I said yes, and that I thought she was a mathemetician. She tempted mortal man with zero and pi.

She sent Galileo to try and straighten out our silly asses. Geometry and Fibonacci numbers

are books in the Old Testament and fractals and Godel numbering are in the New Testament.

The Golden rule is A squared plus B squared equals C squared.

They left rather quickly.

The studies suggest that they have already unconsciously made a decision. The awareness of their choice
only manifests itself to them in the last 48 hours. However, there is not nearly as much last minute deciding going on
as one might believe.
Hm... Let's say 2 sounds are played at a very low volume. It is so low that you are not conscious of it. When one sound is played,
you always have positive reinforcement. When the second sound is played, you always have negative reinforcement.Later, you are asked
to choose one of the sounds. A lot may go into trying to influence your choice. However, you are already programmed to choose one
sound because without being conscious of it, one sound has been strongly linked to a positive feeling. You feel like you are making
an informed and independent choice. Not so.
I'm using sounds. Politics uses negative imaging.
I think that I am thinking too much about thinking.

Candidates Got Advance Look at Questions
Responding to questions about whether Sen. John McCain had an unfair advantage over Sen. Barack Obama at Saturday's forum on faith at the Saddleback Church in California, a spokesman for the Rev. Rick Warren said both candidates had an advance look at a few questions.

Spokesman A. Larry Ross said the candidates had agreed that McCain would not listen to Obama's interview, which came first by a coin-flip agreement. But Ross said Warren gave them both a sense of what to expect.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...

Okaaaaaaaaaay! Here's the story about the "forum" as I have followed it so far:

1-McCain was in a "cone of silence" during Obama's portion of the forum. A coin was flipped to decide who would go first(assumption that coin flip was that night).

2-McCain wasn't in a "cone of silence". He was in his motorcade in traffic, in his motorcade in the parking lot, in a "green room" or some combination of those places.
Coin flip still the same.

3-McCain was who knows where, but the coin flip was held a month in advance.

4-And now, both candidates knew about the questions. I don't know about the coin flip. Maybe they really did rock, paper, scissors.

5-Future version: Obama knew the questions and McCain didn't.

The forum shouldn't have been held at Saddleback. It should have been held in Wonderland with Alice because there you could "believe six impossible things before breakfast."
I quit believing any of it after listening to McCain the night of the forum. Now I'm just trying to keep up with the revisions.

I'm sure I left a step out, but it's hard to keep up. spank:

Commentary: It's not a given that Republican candidate has the right stuff
In his frivolous Paris and Britney ad, Sen. John McCain has asked the right question: Is Barack Obama ready to lead this country?
Since last January, Sen. Obama's fitness for the presidency has been the only question that matters in American politics. The pollsters and pundits agree that if Obama can show the voters that he's up to the job, he'll win. If not, he won't.
But that begs another question: Is McCain fit to lead America?
That question hasn't been asked, nor has it been answered.
The assumption seems to be that McCain's years of experience in the military and in Congress of course give him the background and tools he'd need in the White House. As Britney might say, "Duh! For sure he's qualified!!! He's Mac!!!"
But is that true? Does McCain have the right stuff?
A careful look at McCain's biography shows that he isn't prepared for the job. His resume is much thinner than most people think.
Here are some reasons why McCain would be a mediocre president.
Lack of accomplishments
Like the current occupant of the White House, McCain got his first career breaks from the connections and money of his family, not from hard work.
The son and grandson of Navy admirals, he attended Annapolis where he did poorly. Nevertheless, he was commissioned as a pilot, where he performed poorly, crashing three planes before he failed to evade a North Vietnamese missile that destroyed his plane. McCain spent more than five years in a prison camp.
After his release, McCain knew his weak military record meant he'd never make admiral, so he turned his sights to a career in politics. With the help of his new wife's wealth, his new father-in-law's business connections and some powerful friends had made as a lobbyist for the Navy, he was elected in 1982 to a Congress in a district that he didn't reside in until the day the seat opened up. A few years later, he succeeded Barry Goldwater as a senator.

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/why-...

Word!

There are generally two types of science: first, there’s the type that makes computers work, allows us to ride around in metal boxes propelled by continuous explosion, and makes it so that milk doesn’t taste all gross. Then there’s the fringe science, the stuff that shoots up your nose like mathematical horseradish and dances a jig on your brain…or brane, as it were (that’s the nerdiest joke in the article, we promise). So kick off your work boots, put on your thought slippers, and prepare for a science course so mind-blowing, it’s written almost entirely in italics.

