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The Jethro Tull song AQUALUNG comes to mind....Aqualung Porno Scanners....not a good idea at all!
How about we place the undocumented criminals whom these desperate immigrants had to work for on their own special govt. register! If the immigrants have to pay back taxes and penalties then it's only fair for their employers to pay too.
What?! Absoluetely NOT.
It's all good, fine and dandy randy! you know i know this one kid that was national honors student finished like top 10 in her class, now attending the #1 public U in the country, paid for her lunch every day with $ from mom and pops. even managed to save half of her lunch money to put in the bank, alredy started her "retirement" account. been saving lunch duckets since she was 10. she absolutely went through the roof when she found out she could not get any "free " $$$, which by the way is my $$$ in way of taxes, all because her mom and pop make a bit more over the threshold. she did get "some' scholarship money but her mom and pop still have to dole out the difference meanwhile some kid she knows at the same U got a free ride and had a lesser GPA? you can siffce to say she was not at all pleased. She got even angrier when she learned about the number of kids who use to get free lunch program yet see them drive up to school in thier own cars? or mom and pop sporting Cad escalades or huge gas guzzling trucks? this is a young scholar who sees quite clearly. personally i think it sucks that we would more quickly invest in under scoring under privledged then investing "equally" in the kids who work thier butts off. this kids mom and pop are just working stiffs and just as PO'd, you know that kind of ilk i rant about all the time. The ones who make say 84k taxable income and pay 13k income tax while some other 100k taxable income only pays 2.8k. the system is just wrong!!! from immigration all the way through the tax code and it's this kids paretns and others like them who have to pick up the tab. JUST WHEN ARE THOSE CLODS IN WASHINGTON REALLY GOING TO DO SOMETHING FOR JOE THE TRUCKER AND HIS CUTE WIFE THE WAITRESS and the 3 kids he's putting through scholl who by the way are 100% legal?!!!! Yup, i'm jut a bit miffed...lol
"Pay back taxes and penalties"???
I don't think so....
I agree with Kend. The children of illegal aliens, that are doing well in school and have a potential to succeed in college maybe should be given an exception, that is legalized status. But not if one American kid has to lose his chance at a scholarship or place in a limited class. At lot of your specialized degrees have limited spaces. That is just plain wrong. Also, we as a country have to be willing to accept the "blow back" of the exceptional scholar amnesty. That is, every individual that would like to move to America, legally or illegally because they see their children will be given a possible legal status, and the parents too for that matter, then they now have a huge carrot waving in front of them. So we are just opening up for another wave of illegal immigration. How many, who knows?
My thoughts on gerrymandering in Virginia: http://getrealamericaradio.com/2013/01/26/chips-rant-jan-26-republicans-win-with-gerrymandering/
Interesting you call them "undocumented immigrants" I thought when you break the law you where a "criminal".
It is amazing that when the mad cow epidemic broke out they tracked back the cow to find out it was born in Canada, knew what stall it slept in the state of Washington, tracked its calves to their stalls but they can't find 11 million illegal aliens wandering around your country and throw them out. Every other country in the world deports them. Maybe you should give every "undocumented immigrant" a Canadian cow then you would know where they all are.
The children of them is a tuff one though. But if someone gets rich on selling drugs and then gets caught would you let their kids keep the money because they are used to that life style. No of course not so is there a difference?
David A.- All is forgiven. And I am fully aware what a macho, misogynist culture and mind set the Republicans and neo-cons represent, which is what we all are up against. Having people like you, DAnneMarc and Palindromedary in the dialogue - whatever our differences - helps restore my faith in humanity. I can't help but think what a different world this would be if all men were more like you guys. I know, it's just a pipe dream... (SIGH...)
Have a great week, comrades! - Aliceinwonderland
David Abbot, DAnneMarc- I appreciate your thoughtful answers to my question of why Kend deserves a response. I'll admit, I was in a very grouchy mood the day I asked that question. Of course everyone is entitled to an opinion. But I'll let you guys correspond with Kend; you obviously have a lot more patience than I do. Anyway I apologize for being such a grump. - Alice I.W.
Thom, I have enjoyed your intelligent and savvy commentary over the years, and particularly appreciated your information on the 'secret history' of the 2nd Amendment. Following up on your article I came across this rejoinder:
http://www.theroot.com/views/2nd-amendment-passed-protect-slavery-no
I would like to see you comment on this critique, which raises several questions regarding your historical research and conclusions. Thanks.
