Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Before you attack a town that is far from your land, offer peace to the people who live there. If they surrender and open their town gates, they will become your slaves. But if they reject your offer of slavery and try to fight, surround their town and attack. Then, after the Lord helps you capture it, kill all the men. Take the women and children as slaves and keep the livestock and everything else of value.
(Deuteronomy 20:10-15)
God is love, and anyone who doesn't love all His children has never known Him.
(1 John 4:8)
Interesting idea, paultran. It reminds me strongly of the part of the Pentateuch where it says that your first son belongs to God and you have to make a sacrifice to buy your own child back.
Re: religious issues.
If we want a rule, "do unto others" might be a good general one.
When the transcendent becomes 'my experience is true and yours is not,' the trouble is inevitable
as belief-tribes collide. So I like a big emphasis on mutual verifiability. (Science?/Humility?)
My church exists on voluntary contributions exclusively. Taxing my contribution would be okay if all other charitable donations were treated the same. (Planned parenthood, etc.)
How about a slightly more cynical reason for religion?
Simply to extort money from ignorant people.
To extrapolate: Why does religion define sex as dirty/sinful?
Because knowing people are going to partake anyway (it feels good you know), it's a way to get ignorant folks to pay money to a "religion" in order to go to heaven because they're doing something terrible! This is done via any number of fees and contributions that are mandatory or STRONGLY encouraged in order to have your behavior sanctioned.
Duh.
Thank you,
Paul in Phoenix
Flaming atheist!
What Thom is talking about on coins is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coins_of_the_pound_sterling#D.G.REG.F.D.
In short, "D. G. Reg." means "Queen by the grace of God". It would be funny if the Anglican Church had a similar but reversed label, since it exists by decree of the monarchy.
"F. D." is "defender of the faith", an honor bestowed by the pope before Henry VIII created the Anglican Church, but which the monarchy decided was inheritable and irrevocable.
The last time I checked, the First Amendment already guarantees free exercise of religion. Let's call "Religious Freedom" laws for what they are: Attempts to deny services to unprotected classes of Americans based on discrimination, bigotry, and hate.
ulTRAX, a Wyomingite actually has about 68 times the power of a Californian in the Senate. You also responded to my comment about Constitutional amendments as if I'd been talking about presidential elections. I've recently stated elsewhere what the EC is good for, so I won't repeat it here.
I just returned from Belize were all the beaches are being inudated with Sargassum seaweed. The locals say it has never ever been anywhere near this bad. When it is washed up on the beaches it decomposses and give off a gas that smells like a leaking or overflowing sepic tank drain field. It is nausiating and is redering the beaches unusable. It is also ruining the beaches from Cancun all the way down to the southern carribean.
I do not know if climate change is the cause. Some say it is the dispersants used to break up oil spills that is fertilizing the seaweed. I guess it it only fitting that oil company CEO's own actions are rendering there million dollar beach mansions uninhabitable.
I would like to see more reseach on this. Perhaps when energy companies realize that they are soiling there own nest, they will pay more attention.
Gee, Thom.....that MOVIE was released in 2004......did it "inspire" your article?
Or maybe you accidently read this article.....
Will global warming trigger a new ice age?
Bill McGuire
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2003/nov/13/comment.research
Or maybe the "inspiration came from:The book "The Sixth Winter" written by Douglas Orgill and John Gribbin and published in 1979, follows a similar theme. So does the novel Ice!, by Arnold Federbush, published in 1978.
Of course, there is this:
The Gulf Stream kept going during the last Ice AgeDate:September 16, 2014 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140916084821.htm and: While the Arctic is melting, the Gulf Stream remainsDate:September 28, 2014 http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/09/140928161302.htm I realise that YOU are probably a stranger to the concept of "due diligence" and clearly you have no concept of the fact that YOU probably have never had, norwill ever have an "original idea".......but do ALL of US a favor.......try taking a look.This is EASIER now than before, when you actually had to READ the books. The reason you should do this.....is because the "other side" will say anything......and if you are actually SERIOUS.......then you owe it to the people that actually"listen" to you.......to at least TRY to be accurate, and credit actual "sources"for the things you write and talk about. There is enough "ignorance" out there already.....and you are NOT a leader, whichleaves you two choices either FOLLOW or GET OUT OF THE WAY. Sincerely, patrick H.T. paine
It's no coincidence that the very first bill McConnell and his Senate Republicans passed was the Kochstone pipeline.......a quick return on the Koch's purchase of our democracy.
What I'm wondering .....do the Kochs really repudiate the science of global warming, or are they so out of control with obsessive thirst for more billions, they're simply unable to help themselves? I believe the latter, and that's where good government is supposed to step in and do an intervention. ...of course the Kochs, big banks, and the military industrial spy complex are the government now, so without a revolution, preferably at the polls , it's basically game over for the planet.
