America is possessed by neomedievalist jesufascists. These freaks believe that Obama stepped off of a space craft powered by the koran and is in league with satan to transform the USA into an extraterrestrial caliph controlled by Osama Bin Laden and Jane Fonda, Obama's parents.
Most of the country can't read beyond the ability of a fourth grader and think Bill O'Reilly is the smartest guy in America.
I'd give a fuck if I haven't already planned on eating these fucking people.
Did George Romney know his son was wandering around his high school with hair dresser sheers, leering at boy's hair dos and leaping upon them and re-styling their hair? And that his son was a cheerleader?
Do you believe in the principle of cause and effect?
Yes, and that's why the supernatural cannot exist. If the supernatural followed cause and effect, then it would be natural not supernatural by definition and subject to all the laws of nature, which are the laws of cause and effect.
How about the Big Bang Theory (the T should be capitalized!)? (Do) You agree with that? (English is soooo hard.)
Yes, the Big Bang Theory is accepted as the explication of how the universe started and evolved.
Who or what caused the Big Bang?
This question might not even be meaningful. In order for A to cause B, A must precede B in time. If space-time is closed but curved at a singularity, then asking what occurred one second before the Big Bang, would be like asking what is located one mile north of the north pole. It is a meaningless question.
However, there are speculations that our universe might be a part of a larger structure called the Multiverse, in which giant sheets of energy called M-branes occasionally collide causing big bangs and subsequent universes. Of course, this simply moves the question to what created the Multiverse. However, the Multiverse structure does not have to have a temporal dimension like our own, and therefore cause and effect in the colloquial sense would not apply to it just as it doesn't to the Big Bang.
Of course, assuming that the universe requires a creator also simply adds one level of indirection to the question which becomes "Who created the creator?". If nothing created the creator, i.e., the creator always existed, then why not simply say the universe itself always existed and that time simply begins with the Big Bang. The creator conjecture explains nothing.
Furthermore, it is far more plausible to believe in non-sentient, non-intelligent stuff as being the a-priori event than a fully formed intelligence. After all, nature has clearly shown us that sentience and intelligence can and does arise from non-sentient, non-living stuff. It is far more difficult, and mathematically improbably to get a highly ordered, self-aware entity out of nothing than a disorganized, non-aware entity out of nothing. The disorganized entity can always self-organize through the laws of nature. Put simply, the god conjecture is far more ridiculous than conjecturing a non-intelligent, non-living, non-sentient creator. And such a creator could simply be the universe itself.
Possible Answer 1: The universe was always there.
Rebuttal: That means the universe defies the law of cause and effect! Doesn't it?
As stated above, cause and effect in the colloquial sense requires the colloquial sense of time. This simply does not apply at singularities including the Big Bang. You might not like it, but the universe does not have to comply with your limited imagination of what reality is like. The universe does same damn weird things when you approach singularities such as inverting time and space. Your mind, a product of evolution, is only wired to understand classical physics, not quantum mechanics and relativity. As such, you cannot rely on intuition when talking about these extreme conditions. You have to do the math, and it's damn complicated math.
Rebuttal Part 2: And that would make the existence of our universe supernatural.
No, it wouldn't. The universe obeys the laws of nature, which makes it by definition a natural phenomenon. The colloquial perception of time is not a law of nature and is in fact only a special limiting case of how time behaves. When an object approaches the speed of light or comes close to a supermassive object, time behaves significantly different from the colloquial perception.
Possible Answer 2: The universe started on it's own. The Big Bang was how the universe created itself.
Rebuttal: How would the universe create itself? That would also break the law of cause and effect.
As stated above, cause and effect require colloquial perception of time and does not applied to a finite, curved time without boundaries. However, if the colloquial perception of time was valid and could be fully extended for all eternity -- which it can't -- then god would still be impossible because god would violate the cause and effect principle.
Furthermore, we could not exist because time would have to stretch forever into the past which means it would take an infinite amount of time to reach the present, which means we never would. In fact, by this argument, nothing could exist because all things would have to have a beginning somewhere in time and that time would never be reached because the past extends infinitely far. Put simply, the human experience of time only works in a finite scale and in the absence of extreme phenomena like the Big Bang, black holes, and high velocities.