#5.The Theory: Quantum Entanglement
The Crazy Part:The part where you jiggle an electron on one side of the universe and an invisible force traverses millions of light years and smacks another electron into wiggling instantaneously, which is about a million years faster than is technically possible without time travel

What It Says: That if two electrons are created together, they are forever “entangled,” much like you and your high school sweetheart according to some shitty poems you wrote in tenth grade. And, also like you and your ex-love, regardless of the distance between the two electrons, a change in quantum spin in one electron will immediately cause the other electron to change spin as well. So like, when she has sex with Bob Feeney, the team’s QB after the first date, even though you’re home alone playing Tetris, your heart will ache with a sudden and unmistakable pain. That’s the pain of entanglement, my friend.

So What Does This Do For Me? Teleportation, holmes. Only really tiny. In theory, you could separate two electrons by as much space as you wanted (say, the breadth of the universe), and they’d still be linked in such a way that actions taken on one would affect the other instantaneously. Meaning information is being transmitted at speeds faster than light. Meaning, if you want to really go nuts, time travel. And though the party pooping scientists have been busy coming up with limitations on the kind of information that could be transmitted (it seems super-fast computers that allow you to play Gears of War against people in parallel dimensions may be a ways off), no one has yet been able to disprove the theory that there is an invisible force in the universe capable of affecting matter millions of light-years away…instantly.

Wait, It Gets Worse: If you subscribe to the whole “Big Bang” thing, then there was a point in the past in which every atom in the universe was condensed into a singularity. Which means everything, even you and that bastard Bob Feeney, are quantumly entangled. Some scientists have even gone so far as to claim that quantum entanglement shows that there is no such thing as space, and that everything in the universe is still touching. Space is just an illusion created by our flawed perceptions, and we’re all one. The hippies were right after all.

Level Of Mind Blowing-ness: A fistful of acid tabs followed by the flume ride at Disneyworld.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/2008/08/07/5-s... /

Whoa! Getting something to clean up my head! It 'sploded.

A teenage boy in Sweden has it all figured out: he can make a quick killing ripping off online perverts utilizing the same methods cops use to bust predators: posing as a gateway to underage girls.
Except sometimes dumb people actually report him to the police...
1) The boy advertised the services of young women, who would pose for paying customers on webcams should the customers fork over their bank accounts and, for no apparent reason, their access codes. Unsurprisingly, there were plenty of idiots who actually agreed.
2) Here's the best part: the unnamed boy then decided to double-punk their punk asses, writing from a separate account that he was a police investigator and that there had been some suspicious, sex offense-related activity on each customer's account. The customer was then asked to once again hand over his (or her?) bank info-- again, with the access code-- so the "investigator" could check for nefarious activity. Why anyone at this point would not have learned to not hand over their info, we'll never understand. Why ever would anyone give someone they think is a cop, who e-mails them, their bank info so a cop can go and confirm that, yes, they have paid for underage girls to strip for them... well, that's just beyond us. (Perhaps they thought the girls were really 18? Even so: idiots.)
3) The boy makes off, this time, with about ten grand U.S. from his devoted fanbase.
4) We're not sure how it happened, but somebody must have tipped the police off, again risking their own arrest ("Hello, headquarters? Yeah, you're gonna love this... got a guy here who says he was trying to buy a subscription to a website that claims to have underage girls doing live peep shows. His money was taken by some kid who's laughing his ass off with me now. What do you wanna do with him? No, not that kid... the guy who got caught trying to watch underage strip shows?")
5) Anyway, the kid got 80 hours of community service even though he was convicted on ten counts of fraud. We're guessing the judge secretly wanted to just pat him on the back and turn him loose...

http://www.nerve.com/CS/blogs/scanner/arch...

A young vigilante entrepreneur!

<snip>
Here's what I understand to be your concern, based on your writings. First, you believe that “the book is specifically designed to normalize gay marriage and is targeted toward the 2-7 year old age group.” Your second key concern is that you “find it inappropriate that this type of literature is available to this age group.” You cite your discussion with your daughter, and commented, “This was not the type of conversation I thought I would be having with my seven year old in the nightly bedtime routine.”
Finally, you state your strong belief, first, “in America and the beliefs of our founding fathers,” and second, that “marriage is a covenant between a man and a woman as stated in the Webster's dictionary and also in the Bible.”
<snip>