And why aren't the scientists from the Potsdam Institute getting all kinds of media attention over the biggest story in world history???.....sadly we all know the answer.
Dear fllow live aboard, I listen to you between 2 and 5 on WCPT on my internet radio. We lived aboard '84-'89 in Houston and sailed to Greece and then up to Paris (my hometown).
As a retired petroleum industry plaeoclimatologist I appreciate your naratives on the subject and comment on Stefan Rhamstorf's idea and the mention of Art Bells's scenario... as Wally Broeker said its what we dont know that is going to get us, or at least bite our ass. The latency of climate change processes are far beyond the point of no return today. Use you "escape machine...!"
Cheers,
Pete
2950-10K wrote "By far the lion's share of out of control spending, adding to the national debt, has been done by Republicans."
OR... trying to repair the damage the GOP... and corporate Dems did to our economy.
PaulHosse wrote Of course, the House doesn't represent Americans, and neither does the the Senate, Presidency, or even Judicial system. It's role is to serve its masters and that's not people like you and me.
In our system we could have 100% public financing... 100% voter turnout, 100% vote count accuracy.... and
18% of the US population would still get 52% of the Senate seats
states with 3.5% of the population could block any amendment... yet states with 40% could ratify one
candidates REJECTED by the People can still become president.
To think money is the problem misses the greater dysfunctionality of our system. We can't get decent reforms BECAUSE the system is antidemocratic to begin with and it's easy to hijack.
mathboy wrote: "ulTRAX, maybe the Constitutional amendment process should work more like the electoral college, so that states have different "weights".
(I'm going to incorporate this into my fictional constitutions immediately.)"
The EC can not be salvaged. If it mirrors the popular vote... we don't need it. All it can ever do is allow someone rejected by the People to become president.
Mark J. Saulys wrote: "uLTRAX, the EC is, of course, because initially the U.S. was a union between equal, independent states. It's like the U.N. Security Council. Russia and Israel each have one vote but can't be compared by population.
Don't know if that changes anything, don't suppose."
I think you're thinking of the Senate... which is based on the idea of state suffrage. The EC is another vote weighting scheme that gives citizens who choose to live in small population states a bigger vote than those who don't. So any citizen's vote in WY weighs about 3.5x that of any citizen in CA. All it can do is allow someone rejected by the People to become president.
I'm still trying to figure out what provision to put in a democracy's constitution to prevent things like Reagan's deal with Iran. A shorter election season might help a little, but I don't know how to accomplish that either. So I'm drawing a blank, but if we at least prosecuted people afterward, it would have some deterrent effect. It's just too bad that no president will have his predecessor investigated.
The Greek word for "hatred" is "misos", from which we get the prefix "miso-" as in "misogynist". It's a backward construction, but we're stuck with it. Based on what I'm getting from dictionary.com, I think a gay hater would be a mishomophylophilist (read /miss-HO-mo-fill-OFF-ill-ist/). Yes, there are two almost identical morphemes in that; "homo-phylo-philia" is literally "same-type-love".
I just have to add the obvious punny joke: ...whereas a mishomofalafelist is someone that hates to have the same falafel twice.
I'm wondering if you are aware of Alice Millers work on authoritarian partenting in pre WWII and the rise of fascism and the ACES too high Adverse childhood experiences and parenting . We have a nation where a lot of people are suffering for the result of adverse child hood experiences ie violence poverty and religous autoritarinsm that traumatises youg children in the name of religion If you aren't aware of the ACES too high look into it I would love to see a program on it.
ulTRAX, maybe the Constitutional amendment process should work more like the electoral college, so that states have different "weights".
(I'm going to incorporate this into my fictional constitutions immediately.)
10K I am not suggesting that it is only the left. All governments, at all levels are just as bad. That's why they should have a strict budget and have to stick to it. I believe we have to live within our means at all levels.
So sad that ' religious differences' causes death , wars & hate.
Ignorance in NOT bliss Its dangerous to our country and dying middle class .
'Elites' aka Billionaires, Corps, Lobbyists are almost NEVER In Accord' with workers, middle class, women, disabled, seniors in nursing homes who spent all the have and went on medcaid as a last resort, the mentally ill / unwanted kids. It seems hopeless unless more smart informed folks get out and vote .
Mark: False prophets like Rand spin whatever web it takes to justify their greed and selfishness, much like the supporters of Reagan's trickle down...the biggest lie ever told!
Kend: If your so concerned with out of control government spending, then why aren't you venting on a right-wing site? By far the lion's share of out of control spending, adding to the national debt, has been done by Republicans.