Quote :

"The propensity of supporting the teaching of creationism as science in school and the supporting of legislation to suppress science-based initiatives like stem cell research."

I guess make sense. Creationism doesn't really belong in schools. And to be honest I don't think evolution as the origin of life does either.

8/19/2011 5:56:15 PM

Quote :

"In his defense, Rick Perry did not, at least anywhere that I saw, claim evolution to be outright false, or creationism to be correct, or make any statement concerning the age of anything."

Yeah, he used a lot of weasel words in another quote about global warming.

Quote :

"And to be honest I don't think evolution as the origin of life does either."

I'm scared to ask, but I will anyway. Why?

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 6:08 PM. Reason : ]

8/19/2011 6:07:34 PM

I don't feel it contributes anything. It is merely a theory for a science, which has zero impact on society other than to further perpetrate the same theory. All benefits stemming from evolutionary biology come from an understanding of adaptation within a species, unless we are dealing with single cell organisms. It's just a waste of time, when it could be spent teaching biochem, physics, biology, etc.

8/19/2011 6:15:48 PM

Quote :

"Yeah, he used a lot of weasel words in another quote about global warming."

Oh yeah, the things he's said have been full of weasel words, but that's better than flagrantly scoffing at overwhelming scientific evidence...I guess.

8/19/2011 6:16:52 PM

Quote :

"I don't feel it contributes anything. It is merely a theory for a science, which has zero impact on society other than to further perpetrate the same theory. All benefits stemming from evolutionary biology come from an understanding of adaptation within a species, unless we are dealing with single cell organisms. It's just a waste of time, when it could be spent teaching biochem, physics, biology, etc."

99.9% of the population will never use the physics, chemistry, biochemistry, calculus, biology, economics, etc. they're exposed into in high school/college.

Should we teach those subjects if most people aren't going to use them?

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 6:31 PM. Reason : ]

8/19/2011 6:30:45 PM

And yet they are still applicable.

8/19/2011 6:31:24 PM

What about history?

8/19/2011 6:32:35 PM

I see nothing wrong with History, as we can learn much from the mistakes which were made in the past. Are you implying that they are great life lessons to be learned from thinking that we evolved from a single cell organism and speciated afterwards?

8/19/2011 6:38:20 PM

Yes.

There are lessons to be learned from understanding how our planet functions and how flora and fauna came to be.

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 6:40 PM. Reason : ]

8/19/2011 6:38:58 PM

And what are those?

8/19/2011 6:46:35 PM

Quote :

"And to be honest I don't think evolution as the origin of life does either."

Evolution is not an explanation of the origin of life.

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 7:12 PM. Reason : apparently the boards don't recognize a "not equal" sign]

8/19/2011 7:12:14 PM

Evolution doesn't explain the origin of life but it is proof against the creationist "adam and eve" origin of life theory.

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 7:24 PM. Reason : also ignorance is NEVER better thanknowledge. That claim is the most absurd made by leonispro]

8/19/2011 7:18:09 PM

Point taken.

8/19/2011 7:23:50 PM

Quote :

"also ignorance is NEVER better thanknowledge. That claim is the most absurd made by leonispro"

So Creationism should be taught in schools? I thought it was obvious I wasn't saying to endorse ignorance, I was just saying that it should not be taught as fact. By your logic we should also have Bible, Koran, Tanakh, and every occult literature ever published in schools, if me saying that evolution should not be taught in schools is somehow endorsing ignorance. Next time you attack my character you might want to put a little more thought into it.

Or perhaps you would like me to go into an extensive history lesson on your good friend the Catholic church? After all ignorance is never better than knowledge.

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 7:29 PM. Reason : ]

8/19/2011 7:28:51 PM

Quote :

"And what are those?"

If I knew all the lessons life had to offer, I'd be shooting commercials for Dos Equis instead of talking to you.

Quote :

"Knowledge is good."

-- Emil Faber

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 7:50 PM. Reason : (including knowledge of religious history)]

8/19/2011 7:49:52 PM

I know the history of the Catholic church just like I know the history of the US. They are both horribly ugly but I'm not going to quit being a us citizen and taxpayer because of the bad things they've done in the past. I was also born into each and probably wouldn't pick either as the best bet if I had a fresh choice right now but thats just how it is.

