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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 82.6.90.22
Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 - 10:46 pm:   

My son and daughter and their respective partners bought me a Newtonian reflector telescope for my birthday. I was very touched by this as these things are not cheap and they’re not exactly millionaires.

Anyway, the sky finally cleared the week before last and I was able to rush outside and have a play. There was a half moon. I aimed and…

I can only say it was one of those utterly profound moments that happen every now and then. The telescope is so strong that I could only see a quarter of the lunar surface and the detail was astonishing. I had a vivid sense of how cold and bleak and unbelievably still that place is. I could see the shadows cast by mountains and cliff edges, I could see the streaks of dust thrown out by whatever hit the surface and formed its craters.

It was almost as if I could reach out and touch it.

As I said, it was immensely moving and profound.

Cheers
Terry
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 82.6.90.22
Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 - 10:48 pm:   

And yes, before anyone else says it, it is grey and cold with no atmosphere, just like Milton Keynes...
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.184.138.220
Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 - 11:45 pm:   

Excellent - some friends had a fair sized reflector some years back, and the view of the moon it gave was absolutely astonishing.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 12:06 am:   

But did you see a lunar rover? Or an American Flag? Or tracks from vehicles? Or anything like that? Did you? Did you, did you, did you? I bet you didn't, did you? Did you?

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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 12:26 am:   

Nope, but I bet he saw Wallace and Gromit up there having A Grand Day Out (actually, that joke might be lost on you, Craig, unless you're familiar with the Wallace and Gromit animations, but never mind - I thought it was funny anyway! )

Actually, Terry, that sounds brilliant - wish I lived near you as I'd want to come and play with your telescope.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:33 am:   

Oo-er missus!
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 02:36 pm:   

It extends to nine times its original length you know.

And it can point at the sky all night.

Note to self: grow up.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.179.204.198
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 04:11 pm:   

Note to self: grow up

Don't you dare, Joel!
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.116.60.173
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 04:16 pm:   

Don't look at the sun unless you have the proper filter attached.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 05:52 pm:   

If you do that you'll go blind.

You'll go blind if you don't put the filter on the telescope as well.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.83.220
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 07:05 pm:   

The final shuttle launch of Discovery was last night. Mankind is now officially earthbound again. The shuttle is to be hollowed out and converted into a Starbucks. What were these things once used for, we'll wonder, if curiosity itself hasn't been rendered irrelevant.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.179.204.198
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 07:46 pm:   

There are still a couple of flights by the others to go (Endeavour & Atlantis), but Discovery (the oldest of the shuttle craft) has launched for the last time.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 09:13 pm:   

I hear they're preparing another Moon launch - that in fact they've secured an area of New Mexico desert, and are shipping in gigantic foam boulders even as we speak....
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 92.4.164.23
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:00 pm:   

Craig, how can I put this...

They went to the moon they went to the moon they WENT TO THE MOON! If it turns out to be a hoax my heart will break.

I saw it, on the telly. 12 I was and I was recovering from measles and because it was shown on the BBC it had to real.

Okay, Tricky Dicky was president - but they went to the moon.

And yes, my telescope is big and powerful.

And no, don't you Joel or anyone else here ever grow up!

Chers
Tel
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Friday, February 25, 2011 - 10:10 pm:   

>>.. and because it was shown on the BBC it had to real.<<

Ah, but ... I remember seeing a programme on the BBC when I was a kid, a Panorama programme it was, all about farming/harvesting spaggetti (have I spelt that right? Having terrible brain fog tonight). I was quite fascinated. Problem is, I hadn't realised it was April Fool's Day ...

>>And yes, my telescope is big and powerful.<<

Oh, please say I can come and play with it if I'm ever in your neck of the woods.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 02:23 am:   

Here's just a simple-dimple question - surely someone can answer this:

How close can we get to staring at the moon? What's the closest possible? IS it possible to see minutely what's on the moon - forget our terrestrial telescopes, how about the big Hubble one out in space right now? Surely if it can see distant galaxies, it can focus very very very closely onto the Moon. It can pick out the left-there junk, the old flag, tracks, something... and put everyone everywhere to rest, shut them up, forever....

Don't someone respond saying, no one remembers where they landed. I mean it. Really. The moon can get quite bright when the sun's shining on it.

Why isn't someone making millions of dollars and getting famous overnight by finally FINDING the HUMAN REMAINS on the moon through his telescope, etc.? Can someone please answer me this?

Maybe these pics already exist somewhere - maybe I'm ignorant - I'd like to be illuminated....
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 04:04 am:   

Okay. Here's how the "best answer," chosen by Yahoo answers, starts out:

Your right... it would give us some clear proof that the moon landing was real, but unfortunately, its impossible to do with the current technology. And even if we did get the technology, why would the government waste the time proving something that obviously happened?