Again, nature isn't obligated to conform to your petty human ideas of how it should behave. Nature is far more wondrous than you are even allowing yourself to imagine.
Possible Answer 3: Scientists have found particles that might come into existence from literally nothing. So maybe something can come from nothing!
Rebuttal: Doesn't that make god scientifically possible?
Virtual particles don't come "from nothing" but rather from the false vacuum energy of space-time itself, or dark energy. Virtual particles do obey all the laws of physics such as conservation of mass-energy, conservation of charge, conservation of linear and angular momentum. As such virtual particles are clearly natural.
In order for your god to be "scientifically possible", your god too would have to obey all the laws of nature and thus be natural, not supernatural. As such, your god could not be all-powerful. He could not violate any law of nature including conservation of energy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Nor could your god be all-knowing since this would violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Also, your god would have come into existence after the Big Bang and therefore would not be it's creator. At this point, your "god" doesn't even meet your criteria for god. So why even call him that instead of calling him an alien?
God, only known picture
Possible Answer 4: Other dimensions of time or eternally oscillating universe.
Rebuttal: Can those things be observed scientifically?
The Big Crunch Theory has been discredited since 1998 when it was discovered, to the shock of all physicists, that the expansion of the universe was accelerating. You see, scientists accept the truth for what it is rather than what they want it to be. So if the universe surprises us, we accept reality even when it's not what we expected.
As for other dimensions, the current state of physics has the universe having 10 dimensions of space and one dimension of time. The seven dimensions of space that we are not intuitively aware of are highly curved at the Plank Length level. In any case, none of this has anything to do with the existence or non-existence of a god.
In any case, in principle the number of dimensions can be observed. It is simply a matter of advancing technology and performing the right experiments.
Possible Answer 5: I don't agree with the law of cause and effect.
Rebuttal: You can no longer use that law to argue against god.
I've never used a vague "cause and effect law" to argue against god. I have disproved all possible Standard Monotheistic Gods (SMGs) by showing
1. Omnipotence is self-contradictory.
2. Omnipotence contradicts omniscience.
3. Omnipotence violates the laws of physics.
4. Omniscience violates the laws of physics.
And taking care of SMG eliminates all possible Jewish, Christian, and Islamic gods.
I've also shown that no supernatural god could exist because nothing supernatural could ever interact with the natural, otherwise it would violate the laws of nature. If it didn't violate the laws of nature, i.e. it obeyed them, then it would be natural not supernatural.
Now I haven't disproved the Standard Polytheistic Gods (SPGs), but they are just comic book heroes. Sure they could technically exist, perhaps as powerful aliens like Superman or humans with advance tech like the Green Lantern, but these gods hardly fit the criteria of god that modern or ancient monotheists have.
Of course, that brings us to another question. If a monotheist like a Christian believes in a god, why just one? Why not have a dozen or a thousand creators working together to create the universe? Perhaps they even argue over things like how strong the universal gravity constant should be or whether it's immoral to drown puppies. Also, why assume that a creator is benevolent? Why couldn't Satan be the creator of the universe? Why couldn't the Devil be the all-powerful being pulling all the strings in the universe? It makes no more or less sense than a benevolent god. Monotheists have a hell of a lot of unjustified assumptions in their contradicting beliefs.
Finally, why should the god hypothesis be inherently untestable? Let's face it, Christians don't want people just to believe in a god; they want people to believe in their god, Christ and his sky daddy. Well, supposedly, according to that infallible book the Bible, that god was constantly interacting with humans on a daily basis through the Bronze and Iron Ages. So why the heck doesn't that god just pop in and say hello to humanity once in a while, say every 100 years or so? He's omnipotent after all. Can't he make the time?
Also, if there were such a thing as a human soul and those souls, having lived good lives, went to heaven, then why doesn't god let those souls communicate with the living? It seems awfully dickish. After all, we're here on Earth risking our immortal souls to a pitfire of damnation for all eternity and all it would take to convince us to follow the righteous path would be for old grandma to show up and tell us that heaven and hell are real. And god won't allow that? What a dick!