DAnneMarc: Do you even know the meaning or definition of empirical evidence? Those things you mentioned are not empirical evidence. Sorry! And none of what you said is proof of a supernatural entity. Food for thought? Certainly not my cup of tea! Superstitious people can conjure up whatever ridiculous notions they want to believe in but it is nothing more than their own internal struggle with reality.
Aw c'mon David... "wimpy little girly man"?! Jeez... what's with you guys anyway? Even more enlightened-sounding guys occasionally use language that puts down women, this being a case in point. I know you don't mean it that way David, but I still think it warrants attention. Girls are not wimps. I really get tired of hearing that shit. Sorry... - Aliceinwonderland
DAnneMarc, I never said I would use astrology on the front lines during a firefight. Although now that I think of it, I would use it, because astrology saved my life one time. I would do my transits every morning before going into combat. It's not that arcane, just a very small amount of math and some simple psychology and energy stuff. Five or ten minutes.
I readily understand your desire to not get into the subject of domestic violence, it's the darkest side of human nature, because here's these people in a family and family is supposed to be people you can trust... It's worse than war in some ways, because there's no tours of duty, no R&R, no going back stateside; it's happening right there in your home.
You didn't offend me; 13 years of psychotherapy and a bunch of Alanon meetings have a way of smoothing that sort of thing out. My concern is that America's position- as a culture- on domestic violence, including the republicans' desire to revert women's rights to sometime before the old testament, will have a very powerful effect on whether America survives as at least a putative democracy or constitutional republic or whatever they're pretending it is these days.
Ok, I get the joke about pms. The thing is, the women I have been close to, never went off the deep end emotionally at that time of the month unless there was unfinished emotional business, and in all honesty usually that unfinished business was something I had said or done. You know, it's one of those differences between a sexes things, and I was serious when I said I consider such events blessings, because if handled in a courageous, honorable way (oh look, republicans, there's the two most important words in everyone's vocabulary: courage and honor), it works wonders on the relationship, such as increasing her trust of my words because she has seen me repeatedly use my words to admit what I had done wrong and apologize, because I put that much value on our relationship. Women are kind of hard-wired that way, where if the guy just goes through the motions, she might just go through the motions, too. Typically women respond, and the question is, what's the guy going to give them to respond to, and is he going to act surprised when it circles around every 28 days, taps him on the shoulder, and says, "Um, there's this thing..."
I'm just not sure how many republican men have the courage and sense of honor to handle these situations properly. I think they could learn, because they have proven that they have the courage and the sense of honor to kill innocent foreign people on the basis of lies from our government, and that takes a lot of courage and honor. Now the next test is to see whether they have the courage and sense of honor to quit killing innocent people and invest some of that energy in improving how they treat the women in their lives.
But they're going to have to prove that they're man enough to do the job. I mean, this isn't something that some wimpy little girly man can do, it's going to take a real sense of honor and duty.
DAnneMarc: The bible must have originally been written by Satan...and all those different translations and errors by scribes and corrupt theologians and church fathers. How else can one explain all of the violence in the name of God occurred over the past 2000 years...and even earlier. And even today, the Catholic Church is working on how to include the Dead Sea Scrolls into the modern bible. There are over 50 different versions of the Bible in English alone.
http://www.apbrown2.net/web/TranslationComparisonChart.htm
The first handwritten English language Bible manuscripts were written in the 1380's by John Wycliffe who was in opposition to the Catholic Church's teachings. The Catholic Church wanted to keep everything in Latin, which wasn't understood by most, which gave them wide latitude in controlling the people the way they wanted, obfuscating it in a language that no one would be able to challenge. All these Catholic Church teachings stemmed from the manipulation of all of the stories thrown together at the Council of Nicea, in 325 AD, when 318 Bishops representing the hodgepodge of beliefs, including Constantine's pagan beliefs, were hashed out and molded into one religion.
So, from about 325 AD to 1380 AD the church manipulated and controlled the beliefs using Latin that only the Church had the authority to translate to the masses. And anyone who challenged the authority of the church was often burned to the stake...like John Hus, who was a follower of Wycliffe, and they fueled the fire with a pile of Wycliffe's Bibles. The Catholic Church even burned children to the stake for reciting the Lord's Prayer in English instead of Latin.