Quote :

"So Creationism should be taught in schools? I thought it was obvious I wasn't saying to endorse ignorance, I was just saying that it should not be taught as fact. By your logic we should also have Bible, Koran, Tanakh, and every occult literature ever published in schools, if me saying that evolution should not be taught in schools is somehow endorsing ignorance. Next time you attack my character you might want to put a little more thought into it."

Evolution should be taught in schools because it is a fundamental part of biology and science is an essential core subject in any school.

I also believe that religions should be taught in schools. There should be some sort of senior class like "cultures/religions of the world" where the beliefs of the major religions and cultural practices around the world are taught. This would keep us from producing americans that are so culturally one dimensional that it becomes a detriment to our well-being. All of the ancient creation stories from around the world could also be covered in this class. This would not be a science class or a class of facts like history but a class of beliefs and practices of all the different peoples.

Anyone who thinks religion should come anywhere near a science class is just as crazy as anyone who thinks fundamental scientific theories should be excluded.

8/19/2011 7:53:34 PM

Quote :

"Evolution should be taught in schools because it is a fundamental part of biology and science is an essential core subject in any school. "

I really don't see that. Inter-species evolution is not a fundamental part of biology. Biology in it's current form could easily exist without help from inter-species evolution as evidenced by your inability to find research relevant to the subject. I'm sorry if I just don't believe that turning chickens into dinosaurs is relevant research Mr. Hammond.

8/19/2011 8:00:19 PM

Quote :

"If I knew all the lessons life had to offer, I'd be shooting commercials for Dos Equis instead of talking to you."

Quote :

"Yes. There are lessons to be learned from understanding how our planet functions and how flora and fauna came to be."

So you know they are lessons to be learned from it, but you don't know the lessons? Sometimes I grow weary of people merely stating the belief of popular opinion and telling me I am a fool for believing otherwise.

8/19/2011 8:02:05 PM

Quote :

"Sometimes I grow weary of people merely stating the belief of popular opinion and telling me I am a fool for believing otherwise."

...says the guy who definitively states a particular subject "has zero impact on society".




Also, I'm not sure you know what it means to learn something.

8/19/2011 8:09:06 PM

Quote :

"Are you implying that they are great life lessons to be learned from thinking that we evolved from a single cell organism and speciated afterwards?"

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. The explanation for biodiversity is essential what caused us to form religion in the first place. It's one of the biggest existentialist questions mankind has ever faced. We make up gods to explain why life is so wonderfully vibrant and complex on this planet. Every biological science is supported by evolution. Our current understanding of human (and all animal) physiology could not be what it is without understanding evolution.

Quote :

"And to be honest I don't think evolution as the origin of life does either."

I know many people have said this already but it bears repeating: Evolution does not explain the origin of life nor should any science book taught in our schools suggest so.

Quote :

"I don't feel it contributes anything. It is merely a theory for a science, which has zero impact on society other than to further perpetrate the same theory. All benefits stemming from evolutionary biology come from an understanding of adaptation within a species, unless we are dealing with single cell organisms. It's just a waste of time, when it could be spent teaching biochem, physics, biology, etc."

You mean it's not useful to understand why whales and dolphins breathe air instead of water? It's not useful to understand primate development and physiology? Embryology is entirely useless? Geological history and how life has adapted to it is useless information? And wait, did you just admit to speciation in single-cell organisms?

Quote :

"I really don't see that. Inter-species evolution is not a fundamental part of biology. Biology in it's current form could easily exist without help from inter-species evolution as evidenced by your inability to find research relevant to the subject. I'm sorry if I just don't believe that turning chickens into dinosaurs is relevant research Mr. Hammond."

Except it couldn't. We don't believe evolution because we want to. We believe because the physical evidence strongly supports it. None of the sciences exist in their current form because of LeonIsPro's preferences: they exist as the evidence supports them.

The question becomes if you deny evolution, what is the point of teaching you anything at all? If you blatantly ignore evidence to that contradicts your claims arbitrarily, why waste any time teaching you anything? You could just arbitrarily decide some crucial aspect of thermodynamics isn't true and give up on that one too. Evolution deniers are evidence deniers.

At the very least, understanding evolution and believing it is a useful exercise the scientific method.

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 8:14 PM. Reason : .]