Um... okay. There's a logical point. "Why should the defense here today waste the State's time trying to defend its client, oh jury? I mean he obviously murdered that guy, right? The prosecution rests."

And misspelling "you're" and "it's" doesn't exactly endear me further to his exhortation, to either trust him or my no-matter-what-the-technology-it-won't-help-anyway lying eyes....
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.118.130
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 07:22 pm:   

Yahoo answers is where I get all my astrophysical references.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.118.130
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 07:24 pm:   

Here's one for Mars

http://mm04.nasaimages.org/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/Size3/NVA2-13-NA/24173/P IA06879-labelled.jpg&userid=1&username=admin&resolution=3&servertype=JVA&cid=13& iid=NVA2&vcid=NA&usergroup=NASA_Mars_Collecton-13-Admin&profileid=61

And the Moon
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/multimedia/lroimages/apollosites.html
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.118.130
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 07:26 pm:   

Of course it's much easier to fake a photograph than an entire $200bn Space Programme, so why would you believe in the former these when you don't believe in the latter?
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.118.130
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 07:27 pm:   

Ack, nix the word "these" above.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.118.130
Posted on Saturday, February 26, 2011 - 07:33 pm:   

Someone's really gone to town on this one:

http://www.rocketroberts.com/astro/flag_on_moon.htm
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.69
Posted on Sunday, February 27, 2011 - 12:01 am:   

Moon-landing deniers are my favourite conspiracy nutters. They want both a breeze to move the flag and for it to be a vacuum so the dust behaves as it does (without hanging in any air). Cake. Eating it.

Mankind's not Earth-bound. The West of Mankind is, but the East's going places.

The future's Chinese and Indian. The United States failed. Now it's their turn.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.69
Posted on Sunday, February 27, 2011 - 12:02 am:   

Oh, and let's not forget Virgin Galactic...

Unless it's the wrong kind of space.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Sunday, February 27, 2011 - 02:53 am:   

Actually, those photos are pretty much fully convincing, Proto - I just hadn't seen any! Thanks for that.

Now if only President Obama would produce his birth certificate, everything would be hunky-dory....

Moon conspiracy theories aren't really so crazy, Mark. We had a furious space race with the USSR, and Reagan basically lied through his ass about the "Star Wars" program - so why is landing on the Moon such a stretch?

People knee-jerk assume their governments lie to them - but only about some things, not others? I'm just saying....
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.68
Posted on Sunday, February 27, 2011 - 10:57 am:   

That's okay, Craig. It's just you'd've thunk the Russians might've said something at the time if the Apollo missions hadn't gone to moon. Problem is there's so many theories about how it was faked, and in the end it seems it'd be a damn sight easier to go to the moon instead.

Incidentally, Ron Howard didn't show any of the computers used for Apollo in his Apollo 13 movie because he didn't think the younger audience would believe such computers had existed or could do the computations required to run the modules. Funny, huh?
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 92.4.172.218
Posted on Sunday, February 27, 2011 - 08:21 pm:   

I’m very sceptical about conspiracy theories. Take Watergate. As plots go it as fairly harmless, no one was murdered or had “accidents”, the world order wasn’t threatened, and yet it broke open pretty quickly once those two journalists had found a crack in the wall. If the perpetrators couldn’t hold their nerve over something that is rotten, yes, but not bloody in any way, I find it difficult to believe that they would b able to do so when murder is involved, e.g. JFK, 9/11 and so forth.

Apollo 11 would have been a titanic conspiracy involving huge amounts of people and resources for a long, long time. Surely someone would have muttered something about it while drunk or into the ear of his or her lover.

Okay, JFK was a strange incident and it does seem unlikely that it was the work of one man, for me it seems logical that it was a mafia hit. The Kennedys had humiliated Sam Giancana a few years before and JFK had failed to get Cuba back for them. But I wouldn’t put money on it. There was chaos and confusion in the immediate aftermath, but I don’t think that points to a secret military coup etc. In fact chaos and confusion are probably the operative words here.

Jack the Ripper is a fine example. I think “he” was actually a “Rip Gang” who was known to terrorise prostitutes at that time and mutilate them if they didn't pay their protection money. Three women had already died at the hands of such a gang that summer. The burning of files etc was part of a clumsy cover up of some dirty deeds carried out by the Special Branch in Ireland at the time and catching criminals was a pretty hit-and-miss affair in 1888.

So, yes cover-ups happen, dark deeds are done; Suez, the craven return to Libya of the piece of scum who was responsible for the Lockerbie bombing, the “Man Who Never Was” plot used to fool the Nazis during WW2, the “WMDs That Never Were” plot used to fool the basically decent public of two basically decent nations, and the current government policy regarding further education (my job so I know that there are some very nasty things going on in that neck of the woods), but they are usually blown open pretty quickly.