Come to think of it, if humans actually had souls and they were at risk of eternal damnation, then morality would demand that we kill every new born before it was old enough to sin thereby ensuring that its soul would go to heaven. After all, what's 100 years on Earth compared to all eternality in heaven. And if god is truly good, then he could not fault us for saving all these souls. The fact that we don't kill newborn babies to save their souls is the best testament to the fact that the Christian myth of heaven and hell is complete and utter bullshit.
In conclusion, I've watched this pathetic one-sided video -- and pretty much any video that "talks for the opponent" is going to be pathetic -- and my head did not explode. However, the sheer stupidity of the rebuttals did give me a bit of a headache. Fortunately, the rebuttals were so lame that I did not have to spend any time thinking of why they were wrong. It was so obvious.
The most educated people in the world vote Democrat because they've either been mindfucked into thinking they should or because they've made enough money to afford the taxes to pay for the social engineering someone has convinced them is necessary for us to be civilized.
Total bullshit unless you're going to assert that every first world nation is dominated by mindfucked liberals. What you consider liberal socialism is the standard everywhere except in the USA.
In case you hadn't noticed, the United States of America is the most fucked up first world nation on earth BY FAR and this fact can be objectively proven. We are the laughing stock of the entire world and have been since a bunch of retarded Republicans decided to try to impeach the president for getting a blowjob.
- Horrible wealth disparity
- A per capita prison population so large it makes Cuba and China look like bastions of freedom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
- Between double and ten times the health care costs of any other country.
- Huge homeless populations complete with shanty towns.
- A violent crime rate that exceeds every other first world nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
- One of the highest HIV rates in the first world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate
- Low life expectancy, about equal to Cuba
- Easily the most dysfunctional government in the first world incapable of even passing a budget or confirming cabinet positions.
- We are the ONLY country where a large number of citizens deny evolution as a fact of biology. American evangelicals are seen as superstitious ignorant morons by nearly everyone outside our border.
What will force them to cut the BS and start putting those homes on the market again will depend on a) the government and b) economic trends.
Essentially what our (US) gov. is trying to do is replicate what the Japanese have done with their economy following the big housing bust over there in the late 80's/early 90's and just drag things out for as long as humanly possible.
We won't really be able to pull that off since we don't have a trade surplus the likes of which they did but they're going to give it their best try since they're all out of ideas on how else to maintain the status quo.....for the rich that is.
Everyone else not rich will slowly be made poorer since someone has to be made to pay for these policies. What we now call the Great Recession may eventually be known as the Great Depression 2.0 in the future.
actually they're not perfect tenants. If I only raise the rent $100 these are the type of people who would just find $100 more dollars worth of things to fix each month.
"the type of people" that would demand premium service for premium rates. Danm them!
So on a $1M home, people need to spend $30k per year on maintenance?
Of all of the stupid comments you've made, that has to be one of your dumbest.
There are $1 million homes and there are $1 million homes. If its in Indiana then it's probably an eight bedroom ranch house with a swimming pool and tennis court, and it just might run you 30k/yr in maintainance over the years (although maybe even that's a stretch, I'm not sure). If its in Cow Hollow its probably a 600sqft cottage and you got a good deal to get that!
I just used 1% as a straw man number; there's no point in trying to get too specific for this hypothetical 400k house in Alameda...my overall point was that renting is cheaper for me, and I think that point stands.
This is why inverters should not be allowed to by homes. They will take, take, take, away money from families with children and grow fat and rich. Now the family has to pick up and find another home in the same school district or take three hundred dollars from their budget. This is a perfect example of wealth redistribution.
Anyone who posts with such anger such as iwog is a person under extreme stress and fear. He has made his bed and his future looks rather grim. But he tried so don't knock him for being like the rest of the sheep.
I watched this video and my head did not explode. I think that a rational answer to the questions, "what do you believe caused the big bang," or "where did the original matter and energy come from that started the big bang," is that I don't have a "belief" regarding those questions.