Then Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1450's.
In the 1490's Thomas Linacre translated the Bible from the original Greek and, comparing his translation to the Latin Vulgate, said "Either this Greek version is not the Gospel or we are not Christians". "The Latin version had become so corrupt that it no longer preserved the message of the Gospel."
Then in 1496 John Colet started reading the Greek version to audiences and in 1516 Erasmus published a Greek-Latin Parallel New Testament.
1513-1531-Pope Leo X declared "How well we know what a profitable superstition this fable of Christ has been for us"
In 1517, Martin Luther translated the Bible into German.
William Tyndate translated and printed the Bible in English in 1525-1526. Many copies were confiscated and burned but one ended up with King Henry VIII and other copies by this time was flooding into England. King Henry VIII used this version of the bible to split from the Catholic church who wouldn't let him get a divorce from one of his wives to marry another.
Tyndale was finally betrayed by an Englishman and strangled and burned to the stake.
Then, Myles Coverdale and John Rogers finished translating the old testament and printed the first complete Bible in English in 1535.
Then in 1538 Rogers (under the name Thomas Matthew) came out with his translation (which was condemned by the English authorities).
Then in 1539, King Henry VIII hired Myles Coverdale to publish "The Great Bible"...the first English bible authorized for public use.
Then there was the very popular Geneva Bible in 1560...in 1568, then the Bishop's Bible. Then, the Catholic Church gave in and joined the crowd and produced the Official Catholic Church English translation. So, using the corrupt and inaccurate Latin Vulgate as the only source they went on to publish an English version with all of the original inaccuracies and distortions of the Latin one.
And so we finally come to the King James version in 1611...the one that most Christian churches believe is the inerrant word of God.
And ever since then there were many other versions over the years.
This website has a lot of this data and continues on to the present day...along with a timeline at the end.
http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/
So, the bible has been rewritten many times...and each time there are variations to the meanings. Yes, the general themes persist but the meanings change. If the bible was really the inerrant word of God then why do so many of them have so many errors? No wonder there are so many different religions...and they each believe that they are the only ones who believe the truth.
And many of the main ideas, like "born of a virgin", "walking on water", "turning water into wine", "having 12 apostles", "dying on a cross and arising 3 days later", and many more were all plagiarized from more ancient religions in Egypt, Greece, Mesopotamia, Persia, and India. Many are of astrological origin.
DAnneMarc: I would suppose that if it was just a matter of someone cracking your weak password..then it would be just your information that would have been available to whoever got in and it would not have affected anyone else. I was alarmed that, perhaps, someone used something like SQL injection to get past the Content Management System...Drupal security and may have gotten access to everyone's information. It doesn't look like it was the later..thank goodness!
David Abbot, yes I did write post #77. As far a I've been able to ascertain all the other blog posts in my name have been written by me. Please feel free to alert me if you find something else you think I didn't write.
As far as post #77 is concerned, I think you may have misread my meaning. I don't doubt any spiritual, philosophical, astrological or any other non-mainstream techniques you may have. Nor do I mean to make any light of them. My simple point is that regardless as to your abilities, your effectiveness at exercising those abilities will be compromised in a combat situation. I'm sure your techniques are quite effective, but when you are so distracted by people shooting mortar, machine guns and hand grenades your ability to focus your attention on anything other than the combat will be greatly reduced if not eliminated all together. Of course, I've never seen combat or you in action so what do I really know?
I've been quite blessed and have never experienced violence of any kind in my life. Your early experiences are quite hard for me to grasp. I suppose I'd prefer to stay in my non violent bubble of ignorance than dip my toe in the pool of domestic violence. To that ends I feel it is a privilege to be able to converse with people like you who have that point of view and are able to enlighten me in such matters. Thank you for offering me that enlightenment. In the future I will try to remember to refrain from commenting insensitively on matters that I really am not that familiar with. Please feel free to offer that correction any time. I would hate to offend anyone; especially, people whom I respect. I really appreciate your rebuttal!
LOL. As far as the comment: "... desperately stuff Jennie back into the bottle when it inconvenienced me." is a phrase I heard comedian Ron White say in referring to the PMS his wife had on a vacation and how he desperately tried to vanquish her demon and save his vacation. It was meant as a joke. Sorry.
Thank you Palindromedary. I hope I didn't jeopardize the security of this blog with a stupid simple password.
