In order for it to be funny it has to incorporate some element of reality in the joke, somewhere. That was all fiction. And therefor Lame.

Yeah, I guess even with the facts out there that Osama was CIA, and the existence of plastic surgery, as well as tons of other really possible things...there's NO way they'd use such a good agent as the one who played Osama, to also come play Obama the Muslim, freedom hating president. Not saying I think Obama is Osama, just saying it's possible...there's nothing about it to make it "impossible".

Ah, so the humor was about the marine, not the president, or the first lady, or Rep. Pelosi.  Thanks for clearing that up.. . Sadly, but not unexpectedly way over my head... 

So where is the making fun of the president?

You know, that sound just like the way liberals used to trash Laura Bush and Condi Rice, calling them (har har!) pigs....   Oh, wait....it's not.

Palestinian children are assaulted or murdered every day and barely do their lives register in western press:  Three Israeli Settlers And The The Searing Hypocrisy of the West By Susan Abulhawa
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article38965.htm

'Somebody' killed 3 Israeli teenagers and Israel turns around and destroys homes arbitrarily, arrests hundreds arbitrarily, disrupts life for thousands and starts bombing Gaza arbitrarily. I call this the actions of a government acting as a terrorist state. 

Another sick action by the Zionist right wing government of Israel! It's terrible what happened to those kids, but you don't turn around and start destroying and killing hundreds of people before you even know what happened. For all we know some whacko settlers could have done this for the express purpose of instigating the IDF and Bibi to ,launch another round of destruction, murder and mayhem.

Israel is an insane terrorist state that doesn't respect any international law. FACT!  And we cover for them?

Like the owners of Hobby Lobby examine everything that any company their fund makes an investment in does. But to people like you, it makes sense. Actually if he bothered to check on FACTS, not his political agenda, he would be even more pathetic.

Somehow I grew up knowing that a free press is what keeps us free. Some obvious exceptions, not publishing names that might put people in danger. (Valerie Plame for example) But reporters need to be out there searching for all those little secrets we would never know on our own. If they are discouraged, how does the country change? I don't want to find out.

Fluoride is a major cause of low thyroid gland function It is a chemically closely related halide to Iodine. The receptors of the thyroid are blocked from Iodine by both bromide and fluoride.

Somehow I grew up knowing that a free press is what keeps us free.
Some obvious exceptions, not publishing names that might put people in danger. (Valerie Plame for example) But reporters need to be out there searching for all those little secrets we would never know on our own. If they are discouraged, how does the country change? I don't want to find out.

Every once in a while I'd like to see one of the vids people post on here. Sadly, however, it is just the reality that if I upgrade to highspeed, you guys would be deprived of my presence, and I'd do nothing but play blitz chess. Four hours can go by in ten minutes.

You just can't imagine the sacrifice I'm making to dispense my wisdom here.

...good for your daughter and her dislike of the 'Twilight' series.   Never could understand the fascination with that series of books.

My atheism is as simple and direct as the childhood religiosity that I finally, and completely, abandoned in early adulthood. I can't remember an anti-road to-Damascus moment, but I do know it happened way back then because I was trying to romance an extremely comely and intelligent (and Jesus-committed) C.S. Lewis fan. (If you've never read that guy, do yourself a favor and do so; for an easy entrance, I recommend Surprised by Joy). The eventual romance was short but sweet, and its conclusion had nothing to do with theodetic issues (nevermind evil -- she wasn't a fan of baseball, or the blues, or stupid comedy . . . I mean, c'mon). But that's when it happened.

Anyway, because I have never once observed even a scintilla of evidence for the existence of anything but that which physically exists, I am, as I have already said, a pretty simple atheist. I also have no problem with becoming worm poop, the prospect of which has never once made me feel hopeless. I remember that back when I felt persuaded to consider the possibility of the existence of a higher power, whether it was the Holy Trinity of my childhood or the Guiding Oneness -- whatever that means -- of my agnostic stage, I didn't feel any day-to-day difference from how I feel now. I was still quite displeased, for example, about the party continuing without me. I still am -- I mean, who wants to miss a good party? Envious? Yup. Angry? A little (less so as I age, because, well -- life). But no more "hopeless" now than then.

I do hope, though, that when the moment of my extinction (my disappearance) comes, it will be in circumstances that allow me to shout: "I was alive! What a lucky, fantastic coincidence it has been!" Like everyone else, I will have no control over those circumstances, but . . . a guy's gotta hope for  somethin', right? Me, continuing forever? A nice idea (at least from my vantage point), but hardly a necessary one. I'll disappear one day, or one night, but I'm a big boy and I can take it.

Of course we all want "constitutional" government. Some of us just aren't stupid enough to think that our reading of the Constitution is the only one that matters.

All of us want to cut out "wasteful" spending or "failed programs". The sticking point is what is wasteful and what is failed.

All of us want a "strong" defense but all of us all want not to "overspend" on the military. We never actually bother to define the terms.

We all want "limited" government--limited to exactly what we think it should and shouldn't do.

The problem with the Teabaggers is that they assume they are presenting a viewpoint that hasn't been presented before, but in fact, their goals are the same as all Americans' goals. The idea that presenting those goals as a "platform" is politically meaningful is moronic because the concepts are common to all Americans, with the execution being the sticking points.

