tvashtarkatena

When was the last time you got laid, dood?

You win, j_b. (the only way to shut this fucking kook up).

SENTENCE FRAGMENT ALERT! Please take either an English class or a sedative. TIA.

Pro-government thugs have faded back today. Anti-government demonstrators have not. Pro-government thugs might leave their police and government ID cards (confiscated by anti-government protesters) at home next time if they want to continue to claim a lack of affiliation with the Mubarak regime.

Yup, a majority of soldiers self identify as Christians of some sort - same as the citizenry in general. A majority of Christians do not, however, self identify as soldiers. You'd do well to slow down your reading a bit...or just calm down in general. @Kimmo: No additional testament to your mental condition is required

Reading Comprehension Alert!

Well, since fewer than 20% of the country describe themselves as secular, it's a foregone conclusion that any movement does well to include believers. Kind of like stating that atmospheric oxygen is a good thing.

At my age, 'virgins' are something you avoid. Back to military spending: 1962: $2500 per capita 2010: $4000 per capita Inflation adjusted dollars. Jeff Davis is rolling in his grave!

He'd probably high five Obama over the size of today's military budget.

Can anyone splain to me why Virginia was Old even when it was brand new?

I prefer to keep things secular, undramatic, and middle class. Dreams of a Sword Wielding Christ on a Big White Horse or Writhing Heavenly Virgins make me want seek out a little mountain lake for some Cutthroat.

You must find it equally hard to believe that anyone claiming to be a Christian is a soldier...but that is in fact, the norm. People violate their religious tenets all the time for a lot of reasons. Adhering to them under all circumstances is fantastically rare.

Certain movements are better at aggregating sociopaths than others. The White Supremacy movement clearly takes the lead, but the Tea Bagger and Evangelical movements seem to have a fair number of darlings in that category, as well. Other than out and out lunatics, these 'deliverance and salvation' movements invariably attract the severely damaged. Behind every born again is a sob story.

Like any old, popular philosophy or religion, Buddhism has evolved into many, many forms. Box it into a one size fits all and ignore its dynamic and ongoing evolution if that's easier for you...hey, works for most folks.

Historically, the Cryptofascists have been defeated time and time again: They lost on slavery, women's rights, minority rights, blocking public education, prayer in schools, and teaching evolution. Now they're gradually but steadily losing on gay rights and the drug war. Still, they've managed to dumb down science education to the point of uselessness in some areas, most notably the South, of course. They did manage to insinuate themselves into the pledge and our currency, with little effect other than to insult those of us who have our own beliefs, but we'll live. The real threat nowadays is to women over abortion (just the beginning, girls!) and to public education and public funding. School vouchers and faith based funding violates the establishment clause, thus threatening the freedom of everyone's beliefs. The tolerance for illegal evangelism in the military is also a dangerous problem. We've beaten the Christian Right back into its medieval corner in defense of our hard-won secular democracy many times in the past, but we'll need to keep their repressive cult beliefs out of our secular government for the duration. They're not going away...ever. In the end, they'll lose on women, gays, and the drug war. The majority of the public, once it understands the true nature of the Christian Right agenda, finds that agenda an abhorrent antithesis of our most closely held secular principles - the Bill of Rights. Understandably so: the Christian Right openly disregards the Bill of Rights for 'God's Law'. Historically, Americans have chosen the Bill of Rights over Christian Sharia. One final battle, started during confederation, still being waged today, remains: economic equality/concentration of wealth. The Christian Right is solidly on the side of asset stripping wealth concentrators, but the battle involves virtually everyone. Its outcome remains to be seen, if in fact it ever comes to end at all.

Startup Lesson Number One: Innernut forums do not make for a good advertising strategy.

The Thomas example might have been more compelling if, by all credible accounts, the man hadn't actually been fantastically guilty of sexual harassment. Black or not, what a fucking creep. Anita Hill was the victim of a typical Right wing smear campaign, but in reality, she's an incredibly brave person who stood up to power in defense of women everywhere. But of course, she was 'begging for it', right? Just like the proposed re-definition of rape to exclude date rape, indeed, any rape not involving proof of injury to the victim (Yup, you read that right, er, Right). It's the same old story: disrespect for, denigration of, and repression of women. After all, in the Bible, women are DIRTY SIRENS OF SIN. The creep show continues...thanks PP for keeping the bar nice and low.

Who was it that preferred to quench his newly minted swords in the bellies of Nubian slaves?

Ron, his son, just came out with a memoir. He describes his father as an unflappable, affable , unknowable man who was ever skipping through his own Happy La La Land somewhere in his own mind. Unshakably optimistic, eternally out of touch.

The way to reform and the way forward, regardless of country or religion, is secular democracy.

The Tamil movement was primarily secular and political in nature. What drives the need to color every human endeavor with a religious palette is beyond me.

i whole-heartedly, unequivocally and completely disagree with the above assertion regarding kamikaze being buddhist. their actions (and probably lives) had nothing NOTHING to do with buddhism. i'd also wager that most "christians" have very little in common with the teachings of jesus. and a guess: islam doesn't teach peeps to blow up civilians and their structures. Buddhism was imported to Japan from China as a technique to improve sword fighting. It eventually evolved in the Zen, which employs a variety of art forms today - that still includes sword fighting. Still, discussing what religions kamakazes subscribed fairly constitutes a new level of idiocy, even for this forum. That's like discussing the religious breakdown of those involved DD Day. It was war, people followed orders, hero mystique was manufactured to help them do so, and religion simply didn't figure very largely into the scheme of things.

Regardless of what one believes about any religion, religion is here to stay - as a species, we're apparently genetically predisposed to believe in The Kitty - no small irony there. Secular democracies that determine their own future, not an inter-religious or inter-cultural war, are the solution to the problem.

The USA is rapidly headed for Just Another Nation status where we no longer call the shots, so events like this one, where a previously owned people gets loose from its cement tire, tend to freak out the head-in-sanders on the Right. Their entire universe is based on an assumption of authoritarian control. Nature, human and otherwise, occasionally begs to differ.

Yes, that IS the problem. There is nothing an asset stripping wealth concentrator hates worse than people doing their own thing.