The questions are interesting, and some scientists and theorists have suggested intriguing answers; but I'm unaware of any theory that has been tested or otherwise gained widespread acceptance. Human effort may someday provide definitive answers to those questions, but in any event, it is hardly worth pointing out that the present lack of a definitive scientific answer does not lead to the conclusion that there must be a god, to say nothing of a Judeo-Christian god-- the latter of which is premised upon a story of creation that was plagiarized from earlier religious beliefs and for which humanity's current scientific knowledge has demonstrated to be wholly inaccurate.
Man, I take one day off from patrick.net and this thread turns into a left vs. right Thunderdome match. I should have titled it "22% of patrick.net users are morons".
Seriously though, it is a false dichotomy to say that either we have to have be ruled by a lawless corporate aristocracy with unbridled greed or we have to all turn into Communists. There are other alternatives.
There is no way in hell that the top 1% of Americans are producing 43% of the GDP. No matter how much you believe in individualism, self-reliance, and free markets, you cannot honestly say that 1% are responsible for 43% of wealth production. That's bullshit by any standards.
Perhaps the top 1% of producers could be responsible for 10% of the GDP, being 10 times as productive as the average person, but not 43%. I'd go further and stating that the top 1% producers are not even near the top 1% income recipients. In fact, the top 0.1% income recipients are probably the less productive members of society, producing nothing in the best case scenario and actually destroying wealth in most other scenarios.
The parasites at the top of the income bracket are more responsible for the lowering of the quality of life in America than the parasites at the bottom of the income bracket. The Mitt Romneys and Goldman Sachs executives cost us far more than the bums on welfare. The fat cat parasites with insatiable appetites eat more wealth than all the bums put together.
libs are a funny bunch ..... Lord Barry makes up shit as he goes, and it's all good ...... Romney makes a sissy boy feel bad about himself and all hell brakes loose! lol
How did that bossman from Isreal feel when Lord Barry dissed him at supper? I know, that don't matter.
How did those cops feel when Lord Barry said, "they acted stupidly", just becasue they did their job and the issue happened to be a negro?
How should Sheriff Joe and the citizens of Az feel with Lord Barry attacking them for wanting a safe and secure border and no more invasion?
I got picked on, just as all my buddies did and all of those before us. Every kid is either the bully or the target and the rolls change. Every kid that was a target got joy from watching their bully getting picked on by his bully. Right now I feel I am being bullied by activist judges in the Cal Courts that are forcing libtopian horseshit down my throat, inspite of what the ballot box says .... I feel bullied by the invaders from mexico that have flipped reality to a point where we must push 1 for english, but nothing is mentioned about Italian, German, Russian, Chineese, or any other lingo ..... I feel bullied by the liberal/progressive dope-smokers that control the educational system (I say dope-smokers, because they MUST be on drigs to come up with their stupid shit) .... I feel bullied by the wealth transfer system that takes money from producers and hands it to breeders without any restriction in use .... I feel bullied by the anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-normal, scum that can't read and understand the friggin constitution as it is written, so they dream up some weird ass bullshit instead for the lib-tilted supreme court to vote on. Yep, bullies suck, and liberal/leftist/progressive dope-headed pukes are the worst bullies America has ever produced. Lord Barry' pals Rom E and Eric H are the King Supreem Bullies. Say no to bullies!
EPA - bully
ACLU - bully
IRS - bully
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Menlo Park, CA
If you have a real gain and didn't do anything productive to get it, that seems a worthy object of taxation.
But I agree that any gain below inflation should not be taxed, because it's not a real gain.
The best tax is on non-productive rent-seeking, specifically land ownership.
The worst tax is on productive work. So the worst tax is the tax on wages you actually earned.
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If the banks' accounting was even half straight, all the big ones would be toast.
Let's get with rational accounting again and take a long, satisfying piss on the face of a dead bank.
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America is possessed by neomedievalist jesufascists. These freaks believe that Obama stepped off of a space craft powered by the koran and is in league with satan to transform the USA into an extraterrestrial caliph controlled by Osama Bin Laden and Jane Fonda, Obama's parents.