I've upgraded it immediately when I noticed the blog with my real name staring me in the face. I hope the webmaster can resolve the issue and save the blogs integrity. I also wondered if it was some bored kid or some Government agency trying to discourage my input. If it was a kid, ha ha! Get a life!
If it was someone else, I hope you got paid well and have a lot of health insurance because if you mess with me, you tempt fate, for you mess with a Charmed Being and I will in no way be responsible for any consequences!
AliceInWonderland, thanks, and it's actually kind of nice to relate on the internet where it's just exchanges of information and support.
As far as the yin-yang thing goes, humanity as a whole can be accurately represented by a standard bell curve, and so can women as a subset of humanity, and so can men as humanity's other subset. So we can say, "Most people," "most women," and "most men," while being aware that there's people, women, and men, who are slightly, moderately, or extremely off the main curve- and that the people who are off the curve are just as important for humanity's wellbeing and need to be particularly nourished by society because there are so few of them and their contributions can be so valuable. In fact, I would argue that even sociopaths and psychopaths and other forms of republicans are valuable, for one because they cause rational, human-hearted people to say, "Oh boy, I better be careful not to behave or even think like that." And for me, it's a challenge more often than I would like to admit.
Just remember: these are my beliefs; if you don't like them, I have others.
Biblical rewriting! Interesting concept Palindromedary. I think you've touched on an interesting idea. However, what would be far more interesting is why hasn't anyone rewritten the Bible already. I submit to you the fact that the teaching of Jesus, where he blessed the meek, condemned the chief priest in Synagogues, warned the rich about worshiping money, tossed out the money changers and told people not to pray in public but in the privacy of their own closet--is in and of itself empirical evidence of the existence of God.
It would be a difficult task to pull off today, but in the past when only the Church controlled the content of the Gospels and most of the masses were illiterate and unable to obtain copies of the Bible, that task would have been quite simple. What prevented it from happening? The gospels do not support the power of the Church, they don't today and they never did. What compelled the Church to maintain the integrity of scripture which directly flew in the face of its best interest? I submit to you that whether it was direct control of a Supernatural entity, or devout fear in a Supernatural entity, the ultimate result supports the notion of that entity's existence.
Food for thought! Take you time it's hard to swallow! Bon Apetite!
I have often thought that Republic's elective Democracies are in a lot of ways overrated or at least in part. From my childhood, it has been apparent that the country would have run better if Public Opinion was directly reflected in the laws of the land. The economic elites at least in the U.S. have learned to manipulate the process so that to a large extent their wishes, not the wishes of the masses of the population are followed. So what is the point of having a Democratic Election if the democratically elected representives vote is signed sealed and delivered elsewhere. In China, while the country is run by the Chinese Communist Party, you can say much as you want as long as you do not engage in mass protests that might change things. Progressives in the U.S. like Fred Hampton of the Black Panthers were killed in Gangster Like Assassinations and moderates like MLK are assasinated and the true perperators are allowed to go free. How different is this from say Tiannamen in China?
However, the U.S. has some huge advantages some widely shared some not which nobody venerates or mostly pays attention to. I do not mean our bloated military either. First the U.S. is for all its bigotry is the most accepting of foreigners and outsiders of any country in the world as far as I can tell. In France moslem women are not even allowed to wear burkas or do stupid and callous but harmless things like deny the holocaust. I would not want to see the French System even though relatives were probably killed in the haulocast. Secondly, like many dictatorships like China or Democracies like the U.S. or Canada you can say and write what you want as long as you do not organize or engage in mass protest. This level of civil liberties I would regard as necessary for calling a country civilized Thirdly, the U.S. has the largest technical and nontechnical higher education system in the world. It is also overall by far the best. Educated foreigners flock to the U.S. Universities for an education because ours is simply the best. This continues and I hope and pray that we remain more first world than third which we seem to be evolving towards.
David- I am so moved by your mind and spirit, and the incredible eloquence with which you express yourself! Both you and DAnneMarc have blown me away, on more occasions than I could count.
Don't worry, this isn't a come-on. I've been happily married to the same guy for 30 years now.