<snip>
Your second issue is a little trickier. You say that the book is inappropriate, and I infer that your reason is the topic itself: gay marriage. I think a lot of adults imagine that what defines a children's book is the subject. But that's not the case. Children's books deal with anything and everything. There are children's books about death (even suicide), adult alcoholism, family violence, and more. Even the most common fairy tales have their grim side: the father and stepmother of Hansel and Gretel, facing hunger and poverty, take the children into the woods, and abandon them to die! Little Red Riding Hood (in the original version, anyhow) was eaten by the wolf along with granny. There's a fascinating book about this, by the bye, called “The Uses of Enchantment: the Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales,” by psychologist Bruno Bettelheim. His thesis is that both the purpose and power of children's literature is to help young people begin to make sense of the world. There is a lot out there that is confusing, or faintly threatening, and even dangerous in the world. Stories help children name their fears, understand them, work out strategies for dealing with life. In Hansel and Gretel, children learn that cleverness and mutual support might help you to escape bad situations. In Little Red Riding Hood, they learn not to talk to big bad strangers. Of course, not all children's books deal with “difficult issues,” maybe not even most of them. But it's not unusual.
<snip>

<snip
Your third point, about the founders' vision of America, is something that has been a matter of keen interest to me most of my adult life. In fact, I even wrote a book about it, where I went back and read the founders' early writings about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. What a fascinating time to be alive! What astonishing minds! Here's what I learned: our whole system of government was based on the idea that the purpose of the state was to preserve individual liberties, not to dictate them. The founders uniformly despised many practices in England that compromised matters of individual conscience by restricting freedom of speech. Freedom of speech – the right to talk, write, publish, discuss – was so important to the founders that it was the first amendment to the Constitution – and without it, the Constitution never would have been ratified.
<snip>

http://jaslarue.blogspot.com/2008/07/uncle...

A long, but polite smackdown!

(This is Not a paean to the South and "The Lost Cause")

I live in Florence, SC, and there is a federal cemetery here. It does not have the awesome grandeur of Arlinton. It has a quiet dignity that it holds for those who rest there. I'm not sure they do rest. It was started during the Civil War. There was a prison camp nearby, and the Union soldiers who died were buried there. After the war the land was consecrated and made officially into a federal site that is still in use today. The government apparently thought that the land was not already consecrated by those who are buried in it. I visit the cemetery in the fall when it is cool enough to take my time. I go at dusk because it seems to be more peaceful then.

The first thing you notice will be a grass-covered field with long mounds side by side. When the wind blows, it looks like a sea of rolling green waves. Under each mound is the place where a trench was dug. So many soldiers died that they were just thrown into the them and covered up. There is a marker at the end of each trench that tells how many men are buried there. It is simple, beautiful, and horrible.

Beside the field and under some trees are individual graves. The officers are buried there. There is a name, a date, and the state where they were from listed on each marker. The officers have the privilege of a personal stone. They are from everywhere - Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and more. It is a sobering way to remember geography. I wonder about them. They are buried much further from home than soldiers from Viet Nam and Iraq. Sometimes I think I feel them there, bound together as a band of brothers. They won't leave their comrades. I wonder how to set them free. Is there a way?

When I leave this area I go over to the section that is still in use. I see the new graves for those who have left us in the last few years. Some of them are veterans who have died from old age. Some of them are the young who died in Iraq. War is not romantic. It is unbearably sad.

National, and even international, coverage of the shootings at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church turned late this week into a discussion into whether it's safe in America to be a liberal.

"One of the biggest contemporary ironies is that being liberal in the United States of America, home of history's greatest democracy, has become dangerous. That danger is particularly acute for religious liberals, as the recent tragedy in Knoxville demonstrated," Bill Maxwell wrote in the St. Petersburg Times.

Ian Williams, writing in The Guardian in London, said "Jim Adkisson, a Tennessee aficionado of conservative talkshows, took their hosts' invective all too literally and shot up a 'liberal' Unitarian Universalist congregation, killing two and wounding six congregants watching a children's musical. Caught up in a world of conservative talk radio, he reportedly expected to be able to carry on shooting unimpeded by the spineless, gay-loving pacifists, and was surprised when they tackled him and brought him down."

The Miami Herald's Leonard Pitts: "No, conservatives did not cause this bloodbath. Jim Adkisson allegedly did. But in telling him 'liberals' were the source of his every disaffection and woe, conservatives certainly validated the hatred and madness that drove him.

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/aug/02/s...

Soonerg already has a good diary that points out aptly and astutely that John McCain's latest web attack ad is really a not too subtle code to the Christian Right Wing that Barack Obama is the literal Anti-Christ as foretold in the Book of Revelations and popularized in "non-fiction" books like "The Late Great Planet Earth" and Tim LaHaye's "Left Behind" novels.

Well, as if we needed confirmation that this is the violent, dangerous meme the McCain is attempting to spread, WorldNetDaily has published a screed by Hal Lindsey, entitled "How Obama Prepped World for Anti-Christ".