Most of the country can't read beyond the ability of a fourth grader and think Bill O'Reilly is the smartest guy in America.
I'd give a fuck if I haven't already planned on eating these fucking people.
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Did George Romney know his son was wandering around his high school with hair dresser sheers, leering at boy's hair dos and leaping upon them and re-styling their hair? And that his son was a cheerleader?
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Boca Raton, FL
Do you believe in the principle of cause and effect?
Yes, and that's why the supernatural cannot exist. If the supernatural followed cause and effect, then it would be natural not supernatural by definition and subject to all the laws of nature, which are the laws of cause and effect.
How about the Big Bang Theory (the T should be capitalized!)? (Do) You agree with that? (English is soooo hard.)
Yes, the Big Bang Theory is accepted as the explication of how the universe started and evolved.
Who or what caused the Big Bang?
This question might not even be meaningful. In order for A to cause B, A must precede B in time. If space-time is closed but curved at a singularity, then asking what occurred one second before the Big Bang, would be like asking what is located one mile north of the north pole. It is a meaningless question.
However, there are speculations that our universe might be a part of a larger structure called the Multiverse, in which giant sheets of energy called M-branes occasionally collide causing big bangs and subsequent universes. Of course, this simply moves the question to what created the Multiverse. However, the Multiverse structure does not have to have a temporal dimension like our own, and therefore cause and effect in the colloquial sense would not apply to it just as it doesn't to the Big Bang.
Of course, assuming that the universe requires a creator also simply adds one level of indirection to the question which becomes "Who created the creator?". If nothing created the creator, i.e., the creator always existed, then why not simply say the universe itself always existed and that time simply begins with the Big Bang. The creator conjecture explains nothing.
Furthermore, it is far more plausible to believe in non-sentient, non-intelligent stuff as being the a-priori event than a fully formed intelligence. After all, nature has clearly shown us that sentience and intelligence can and does arise from non-sentient, non-living stuff. It is far more difficult, and mathematically improbably to get a highly ordered, self-aware entity out of nothing than a disorganized, non-aware entity out of nothing. The disorganized entity can always self-organize through the laws of nature. Put simply, the god conjecture is far more ridiculous than conjecturing a non-intelligent, non-living, non-sentient creator. And such a creator could simply be the universe itself.
Possible Answer 1: The universe was always there.
Rebuttal: That means the universe defies the law of cause and effect! Doesn't it?
As stated above, cause and effect in the colloquial sense requires the colloquial sense of time. This simply does not apply at singularities including the Big Bang. You might not like it, but the universe does not have to comply with your limited imagination of what reality is like. The universe does same damn weird things when you approach singularities such as inverting time and space. Your mind, a product of evolution, is only wired to understand classical physics, not quantum mechanics and relativity. As such, you cannot rely on intuition when talking about these extreme conditions. You have to do the math, and it's damn complicated math.
Rebuttal Part 2: And that would make the existence of our universe supernatural.
No, it wouldn't. The universe obeys the laws of nature, which makes it by definition a natural phenomenon. The colloquial perception of time is not a law of nature and is in fact only a special limiting case of how time behaves. When an object approaches the speed of light or comes close to a supermassive object, time behaves significantly different from the colloquial perception.
Possible Answer 2: The universe started on it's own. The Big Bang was how the universe created itself.
Rebuttal: How would the universe create itself? That would also break the law of cause and effect.
As stated above, cause and effect require colloquial perception of time and does not applied to a finite, curved time without boundaries. However, if the colloquial perception of time was valid and could be fully extended for all eternity -- which it can't -- then god would still be impossible because god would violate the cause and effect principle.
Furthermore, we could not exist because time would have to stretch forever into the past which means it would take an infinite amount of time to reach the present, which means we never would. In fact, by this argument, nothing could exist because all things would have to have a beginning somewhere in time and that time would never be reached because the past extends infinitely far. Put simply, the human experience of time only works in a finite scale and in the absence of extreme phenomena like the Big Bang, black holes, and high velocities.
