A lot of semantics and some frankly pretty poorly grasped Physics. I think we should stick to the falsifiable; unfalsifiable theories will never, ever bear fruit. They can't.

After publicly stating that he would not accept the presidency if he lost the popular vote in 2000, Bush literally walked away mid-press conference from reporters asking what he meant by that. -- EMStoveken

Do you have a source for Bush publicly stating that he wouldn't accept the presidency if he lost the popular vote? I would be very interested in seeing that.

I've Lost Count....

How many times have we killed al-Qaida's number 2 leader?

The Daily Show did a great bit where they showed Al Qaeda's org-chart as follows: 1: Osama Bin Laden, 2: Everybody else!

When bloggers say "we" are going to take back the Democratic party, by "we" they usually mean We, the People, not just the bloggers. And when Joe Biden said "they" don't own the Democratic party, he might as well have meant the People, too.

But the truth is that We, the People, [i]do[/i] own the party, and We, the People, should not forget that, nor be so quick to forgive our politicians who trespass against us and our will. Biden has sold out the People too many times, in my opinion, for me to trust him as President.

But hey - I guess we're the bad guys here.

Ah, here we have a textbook example of the Manichean thinking Glenn Greenwald has been decrying. Somehow, according to RealName right here, the fact that people in Iran are doing horrible things makes us the good guys - even when we haul innocent civilians off the street and hold and torture them indefinitely.

Sorry RealName, but the RealWorld doesn't work that way.

But I do think there's something to the notion that California home-buyers are the most idiotically optimistic group of people in the known-Universe.

Take a look at a copy of The Secret (or The Celestine Prophecy or Illusions or even The Little Engine Who Could). Optimism is literally a religion out here.

Not only do we suck harder than anyone, but when we have an earthquake in California and 40,000 people don't get killed that's just more evidence of The Man plotting something somewhere to keep you down.

Wow. He doesn't get it. He doesn't get it at all. It's like, what was written was too complex for him to comprehend. This RealName person is totally trapped in a mindset wherein only two possibilities exist: (1) U.S. good & Iran Bad versus (2) U.S. Bad & Iran Good. Anything that doesn't fit that model is treated as not existing - he doesn't even address the argument! It's like he just plain cannot wrap his head around the concept.

The Black and White mindset, demonstrated by RealName yet again, even after the inherent fallacy has been explicitly pointed out several times.

It's a pity that the results of such simplistic thoughts so frequently turn out disastrous.

I think what the White House has to rely on is the loyalty of former employees.

...A loyalty secured on the understanding that any obstruction of justice they commit will not result in them going to jail.

How can a court possibly require someone to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, while simultaneously requiring them not to use basic relevant terminology?

Why are they comparing 2005 to 1991? They're basically lumping the Clinton years in with the Bush years. I can't help wondering if someone went desperately searching for a year to compare to that makes things look better.

As is by now well known, men and women commit DV equally...

"Equally"? Don't be ridiculous. You can't equate throwing papers with murder.

I don't. -- Robert Franklin

It's ridiculous for you to claim that in response to me quoting you saying exactly that: "commit DV equally". Now, you could have made that true by qualifying it, but you didn't, so therefore it is a misrepresentation. Ironically, you did that in the direct context of criticizing somebody for misrepresenting the facts. Pure, blatant hypocrisy.

The statement that men and women hit one another in roughly equal numbers is true, however, it cannot be made in a vacuum without the qualifiers that a) women are seriously injured at seven times the rate of men and b) that women are killed by partners at more than two times the rate of men. -- Dr. Richard J. Gelles

there is A LOT to be said for retaining our sovereignty...

Do you think that Italy should be able to keep other country's pasta out of Italy to help keep the Italian Pasta industry protected?

This cracked me up. So, basically you're for American sovereignty but against Italian sovereignty?

...I think Italy should have been able to protect its pasta.

Just poorly written, then. Carry on...

...this particular piece is rotten and strikes a needlessly defensive and dismissive posture under a thin guise of contriteness.

What? No, it doesn't fit that description at all. I think you're just seeing your own biases. You're imagining an undercurrent which isn't really there and then thinking that it overshadows what was actually said.

Well, I think it's pretty obvious that people who already have self-esteem issues are much more likely to get cosmetic surgery in the first place. Then, the surgery is really not all that likely to fix the underlying insecurity - to which I guess we can file this study as evidence.

I don't like the tone people are taking that breast enhancement actually causes suicide, though; I don't think that's likely at all. These aren't controlled studies so causality cannot be pinned down, only guessed at.

You would think the popularity of _American Gods_ (much more adaptable to film than Gaiman's masterwork, _Sandman_) would have spawned a movie.

Gaiman said (at Comic-Con) that neither he nor anybody who's talked to him about it has been able to make a good screenplay out of American Gods.