About this yin & yang thing... just to play Devil's Advocate (without dismissing the validity of your point)- I'm under five feet two & a half and weigh less than 120 pounds. My husband is a foot taller than me and weighs roughly two hundred pounds (varying a bit). Yet it is I who is most inclined to step in and "draw the line", whenever a situation calls for it. Now, please don't misunderstand me; my hubby's no wimp; he knows how to stand up for himself and be assertive, and he's never allowed me to impose my will on him (not that I'd want to be in that kind of dominant role in our relationship!). When we had blood tests last summer, they revealed that he's got far more testosterone than I ever will. But I am WAY more confrontational than he is in hostile situations. For what it's worth... - Aliceinwonderland
It seems that interpreting the constitution is about as ambiguous as interpreting the bible. Everybody has their own interpretations and uses them to support their own beliefs.
How do you get that the "right to bear arms" was NOT for personal protection? How do you get that it was specifically to "aid our government"? And just what is "a free state"? Do we have one now? Did we have a freer one before 9/11? I believe we did! But it is becoming much more un-free. We don't have a real democracy...not with a two party system that both parties are owned and paid for by the rich.
Maybe we have an even greater need for many more militias to keep our spying and controlling government and military in check. Some militias may be connected to "homegrown terrorism" but they can't be any bigger than the terrorist that is our Pentagon. The Pentagon has killed millions of civilians over the years..mostly unarmed civilians...children...women....that is real terror!
And while we're at it, why don't we just rewrite the bible to reflect the real God...the God of money, enslavement, torture, murder. We can write the parable of the F.I.R.E. economy and casino capitalism and how they've been so good to all of us little people. Thank you Jesus for bowing down before the money changers and blessing them all! Worship the MIC and the CIA and NSA, the omniscient, the omnipotant, and the omnipresent. The seeing eye knows all, sees all, and conquers all. Blessed are the drones, for if you disbelieve, you will surely disintegrate where you stand. Yes, believe in your government...even the right-wing controlling chicken hawks who send your children off to war to die bravely in the service of the lords of money, power, and oil.
Yes, let's rewrite the 2nd Amendment and while we're at it let's do a little book burning too. Censor everything..especially all those filthy pictures on the internet...develope instead, fetishes for government officials..."Oh, Obama, Obama..tell us again how much you love us!" or "Oh, Hillary, Hillary..you, cat lady, you just turn me on!"...or "Oh, Harry Reid...uh..nevermind!" Just keep believing that our government will always be out to protect us...just like they have protected us against tainted food products, medicines, banksters, health insurance companies, and mortgage fraudsters. And one day, when they set up those gas chambers and decide to do a little house cleaning, just keep thinking positive thoughts...it'll all be over before you can take your next breath.
DAnneMarc, a simple way to come to a better understanding of the reality of men harming women in America would be to read these books: "The Courage To Heal," by Bass and Davis, and, "People of the Lie," by Scott Peck, and schedule an appointment with a female psychologist who specializes in helping abused women or with a woman who runs a women's shelter, and tell them that you want to understand the dark side of how America treats women. I read those books and saw a number of such psychologists- one of whom was very active in saving women from violence even to the point of helping to run an "underground railroad" whereby women could escape from murderous husbands. It was an eye opener.
I get that you were trying to use humor, but you might not believe the number of girls/women who are regularly threatened with physical harm, beaten, sent to the hospital, or killed by fathers, boyfriends, and husbands, and the way that many courts are rigged against women.
This epidemic of violence against women is incredibly important in and of itself, but a clear understanding of the repurcussions in our country leads one to the awareness that if women's rights are cancelled; if women can be threatened, beaten, or killed with impugnity, if women are not allowed to control their own reproductive choices, America will not survive.
Let's look at it from the yin-yang viewpoint: generally speaking, women are yin compared to men and men are yang compared to women. So humanity is this interactive pairing of yin and yang. Chinese medicine accurately states, "When a patient's yang totally dominates their yin, the patient dies." It's true. And it is equally true that whenever a culture's yang- it's men- totally dominate women, that culture dies.
And conversely, whenever a culture's yin and yang have been in wholesome co-existence, that culture has flourished. It's that important.
DAnneMarc: I have written a request from the webmaster to investigate this matter:
"There may have been a breach in the security of the Thom Hartmann blog data base. I refer to: http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2013/01/virginia-lovers-election-riggin... DAnneMarc's comment #75, 76, and my reply #82 to DAnneMarc's #76. He must think I hacked into the system and got his name. I did not...but someone else may have. Please investigate this. If they got his name then they have all the rest of our names and our email addresses. Thanx!"