8/19/2011 8:10:00 PM

Just because something isn't mainstream science doesn't mean it should be ignored. Its very important that we understand the how instead of just the what. When thinking about form and function of any trait, evolution comes into play. Why do our cells have mitochondria? Why do we have pharyngeal pouches? Deeper understanding is more valuable than just the functional value of memorizing terms in a book. We already understand how superbugs form from other bugs and some day it could pay off in a bigger way just like astrophysics or any other non-mainstream science.

8/19/2011 8:12:03 PM

Quote :

"Evolution deniers are evidence deniers."

Quote :

"We believe because the physical evidence strongly supports it."

I'm tired of being condemned to having an unscientific mind because I don't endorse the theory of evolution, which is just that, a theory. Nor does it contribute nearly as much as you say it does, it is a just a short cut justification for the existence of a broad variety of life.

8/19/2011 8:15:37 PM

It's difficult for me to take you seriously when you deliberately misuse the word theory like Evolution is just a guess instead of a massive collection of evidence-supported explanations combined into an overall system of understanding.

And you seriously sell the entire collection of explanations short when you call it a 'short cut'. Especially when your preferred explanation is 'goddidit'.

Quote :

"I'm tired of being condemned to having an unscientific mind because I don't endorse the theory of evolution"

Get used to it. You are being unscientific. There is no controversy. If you look at the evidence supporting evolution and deny it, you are being unscientific.

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 8:18 PM. Reason : .]

8/19/2011 8:16:43 PM

Then don't take me seriously, I don't need your endorsement to contribute to society.

8/19/2011 8:18:19 PM

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Only_a_theory

Quote :

""Evolution is only a theory, not a fact." This argument relies on equivocation between two meanings of theory: in common parlance, a theory is an unsupported idea or a "hunch" — e.g., "I have a theory that restaurants make more money off of skinny customers." A scientist would call this a hypothesis, or maybe a conjecture. A scientific theory, on the other hand, is an explanation of some aspect of the real world that is well-supported by evidence. At its core, theory really just means explanation. A hypothesis may become a theory once it has been thoroughly tested through experimentation and has not been disproved, but it will never become a fact, no matter how many tests it passes. The "fact" is the observed aspect of nature itself. [edit] Evolution is both a fact and a theory Sometimes it is valid to call something both a fact and a theory. One example of this is gravity. This is the name given to the phenomenon whereby massive bodies are attracted to one other. For example, the moon and the Earth are attracted to each other, which is why they don't fly apart as they move through space. This phenomenon is an observed fact: Henry Cavendish actually measured the force of attraction between two lead spheres back in 1797. Different theories for why and how this phenomenon occurs have been put forth. Newton's theory of gravitation (that it is a force acting instantaneously at a distance) was accepted for centuries until Einstein's general theory of relativity completely changed our understanding of gravity (now considered a warping of space-time). In this sense, gravity is both a fact and a theory. The same can be said for evolution. If evolution is defined as "allele frequency change in a population over generations" (or, more simply, "populations change over time"), then it is an established fact; not even young-Earth creationists can deny that this takes place. On the other hand, the theory of evolution is a scientific theory that ties together evidence of the types of changes that we see taking place in nature, as well as evidence from fossils, genes, proteins, and so on, to explain why and how evolution happens."

[Edited on August 19, 2011 at 8:20 PM. Reason : .]

8/19/2011 8:19:46 PM

LeonIsPro: I don't follow all your posts. Are you in the camp of 'God set everything in motion, and it all happened from there'; or, 'God created everything as is a few thousand years ago'?

Or something else?

8/19/2011 8:23:27 PM

Quote :

"Nor does it contribute nearly as much as you say it does, it is a just a short cut justification for the existence of a broad variety of life."

ummm. I'd say that having everything put in place perfectly by an invisible man in the sky is a bit of a "short cut justification". I'm just sayin

8/19/2011 8:46:02 PM

holy shit.

*slow clap*

8/19/2011 9:11:33 PM

romney= republican john kerry, everything this guy has said to the media so far is just some phony political pandering, don't see how any republican can get excited about the guy

8/19/2011 11:46:55 PM

^ I don't believe anyone is excited about Romney.

He and Obama are basically the same person. They both love big business and they are both against the working class. I don't know Romney's stance on wars but I'm sure he's probably just as for them as Obama is since they are so profitable for big business.