Who is Hal Lindsey? In right-wing Christian Evangelical and Dominionist Circles Hal Lindsey is a Big Deal. In the late Seventies Lindsey helped popularize the modern, Fundamentalist Christian interpretation of the Book of Revelations and the Apocalypse with his book "The Late Great Planet Earth". This is the grand-daddy of the violent, homophobic, racist apocalyptic fiction of Lim LaHaye's "Left Behind" books and scores of other works attempting to interpret The Book of Revelations for our times.

Hal Lindsey is largely responsible for the modern Fundamentalist Christian view of the Anti-Christ as a world leader who can unite the world and bring a temporary peace before the End of the World. The very same imagery and sophistry that McCain's The One ad plays up.

<snip>
The lifetime Agnostics and Atheists, even the sane Christians, among us may find it easy to write this off as pure silliness, but no one should be quick to dismiss this new line of smear attack. Why? Because what seems silly nonsense to the rational is deadly serious to the true believers and the un-balanced. Having grown up in the Evangelical Church I can tell you that the Dominionist view of the Book of Revelation is real. Real to them as surely as the laptop you are reading this diary on and means nothing short of the End of the World.

So put yourself in their heads, and ask what would you do to stop The End of the World?

The chill that just went up your spin is what makes the McCain Campaign's hamfisted attempt at smear something more than smear, something more than a attempt to rally his base. This is something incredibly dangerous. To compare Obama to the Anti-Christ, whether by implication as in McCain's Ad, or by direct accusation as with Lindsey's screed, is to invite violence against Barack Obama and incite every nutcase with a God Complex to take matters into his own hands.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/8/1...

They do believe fervently!

(Yoohoo, I'm here on DU)

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

Since then, Senator McCain has only upped the ante, smearing Mr. Obama every which way from sundown. On Wednesday, The Washington Post ran an extraordinary front-page article that began:

“For four days, Senator John McCain and his allies have accused Senator Barack Obama of snubbing wounded soldiers by canceling a visit to a military hospital because he could not take reporters with him, despite no evidence that the charge is true.”

Evidence? John McCain needs no evidence. His campaign is about trashing the opposition, Karl Rove-style. Not satisfied with calling his opponent’s patriotism into question, Mr. McCain added what amounted to a charge of treason, insisting that Senator Obama would actually prefer that the United States lose a war if that would mean that he — Senator Obama — would not have to lose an election.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/02/opinion/...

Parents had no idea that son had in bedroom 181 rounds of ammunition, assault rifles, 50 pounds of explosive chemicals, 2 shotguns, handgun, metal pipes, detonation wires.
The Bethesda teenager in whose home investigators found a cache of assault rifles and bombmaking materials was compiling a list of home addresses for teachers at his former high school, police said yesterday.

Police officials said it was unclear why Colin McKenzie-Gude, 18, was making the list of teachers from St. John's College High School, a private school in Northwest Washington from which he graduated this year.

Also yesterday, police said McKenzie-Gude's father, Joseph L. Gude, 62, was charged with buying guns for his son, including at least some guns that the teenager was too young to own legally. Authorities have not said what, if anything, they think McKenzie-Gude planned to do with the weapons.

McKenzie-Gude turned himself in yesterday afternoon at a Montgomery police station in Rockville. He was charged in a warrant with five counts of possession of a firearm or ammunition by a minor, possession of a destructive device and possession of explosive material, police said.

Last Friday, police in Des Moines, Iowa arrested four people who attempted to make a citizens’ arrest of former top White House aide Karl Rove, who was in town to speak at a GOP fundraiser. A retired minister and three members of the Des Moines Catholic Workers community were cited for trespassing. However, according to a press release, the judge presiding over the case praised their efforts:

Shaw was the first called before Polk County Fifth Judicial District Associate Judge William Price.

After entering her plea, the judge asked Shaw, “Mamn, what were you doing at the Wakonda Country Club?”

“I was attempting to make a citizen’s arrest of Karl Rove, your honor,” Shaw answered.

“Well,” the judge looked up and said, “it’s about time.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/01/judge-... /

Source: The Raw Story

In a dramatic protest aimed at urging Congress to vote to drill for more oil within the US, House Republicans are refusing to leave the House floor despite a vote to adjourn the chamber early Friday afternoon.

Politico reports:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and the Democrats adjourned the House and turned off the light and killed the microphones, but Republicans are still on the floor talking gas prices.

Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders opposed the motion to adjourn the House, arguing that Pelosi's refusal to schedule a vote allowing offshore drilling is hurting the American economy. They have refused to leave the floor after the adjournment motion passed at 11:23 a.m. and are busy bashing Pelosi and her fellow Democrats for leaving town for the August recess.

At one point, the lights went off in the House and the microphones were turned off in the chamber, meaning Republicans were talking in the dark. But as Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz..) was speaking, the lights went back on, and the microphones have been turned on as well.


Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Urging_drill...