Again, nature isn't obligated to conform to your petty human ideas of how it should behave. Nature is far more wondrous than you are even allowing yourself to imagine.
Possible Answer 3: Scientists have found particles that might come into existence from literally nothing. So maybe something can come from nothing!
Rebuttal: Doesn't that make god scientifically possible?
Virtual particles don't come "from nothing" but rather from the false vacuum energy of space-time itself, or dark energy. Virtual particles do obey all the laws of physics such as conservation of mass-energy, conservation of charge, conservation of linear and angular momentum. As such virtual particles are clearly natural.
In order for your god to be "scientifically possible", your god too would have to obey all the laws of nature and thus be natural, not supernatural. As such, your god could not be all-powerful. He could not violate any law of nature including conservation of energy or the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Nor could your god be all-knowing since this would violate the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Also, your god would have come into existence after the Big Bang and therefore would not be it's creator. At this point, your "god" doesn't even meet your criteria for god. So why even call him that instead of calling him an alien?
God, only known picture
Possible Answer 4: Other dimensions of time or eternally oscillating universe.
Rebuttal: Can those things be observed scientifically?
The Big Crunch Theory has been discredited since 1998 when it was discovered, to the shock of all physicists, that the expansion of the universe was accelerating. You see, scientists accept the truth for what it is rather than what they want it to be. So if the universe surprises us, we accept reality even when it's not what we expected.
As for other dimensions, the current state of physics has the universe having 10 dimensions of space and one dimension of time. The seven dimensions of space that we are not intuitively aware of are highly curved at the Plank Length level. In any case, none of this has anything to do with the existence or non-existence of a god.
In any case, in principle the number of dimensions can be observed. It is simply a matter of advancing technology and performing the right experiments.
Possible Answer 5: I don't agree with the law of cause and effect.
Rebuttal: You can no longer use that law to argue against god.
I've never used a vague "cause and effect law" to argue against god. I have disproved all possible Standard Monotheistic Gods (SMGs) by showing
1. Omnipotence is self-contradictory.
2. Omnipotence contradicts omniscience.
3. Omnipotence violates the laws of physics.
4. Omniscience violates the laws of physics.
And taking care of SMG eliminates all possible Jewish, Christian, and Islamic gods.
I've also shown that no supernatural god could exist because nothing supernatural could ever interact with the natural, otherwise it would violate the laws of nature. If it didn't violate the laws of nature, i.e. it obeyed them, then it would be natural not supernatural.
Now I haven't disproved the Standard Polytheistic Gods (SPGs), but they are just comic book heroes. Sure they could technically exist, perhaps as powerful aliens like Superman or humans with advance tech like the Green Lantern, but these gods hardly fit the criteria of god that modern or ancient monotheists have.
Of course, that brings us to another question. If a monotheist like a Christian believes in a god, why just one? Why not have a dozen or a thousand creators working together to create the universe? Perhaps they even argue over things like how strong the universal gravity constant should be or whether it's immoral to drown puppies. Also, why assume that a creator is benevolent? Why couldn't Satan be the creator of the universe? Why couldn't the Devil be the all-powerful being pulling all the strings in the universe? It makes no more or less sense than a benevolent god. Monotheists have a hell of a lot of unjustified assumptions in their contradicting beliefs.
Finally, why should the god hypothesis be inherently untestable? Let's face it, Christians don't want people just to believe in a god; they want people to believe in their god, Christ and his sky daddy. Well, supposedly, according to that infallible book the Bible, that god was constantly interacting with humans on a daily basis through the Bronze and Iron Ages. So why the heck doesn't that god just pop in and say hello to humanity once in a while, say every 100 years or so? He's omnipotent after all. Can't he make the time?
Also, if there were such a thing as a human soul and those souls, having lived good lives, went to heaven, then why doesn't god let those souls communicate with the living? It seems awfully dickish. After all, we're here on Earth risking our immortal souls to a pitfire of damnation for all eternity and all it would take to convince us to follow the righteous path would be for old grandma to show up and tell us that heaven and hell are real. And god won't allow that? What a dick!
