I think Wolpert has more insight into the essential value of belief than Dawkins: it gives pleasure. To say that one should give up belief, and therefore the pleasure, because 'there is no point to it,' is a wee bit puritanical. You could make the same argument against non-procreative sex or eating a cherry tart after a filling meal. As long as people get pleasure from belief in the supernatural (god, thor, unicorns), it will happen. You can't wish it away through logic any more than you can get teens to stop having sex or me to stop eating cheese. You can try to practice safe sex, and eat more healthy foods, and believe in fantasies that don't hurt anyone (or force your fantasies on others). Evolution seems to have provided humans with particular desires that used to be important for survival, but just because those desires are no longer always working in our favor doesn't mean they should be denied all together.

Thanks for adding an equation I missed: God = truth. This one works well because then you just have to prove that truth exists, and, presto-chango, there's your proof of God's existence.

Good point. Many of those who attack atheisists insist that they (the atheists) have an incorrect understanding of what god is. However, they rarely (at least on this thread) make an effort to correct that 'misunderstanding.' God remains a shifting metaphor for whatever believers want. He is goodness. He is the embodiment of hope. He is that-which-cannot-be-understood. He is that-which-is-better-than-ourselves. He is X. So, no, his existence cannot be disproven, any more than you can disprove the assertion that love is a rose.

As someone has pointed out, at this point these are simply indicators of name recognition. That being said, they seem to indicate strength for Obama. With his low name-recognition, he still beats Clinton on all the possible matchups. He would do much better if people knew who he was. Clinton is not doing well in the matchups, and has nowhere to go but down.

The clear and typically overlooked point for me was that neocon foreign policy, despite everything they tell us, is BAD FOR ISRAEL. Most Israeis know this, though most US neocons ignore them. As Glenn says, when someone says something like "the war in Lebanon is wrong," they have been labeled an anti-semite. I'm beginning to think that the goal for neocons has always been permanent war in the middle east, under the fig leaf of being "Pro-Israel." Permanent war means continued sky-rocketing defense spending, support for Likkud, demonizing of Arabs, etc. Peace for Israel is not in the interests of the desired neocon world order.

The Party of Accountability and Consequences (the GOP) has always been clear on this point: they mean for other people, not themselves. Never resign, never accept responsibility for mistakes, never investigate corruption (but fire those who do...).

Can't you add a big caption to the Giuliani photo saying "boogie, boogie, boogie"?

Yesterday on NPR (ATC), in the story about the Senate passing the funding bill, they first report the bare-bones story, then have on *minority* leader Mitch McConell to drivel on about how horrible it was. This is the liberal media. The news story becomes "democrats are surrender monkeys" rather than "Democrats act to bring about end of war." The 64% want the congress to end the war, but not be surrender monkeys - who would want that!? So, despite the reality that mainstream American wants the war ended this year, they will be spun away from that desire by Republicans and the MSM.

My own manly experience is that most men see most women around them at some point as potential sexual objects (would do her, her, her, not her, her...). Gay men do the same thing with men. At least in the modern west, it's part of male sexuality. We are unable to conceive of how absolutely terrifying this might be to women, because we like to think we would not be terrified if the situation were reversed (most women seeing most men as sexually desirable objects). Men like to think they would love to have women see them as sexual objects, so they (we) don't understand why it freaks women out so much. It would take a lot to get most men to see how unpleasant and ultimately frightening it would be to constantly feel under the lecherous gaze of others to whom you aren't remotely attracted to. It's very difficult for men to understand the daily fear of unwanted sexual overtures (at best), and rape (at worst).

I can only say I wish that all my bosses were like Bush. As long as I remained the good and honorable person that I am (really!), and didn't commit a felony, I could keep my job! I'm tired of actually having to 'work' and have that 'work' judged for 'competence.' Isn't it good enough that I'm a nice person?

I keep hearing that because of Amendment 2, we can't do anything about guns. Arguments have already been put forward here about the ambiguity of that amendment, to which I would add that today's weapons could not be imagined by the musket-toting framers. But compare 'gun rights' to how we treat free-speech. Though it is a constitutionally guaranteed right, we have volumes of law regulating speech, from the classic "Fire!" in a theater to mail fraud, product labeling rules, copyright law, libel, slander, FCC censorship, hate speech, etc. As a society, why are we more willing to regulate speech than guns?

"I mean, it's frustrating when something like that's happened. And we all get frustrated." Yeeees. We ALL get upset when our parliament gets bombed. It's frustrating at first, but we ALL eventaully grow up and get used to it. They shouldn't be such babies about it.