And the execution the Teabaggers offer is, as we know, pretty moronic. Americans want limited government, yes, but they don't define "limited" as "allowing the corporations to poison our water supply."

So, no, the Teabaggers offer no third party alternative, nor do their moronic acolytes on this board, because they're not offering anything that other Americans don't already believe their OWN philosophy does. Of course Democrats believe t hat they're operating within Constitutional bounds. Of course Republicans believe they're not wasting money when we spend more on defense than the rest of the the world combined.

The answer to the abuse of government officials--not "gummint" because "gummint" isn't a single entity--but the problem of government officials abusing their power is to remove them, not the power.

Each and everyone of you  has the power through your vote to control those who govern you. YOU choose to exercise that power poorly. THen you blame "gummint" for the people YOU choose to put into office.

Take a look at your Senators and Reps. All of us on these boards vote, when's the last time you voted third party? I always do, I expect there are also others. But still your reps keep on getting elected. Well, the people get the government they deserve, and if all they deserve is kleptocracy, then that's what they'll get. Southerners who vote against a Senator who lost a leg in the service of his country because they're persuaded by a commercial of him in a turban put out by his opponent, lol, these people get exactly what they deserve.

DON'T blame it on gummint. Put the blame squarely where it belongs: people who don't do their duty as sovereign citizens to exercise their franchise with care and intelligence.

But the answer is not to say, "well, since some factories will bribe some congressmen to give them a pass, might as well just let ALL companies dump their cancer causing chemicals into the Love Canal."

When these hypocritical idiots start acting like there is a problem, then I will listen to them, until then, its all about how much money they can make and how much money they can screw people out of:

Greenpeace executive flies 250 miles to work

And al gore flies his private jet all over the world to give speeches about global warming and the dangers of fossil fuel. Yep, follow the money, the trail leads to rich guys like this who are getting richer selling the fear and convincing people they can control the weather.

Well fiddle faddle...yet somehow the sea level continues to rise.  Water is coming from somewhere. I wonder how that happens?  Must be that underwater volcano in the Antarctic, that's probably something new.

Of course you are - but our subjective impressions of the tone of her message obviously differ then.  I see the religionist’s imaginative picture of the quality of the non-believer’s existence not as necessarily arrogant or condescending (though it can be), often more on order of empathetic wish for atheist's to be enriched similarly.  This mindset needn’t imply the religionist looks to elevate themselves, demean others.  


And while the atheist might reject the possibility their lives would not be changed positively were they to ‘get religion’, there’s no way  they can  know that to a certainty.  Obviously through the contrast, they might see their former perspective as limited, and even bleak - countless testimonies exist to this effect.
More like leaping over slough of despond, which comprised your only view, onto a promontory from which can be seen heretofore unimagined vistas, colors, landforms, a perspective inconceiveable and unavailable until action taken. Or switching lenses to 3-D. This transformation would not have been possible had you stayed where you were.
Anyway, that sounds very like the extravagant, enthusiastic accounts of some religionists. ;-) Far be it from me to dispute the ecstasy that followed when you shed those painful chains. More to point, I wasn't making claim about process through which you renounced religion and god, or saying it was facile. I was observing you were young - and you can’t possibly know what a more fully informed faith might be like now, your world view having almost certainly considerably changed in subsequent years.

I didn't get disgust at all from zolace's thoughts towards non-believers, rather more the proposition they perhaps can't know what they're missing.  It's not a new thought - Kierkegaard, the Danish theologian/philosopher proposed that it was only through a 'leap of faith' that the religious perspective could be apprehended and known.  That is, without faith, humans are more or less stranded in their own limited universe, their every experience processed from that viewpoint.

On your spiritual evolution account - I'm wondering if the experience of a default faith (the childhood variety) meaningfully compares to that of adult who has reached (or sustained, enriched) theirs through contemplation, testing and trial from a more informed viewpoint.

Smug, arrogant, Dem a$$hole...fun to see that smug grin wiped off his face last night.  Wonder if he's willing to go to jail to protect Barack Hussein Obama?

Trey Gowdy’s Not Having It: IRS Head Gets Cute About ‘Lost’ Emails & Has the Grin Wiped Off His Face   

During a rare Monday night hearing, House Republicans hammered embattled IRS commissioner John Koskinen over the “lost” Lois Lerner emails and over his continued insistence that there was no criminal wrongdoing in their coincidental disappearance.

While, as to be expected, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) repeatedly challenged Koskinen, for instance, when he demanded that he cite a particular statute or statutes (law, viz.) on which to base his claim that no criminal wrongdoing occurred. When the commissioner replied, “you can rely on common sense,” Gowdy went off:

    “Common sense? Instead of a criminal code, you wanna rely on common sense? You can shake your head all you want to commissioner; you have said today that there’s no evidence of criminal wrongdoing and I’m asking you what criminal statutes you have reviewed to reach that conclusion?”


Koskinen finally conceded: “I have reviewed no criminal statutes.”

Ironically, the commissioner also insisted that outdated technology was to blame and that it would cost the IRS $10-30 million to update its systems.

In response, Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) reminded Koskinen that the IRS paid $89 million in bonuses last year, including $1 million to employees who owed back taxes. Not a good day for the defiant commissioner of the IRS.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/06/150307-trey-gowdy-republicans-absolutely-obliterate-irs-commissioner-lost-lerner-emails/