Come to think of it, if humans actually had souls and they were at risk of eternal damnation, then morality would demand that we kill every new born before it was old enough to sin thereby ensuring that its soul would go to heaven. After all, what's 100 years on Earth compared to all eternality in heaven. And if god is truly good, then he could not fault us for saving all these souls. The fact that we don't kill newborn babies to save their souls is the best testament to the fact that the Christian myth of heaven and hell is complete and utter bullshit.
In conclusion, I've watched this pathetic one-sided video -- and pretty much any video that "talks for the opponent" is going to be pathetic -- and my head did not explode. However, the sheer stupidity of the rebuttals did give me a bit of a headache. Fortunately, the rebuttals were so lame that I did not have to spend any time thinking of why they were wrong. It was so obvious.
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Lafayette, CA
rootvg says
Total bullshit unless you're going to assert that every first world nation is dominated by mindfucked liberals. What you consider liberal socialism is the standard everywhere except in the USA.
In case you hadn't noticed, the United States of America is the most fucked up first world nation on earth BY FAR and this fact can be objectively proven. We are the laughing stock of the entire world and have been since a bunch of retarded Republicans decided to try to impeach the president for getting a blowjob.
- Horrible wealth disparity
- A per capita prison population so large it makes Cuba and China look like bastions of freedom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate
- Between double and ten times the health care costs of any other country.
- Huge homeless populations complete with shanty towns.
- A violent crime rate that exceeds every other first world nation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
- One of the highest HIV rates in the first world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_HIV/AIDS_adult_prevalence_rate
- Low life expectancy, about equal to Cuba
- Easily the most dysfunctional government in the first world incapable of even passing a budget or confirming cabinet positions.
- We are the ONLY country where a large number of citizens deny evolution as a fact of biology. American evangelicals are seen as superstitious ignorant morons by nearly everyone outside our border.
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Safety is always a priority - even in arson sex orgies.
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hillychilly says
Years. They can keep it up for years.
What will force them to cut the BS and start putting those homes on the market again will depend on a) the government and b) economic trends.
Essentially what our (US) gov. is trying to do is replicate what the Japanese have done with their economy following the big housing bust over there in the late 80's/early 90's and just drag things out for as long as humanly possible.
We won't really be able to pull that off since we don't have a trade surplus the likes of which they did but they're going to give it their best try since they're all out of ideas on how else to maintain the status quo.....for the rich that is.
Everyone else not rich will slowly be made poorer since someone has to be made to pay for these policies. What we now call the Great Recession may eventually be known as the Great Depression 2.0 in the future.
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toothfairy says
"the type of people" that would demand premium service for premium rates. Danm them!
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Irvine, CA
I hate limp handshakes from other men. They just feel creepy, like the guy is trying to massage your hand. Makes my skin crawl.
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Alameda, CA
tiny tina says
There are $1 million homes and there are $1 million homes. If its in Indiana then it's probably an eight bedroom ranch house with a swimming pool and tennis court, and it just might run you 30k/yr in maintainance over the years (although maybe even that's a stretch, I'm not sure). If its in Cow Hollow its probably a 600sqft cottage and you got a good deal to get that!
I just used 1% as a straw man number; there's no point in trying to get too specific for this hypothetical 400k house in Alameda...my overall point was that renting is cheaper for me, and I think that point stands.
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Davis, CA
Seems fair game to me. IMO there should be a double-penalty for anyone trading in Facebook shares, a more useless "investment" I cannot imagine.
“Eagles are dandified vultures” - Teddy Roosevelt
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It will take 480 years to clear.
The survivors will live in huts in the trees and defend their families against predators with sharp sticks.
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Pleasanton, CA
This is why inverters should not be allowed to by homes. They will take, take, take, away money from families with children and grow fat and rich. Now the family has to pick up and find another home in the same school district or take three hundred dollars from their budget. This is a perfect example of wealth redistribution.
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Anyone who posts with such anger such as iwog is a person under extreme stress and fear. He has made his bed and his future looks rather grim. But he tried so don't knock him for being like the rest of the sheep.
