The Hall of Fire

The war in Iraq was won a long time ago. What army is there left to fight? What city needs to be taken? It's the peace that's proving difficult.

Don't you all see, it is Republicans who improve the economy. It's just that as soon as they do it, those ungrateful voters throw them out and elect a feel-good handouts-for-all Democrat instead, who takes all the credit for the surplus while spending it away, thus requiring another Republican admin...

Cerin, Nader has apparently predited that Obama will choose Clinton: Nader predicts Hillary Clinton as Obama's VP I've heard some guru or other confidently assert that he's settled on just about every possible candidate. It's gone beyond annoying into ridiculous. I'd think it was a smokescreen if I...

People feel that NATO needs to do something about it, and the US is a leading member of NATO.

And the world policeman mentality is still out there (anachronistically).

Well, it may be a total coincidence, but the "theme" of the third day of the Democractic Party convention (the day when the VP candidate will speak), is "Securing America's Future," which also happens to be the name of Gen. Clark's political action committee. I wasn't aware of t...

On the other hand, if his campaign continues to preface his press releases with "McCain, a former prisoner of war" when that fact has no bearing whatsoever on the matter at hand, the whole thing will become laughable (it already is laughable IMO, but it would seem that not enough people ar...

The choice of the phrase "cone of silence" was almost certainly meant to be humorous. However, I find it extremely hard to believe he didn't really intend to convey that McCain would not hear Obama's questions.

These earlier generations also held that it was shameful to be another man's employee. Yet when it was pointed out to you that Wal-Mart and its ilk were driving independent owners out of business, you said it was time to leave the buggy-whip behind. What gives?

And I was prompted to look "victuals" up to see if it could also refer to drink, and after all these years discovered that the word is pronounced "vittles" rather than "vik-chyu-uls". Good thing I've never said it aloud.

And then I had to go edit it and put in a second sentence.

Gotta be careful with the correlation/causation thing, though. Homeschooled children by definition have parents who are interested and involved in their lives, which is probably the more important factor. They also have teacher/student ratios of approximately 1 .

What I said is quite different than what you said I said. ;) Saying that the public schools teach according to a secular humanist worldview is different than saying, "Public schools exist to spread the secular humanist worldview." Public schools exist to teach children. That they do so th...

I did not say that the "public schools exist in order to spread the secular humanist worldview." Please don't put words in my mouth. :suspicious: Well; you did say that public schools teach according to a secular humanist worldview, unless I misunderstood what you meant, or you were refer...

The issue isn't whether the institution "likes" the curricula or what perspective it is taught from; it's whether the information presented is backed by evidence and supported by professionals in the field. To requote your article: Professor Kennedy reiterated Professor Sawrey's initial co...

The Christian Right certainly want (unacceptably) to impose certain religiously-based prohibitions on all of us, but that's rather a different thing from destroying and eliminating American civilization, don't you think? On the contrary, I'd argue that many elements of the radical Christian Right h...

Well; the Russian military has surely had a variety of plans for operations in Georgia on the books for years and years, and has probably been ready to move forward with any one of those plans at a moment's notice for as long as it's been mobilized along the border. The thing I wonder about is wheth...

Let me elaborate: If the point of this thread was to say "Look how much worse life is in Bangladesh. Clearly liberal democracy is a better choice than radical Islamic theocracy", then I agree wholeheartedly, and the Knoxville shooter becomes supporting evidence since he was a lone operativ...

There's nothing magical about governments or laws; state actions are nothing more than aggregations of individual actions, and illegal is whatever the people in charge say it is. The best you can say is that the deranged nutbars have more power over there than they do here. Whether that's relevant o...

How many middle-aged+ US politicians do you all all suppose haven't had affairs at some point? I'd wager the fraction is pretty low. From the party's point of view, his real crime is not covering it up well enough.

Doesn't he have a whole song about dealing with crime using a long fall and a short rope (and which blames non-Christians for said crime)? Answer: Yes; here you go. Seems to be the exact song you were talking about. I ain't nothin' but a simple man They call me a redneck I reckon that I am But there...