8/20/2011 11:29:36 AM

George bush = Obama = Romney = perry

Give big money to your friends, surround yourself with people who advocate bad economic policy = maintain status quo

8/22/2011 12:55:09 AM

Quote :

"Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's Southern California mansion is slated for a substantial upgrade. The GOP presidential hopeful has owned an oceanfront home worth $12 million in La Jolla — on the northern edge of San Diego — since 2008. The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Romney has filed an application to bulldoze the existing one-story, 3,009-square-foot home and replace it with a two-story, 11,062-square-foot structure."

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-romney-to-upgrade-la-jolla-mansion-20110822,0,5849897.story?track=rss

Quote :

"I'm also unemployed"

- Mitt Romney

8/23/2011 1:50:39 AM

As a Biology major, I have to mention that Nothing in biology makes sense unless Evolution is true, which based on the evidence, most definitely is.

8/23/2011 12:59:45 PM

Just as Newtonian Mechanics is essential to a proper Physics education, Darwinian Mechanics is essential to a proper Biology education.

If you are wondering about the applications of Evolutionary Biology, search Evolutionary Medicine, or more specifically Randolph Nesse M.D. I recommend his book Why We Get Sick, coauthored with George C. Williams.

As for these politicians that wish to take Evolution out of schools or put in Creationism alongside it as a credible science, they will never, ever get my vote.

8/23/2011 1:03:19 PM

the only thing you should be voting with this election cycle is your wallet.

8/23/2011 1:07:48 PM

^which is the only thing people vote on in any election.


Economy good = incumbent gets reelected.

8/23/2011 8:51:21 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/attention-governor-perry-evolution-is-a-fact/2011/08/23/gIQAuIFUYJ_blog.html

Quote :

"Attention Governor Perry: Evolution is a fact Q. Texas governor and GOP candidate Rick Perry, at a campaign event this week, told a boy that evolution is ”just a theory” with “gaps” and that in Texas they teach “both creationism and evolution.” Perry later added “God is how we got here.” According to a 2009 Gallup study , only 38 percent of Americans say they believe in evolution. If a majority of Americans are skeptical or unsure about evolution, should schools teach it as a mere “theory”? Why is evolution so threatening to religion? A. There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office. What is unusual about today’s Republican party (I disavow the ridiculous ‘GOP’ nickname, because the party of Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt has lately forfeited all claim to be considered ‘grand’) is this: In any other party and in any other country, an individual may occasionally rise to the top in spite of being an uneducated ignoramus. In today’s Republican Party ‘in spite of’ is not the phrase we need. Ignorance and lack of education are positive qualifications, bordering on obligatory. Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters, who, when choosing a president, would apparently prefer someone like themselves over someone actually qualified for the job. Any other organization -- a big corporation, say, or a university, or a learned society - -when seeking a new leader, will go to immense trouble over the choice. The CVs of candidates and their portfolios of relevant experience are meticulously scrutinized, their publications are read by a learned committee, references are taken up and scrupulously discussed, the candidates are subjected to rigorous interviews and vetting procedures. Mistakes are still made, but not through lack of serious effort. The population of the United States is more than 300 million and it includes some of the best and brightest that the human species has to offer, probably more so than any other country in the world. There is surely something wrong with a system for choosing a leader when, given a pool of such talent and a process that occupies more than a year and consumes billions of dollars, what rises to the top of the heap is George W Bush. Or when the likes of Rick Perry or Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin can be mentioned as even remote possibilities. A politician’s attitude to evolution is perhaps not directly important in itself. It can have unfortunate consequences on education and science policy but, compared to Perry’s and the Tea Party’s pronouncements on other topics such as economics, taxation, history and sexual politics, their ignorance of evolutionary science might be overlooked. Except that a politician’s attitude to evolution, however peripheral it might seem, is a surprisingly apposite litmus test of more general inadequacy. This is because unlike, say, string theory where scientific opinion is genuinely divided, there is about the fact of evolution no doubt at all. Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Evolution is not some recondite backwater of science, ignorance of which would be pardonable. It is the stunningly simple but elegant explanation of our very existence and the existence of every living creature on the planet. Thanks to Darwin, we now understand why we are here and why we are the way we are. You cannot be ignorant of evolution and be a cultivated and adequate citizen of today. Darwin’s idea is arguably the most powerful ever to occur to a human mind. The power of a scientific theory may be measured as a ratio: the number of facts that it explains divided by the number of assumptions it needs to postulate in order to do the explaining. A theory that assumes most of what it is trying to explain is a bad theory. That is why the creationist or ‘intelligent design’ theory is such a rotten theory. What any theory of life needs to explain is functional complexity. Complexity can be measured as statistical improbability, and living things are statistically improbable in a very particular direction: the direction of functional efficiency. The body of a bird is not just a prodigiously complicated machine, with its trillions of cells - each one in itself a marvel of miniaturized complexity - all conspiring together to make muscle or bone, kidney or brain. Its interlocking parts also conspire to make it good for something - in the case of most birds, good for flying. An aero-engineer is struck dumb with admiration for the bird as flying machine: its feathered flight-surfaces and ailerons sensitively adjusted in real time by the on-board computer which is the brain; the breast muscles, which are the engines, the ligaments, tendons and lightweight bony struts all exactly suited to the task. And the whole machine is immensely improbable in the sense that, if you randomly shook up the parts over and over again, never in a million years would they fall into the right shape to fly like a swallow, soar like a vulture, or ride the oceanic up-draughts like a wandering albatross. Any theory of life has to explain how the laws of physics can give rise to a complex flying machine like a bird or a bat or a pterosaur, a complex swimming machine like a tarpon or a dolphin, a complex burrowing machine like a mole, a complex climbing machine like a monkey, or a complex thinking machine like a person. Darwin explained all of this with one brilliantly simple idea - natural selection, driving gradual evolution over immensities of geological time. His is a good theory because of the huge ratio of what it explains (all the complexity of life) divided by what it needs to assume (simply the nonrandom survival of hereditary information through many generations). The rival theory to explain the functional complexity of life - creationism - is about as bad a theory as has ever been proposed. What it postulates (an intelligent designer) is even more complex, even more statistically improbable than what it explains. In fact it is such a bad theory it doesn’t deserve to be called a theory at all, and it certainly doesn’t deserve to be taught alongside evolution in science classes. The simplicity of Darwin’s idea, then, is a virtue for three reasons. First, and most important, it is the signature of its immense power as a theory, when compared with the mass of disparate facts that it explains - everything about life including our own existence. Second, it makes it easy for children to understand (in addition to the obvious virtue of being true!), which means that it could be taught in the early years of school. And finally, it makes it extremely beautiful, one of the most beautiful ideas anyone ever had as well as arguably the most powerful. To die in ignorance of its elegance, and power to explain our own existence, is a tragic loss, comparable to dying without ever having experienced great music, great literature, or a beautiful sunset. There are many reasons to vote against Rick Perry. His fatuous stance on the teaching of evolution in schools is perhaps not the first reason that springs to mind. But maybe it is the most telling litmus test of the other reasons, and it seems to apply not just to him but, lamentably, to all the likely contenders for the Republican nomination. The ‘evolution question’ deserves a prominent place in the list of questions put to candidates in interviews and public debates during the course of the coming election. Richard Dawkins wrote this response to Governor Perry for On Faith, the Washington Post’s forum for news and opinion on religion and politics. "