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If your parents can't afford a million+ home, you're fucked.
Get used to eating the other survivors.
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San Francisco, CA
I watched this video and my head did not explode. I think that a rational answer to the questions, "what do you believe caused the big bang," or "where did the original matter and energy come from that started the big bang," is that I don't have a "belief" regarding those questions.
The questions are interesting, and some scientists and theorists have suggested intriguing answers; but I'm unaware of any theory that has been tested or otherwise gained widespread acceptance. Human effort may someday provide definitive answers to those questions, but in any event, it is hardly worth pointing out that the present lack of a definitive scientific answer does not lead to the conclusion that there must be a god, to say nothing of a Judeo-Christian god-- the latter of which is premised upon a story of creation that was plagiarized from earlier religious beliefs and for which humanity's current scientific knowledge has demonstrated to be wholly inaccurate.
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Boca Raton, FL
Man, I take one day off from patrick.net and this thread turns into a left vs. right Thunderdome match. I should have titled it "22% of patrick.net users are morons".
Seriously though, it is a false dichotomy to say that either we have to have be ruled by a lawless corporate aristocracy with unbridled greed or we have to all turn into Communists. There are other alternatives.
Take a look at the following chart from Professor G. William Domhoff, UC Santa Cruz.
There is no way in hell that the top 1% of Americans are producing 43% of the GDP. No matter how much you believe in individualism, self-reliance, and free markets, you cannot honestly say that 1% are responsible for 43% of wealth production. That's bullshit by any standards.
Perhaps the top 1% of producers could be responsible for 10% of the GDP, being 10 times as productive as the average person, but not 43%. I'd go further and stating that the top 1% producers are not even near the top 1% income recipients. In fact, the top 0.1% income recipients are probably the less productive members of society, producing nothing in the best case scenario and actually destroying wealth in most other scenarios.
The parasites at the top of the income bracket are more responsible for the lowering of the quality of life in America than the parasites at the bottom of the income bracket. The Mitt Romneys and Goldman Sachs executives cost us far more than the bums on welfare. The fat cat parasites with insatiable appetites eat more wealth than all the bums put together.
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So the son of the Governor has a group of friends he can command to hold down a weaker one and cut him up.
Sounds a lot like his adult life at Bain Capital, preying on the weak, picking companies apart.
I do see a pattern.
The etymology of MORTGAGE is DEATH PLEDGE.
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libs are a funny bunch ..... Lord Barry makes up shit as he goes, and it's all good ...... Romney makes a sissy boy feel bad about himself and all hell brakes loose! lol
How did that bossman from Isreal feel when Lord Barry dissed him at supper? I know, that don't matter.
How did those cops feel when Lord Barry said, "they acted stupidly", just becasue they did their job and the issue happened to be a negro?
How should Sheriff Joe and the citizens of Az feel with Lord Barry attacking them for wanting a safe and secure border and no more invasion?
I got picked on, just as all my buddies did and all of those before us. Every kid is either the bully or the target and the rolls change. Every kid that was a target got joy from watching their bully getting picked on by his bully. Right now I feel I am being bullied by activist judges in the Cal Courts that are forcing libtopian horseshit down my throat, inspite of what the ballot box says .... I feel bullied by the invaders from mexico that have flipped reality to a point where we must push 1 for english, but nothing is mentioned about Italian, German, Russian, Chineese, or any other lingo ..... I feel bullied by the liberal/progressive dope-smokers that control the educational system (I say dope-smokers, because they MUST be on drigs to come up with their stupid shit) .... I feel bullied by the wealth transfer system that takes money from producers and hands it to breeders without any restriction in use .... I feel bullied by the anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-normal, scum that can't read and understand the friggin constitution as it is written, so they dream up some weird ass bullshit instead for the lib-tilted supreme court to vote on. Yep, bullies suck, and liberal/leftist/progressive dope-headed pukes are the worst bullies America has ever produced. Lord Barry' pals Rom E and Eric H are the King Supreem Bullies. Say no to bullies!
EPA - bully
ACLU - bully
IRS - bully