, it is important to do so. And when I say criticize 'it' I mean those beliefs that lead to bad shit.

If every terrorist act is predicated on worldly concerns, how do you rationalize the perpetrators of the Charlie hebdo massacre? How do you rationalize the absurd reactions to the shitty anti-Muslim movie that was made? How about the Danish cartoonist incident? The list goes on and on. These are acts that didn't significantly affect the 'injured' parties in any but a religious way. Their responses are explicitly and overtly for religious reasons, while being completely in line with a straightforward and insufficiently fringe interpretation of their religion.