8/24/2011 4:40:57 PM

yep. The GOP has been collectively racing to the bottom for almost as long as I have been of voting age...

and I'm a couple months from turning 32.


Who are you thinking about voting for in the primaries and general election, Bobby? I think we're pretty like minded.

8/24/2011 5:14:24 PM

Honestly, I haven't seen any candidate that I can get excited about.

However, other than Romney, Perry, Bachmann, and Paul, I don't know who else might be a realistic candidate.

I've liked a lot of what I've heard about/from Jon Huntsman, but I'm not sure he'll last long enough to be on a ballot.

8/24/2011 10:20:06 PM

Huntsman is the only one of the GOP bunch of nominees I would consider voting for. He's a reasonable fellow that actually values logic and science. I also live in Utah now, and despite popular belief, this state has it's shit together. He'll never win the nod though because A. he values logic and science which is a no no with the GOP and B. he's a Mormon, and American's think Mormons are fucking weird (and let me tell you, they are really fucking weird ).

8/25/2011 12:27:25 PM

Huntsman is so tragic because he's the only kind of Republican that can possibly survive in the future and he's pretty much hated by 95% of the existing GOP.

8/25/2011 12:39:47 PM

Yeah, I don't know a ton about Huntsman, but what I've seen so far seems OK. I'm pretty sure I could vote for him.

It's sad that he stands out simply for being "normal" (aside from being a Mormon). Not GOP-normal...I mean, like, not totally ridiculous and/or fucking stupid.

8/25/2011 1:05:54 PM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/25/rick-perry-texas-life-insurance-scheme_n_935666.html


Rick Perry Sought State Profits From Teacher Life Insurance Scheme

Quote :

"According to the notes, which were authenticated by a meeting participant, the Perry administration wanted to help Wall Street investors gamble on how long retired Texas teachers would live. Perry was promising the state big money in exchange for helping Swiss banking giant UBS set up a business of teacher death speculation. All they had to do was convince retirees to let UBS buy life insurance policies on them. When the retirees died, those policies would pay out benefits to Wall Street speculators, and the state, supposedly, would get paid for arranging the bets. The families of the deceased former teachers would get nothing. The meeting notes offer the most direct evidence that the Perry administration was not only intimately involved with the insurance scheme, but a leading driver of the plan. It was a back-room deal at odds with Perry's public persona as a career politician who had successfully sold Texans on his vision of minimal government intrusion. And it still is. Nearly eight years after the meeting, when Perry formally announced his run for the presidency in Charleston, S.C., he honed that vision into the perfect applause line: "I'll promise you this," he had said in his West Texas drawl. "I'll work every day to try to make Washington, D.C. as inconsequential in your life as I can." Death in Texas, on the other hand, is another matter. That first meeting with teacher groups and retirement plan officials in November 2003, recalled one attendee, was an effort by Perry's office to solicit support for the life insurance idea from teacher associations. There was little question who was promoting the plan. "His office was pushing it," the source said. "It was like, 'We've got to do whatever we can. ... Here's an innovative idea. We really want you on board.'" The governor's office was even prepared to put down a little cash up front. If retirees balked at the notion of the state profiting from their deaths, Perry's budget men suggested they could be persuaded for the cost of a pair of shoes, according to the meeting notes. If a retiree signed a contract allowing the state's teacher pension fund to buy life insurance on them, the governor was prepared to give them between $50 and $100."

Quote :

"Gramm had made six-figure campaign contributions to Perry's campaign and had been -- and may still be -- one of Perry's most trusted political allies and personal mentors. "Perry worships at [Gramm's] feet, intellectually," said one semi-retired political consultant in Austin. "He considers Gramm an economic genius." After lending political aid to Perry, Gramm was poised to make a fortune from the life insurance deal. His role in the scheme had the appearance of banal corruption and cronyism. Although Gramm wasn't in on the first meeting with teacher groups, he played an active role in subsequent efforts to push the scheme. "

Something wicked this way comes.

8/25/2011 1:50:04 PM

I for one am glad that the thinking behind a CDS has made its way to betting on human lives.

8/25/2011 6:18:51 PM

It occurred to me the other day part of why I stubbornly refuse to vote for crappy candidates, in addition to my...resolute personality and the fact that just about everything on the menu is terrible..

I don't really feel like I have any skin in the game, so it's pretty much an academic exercise. I don't mean that my one lonely vote is practically infinitesimally small and useless against the hordes of idiot masses. Although that's true, that wouldn't stop me for a second from voting.

What I mean is that I'm a middle class white heterosexual male. I make enough money that I won't get any Democrat handouts to buy my vote, but not enough that anyone is likely to raise taxes on me anytime soon. I don't even have any foreseeable plans to marry a chick, much less a dude. Nobody is gonna hook me up with any affirmative action or hate crime legislation. I have strong opinions about the issues, but they either (a) don't directly affect me, or (b) aren't going to be materially changed no matter which party is in power, so I have what is, in a sense, the luxury of making my choice of candidate a purely academic exercise. I don't really feel like I will benefit or suffer in any significant way due to who gets elected...

...and when it's a purely academic exercise, I don't have much trouble with saying either "fuck it" or "no confidence" when I don't like any of them.

8/25/2011 9:17:44 PM

I know you and I have pretty different beliefs and positions, but I pretty much feel the exact same way.

8/25/2011 10:36:57 PM

this is absolutely hilarious:

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/08/perry-has-double-support-tea-party-bachmann/41790/

8/26/2011 6:18:02 PM

Quote :

"the hordes of idiot masses."

Pride before the fall.

8/26/2011 6:35:10 PM

Come on, like I'm not smarter and better informed than the Wal-Mart and lottery ticket crowd. That's not me being cocky...that's stating the fucking obvious.

8/26/2011 11:10:25 PM

HUBRIS!!!

8/26/2011 11:48:28 PM