Stephen King said in “Danse Macabre” that the conspiracy theory is a way of trying to make sense of a basically random and uncontrolled world. I think he has a point.

On the other hand, I am dubious about the death of Dr David Kelly…

Reards
Terry
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 06:31 am:   

There's conspiracies and there's conspiracies, Terry.

I choose to believe the ones that seem to me the most reasonable. It's more reasonable to me, that we might not have gone to the Moon, than that we did; though those photos are pretty compelling - once we get up there and can real-time film those artifacts, I'll be fine with it all. I'm already only half-way, even sort of capriciously, suspicious anyway.

Why are people who disbelieve we went to the Moon, so utterly chastised, though? It's odd, that. It reeks of some kind of brainwashing - there are some things that it's okay to believe, like knocking on wood, like never speaking well of your automobile. But going to the Moon? There's enough there to at least empathize with those who disbelieve - same with the belief that there are no nuclear missiles in the world (as presented to us), though far less people doubt those than the former.

... You know, we in America were in the depths of the Depression, when WWII was raging. And Russia was finally furiously fighting back against the Nazis. They had roused themselves, and found a resolve, and even a mad and frothing patriotism. They were gaining ground against them, and closing in on them. Communist Russia could probably have destroyed Nazi Germany, given enough time - and god knows, they gave enough blood.

Blood and effort is very costly, and it demands a great reward. We were sitting it out over here. We looked over there, and already horribly afraid of Communism creeping over the world, we saw it creeping again, but in this very different way: a country's natural defense, that was swiftly becoming an even more dangerous offense. To the world at large. Hitler was always going to burn out in a blaze of inglory; Communist Russia was a slow, cunning, patient bear, that was crazy enough to scrub its own prosperity years earlier, in order to re-embrace its idealistic roots.

It wasn't even as important that the U.S. enter the war; but that we too make sure we had some kind of horrendous cost, so we could exact a large, and overpowering payment. And check the Russians. Just helping out would never have been enough. To call the shots, we had to make sure we spilled a lot of our blood - we had to ensure we were massacred, so we too could enjoy the spoils of war.

Pearl Harbor. D-Day.

This is how an ignorant and horribly suspicious mind can concoct any manner of crazed, wicked, dark-spun demonic conspiracy theory....
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.252.101
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 09:19 am:   

Mark, I went to the Science Museum last week and saw a cracking computer. Imagine this bugger on your desktop:

desktop
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 11:36 am:   

'Fortean Times' devoted an issue to the faked moon landing conspiracies a few years back. As always, both sides of the argument were presented fully and fairly and readers were left to make their own minds up. Every apparent anomaly in the photographic and documentary evidence was convincingly countered and the final weight of evidence is overwhelmingly (nay, crushingly) on the side of the landings being genuine. Being completely dispassionate about the issue I have to say I stand convinced.

The most interesting part of the whole debate was the sociological relevance of just how many people nowadays take the conspiracy theories seriously. Almost as if the moon landings are acquiring the status of a myth or fairy-tale (that couldn't possibly have happened) in the public consciousness.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 01:56 pm:   

People who learn about politics from the internet are rather like people who learn about relationships from watching porn. Expert but ignorant. Well-versed but out of touch. They have the cynicism that only comes with prolonged and radical inexperience.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.78
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 03:23 pm:   

That's a cracking computer, Gary. Must get me one of them.

Yes, the reasons why people believe the moon landings were faked are very interesting indeed. Also, I suppose it's sometimes easier to believe everything's shit and have done with, rather than acknowledge the most historic moment in our race's history has passed and that the first 'giant leap' was followed by the 'fall back and land on your arse'.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 03:42 pm:   

If people can convince themselves, by only concentrating on the apparent anomalies in the accepted evidence, which, gathered together in one place, without counter arguments, can appear compelling, that something as well covered and documented by independent media as the space race and the moon landings must have been faked then how much closer are we to acceptance of the arguments put forward by Holocaust deniers.

I have a Spanish friend whose family suffered abominably under the Franco regime and who has never been allowed to forget what conservative politicians in present day Spain would gladly consign to the "irrelevant past". Their Catholic Church backed platitudes about "moving on" and "letting the past rest in peace" - while marching against gay rights and equality for women - never fail to make her see red, at the thought of the buried corpses and decades long persecution this kind of attitude would have us brush under the carpet...

And people wonder why the human race keeps repeating the same mistakes over and over again through history?
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 04:13 pm:   

But one must ask, really - what does it matter to believe the Moon landing was faked?

What does it matter to believe the Holocaust was a lie? Quite a lot: it shows a dangerous resistance to accept the reality of evil - it might hide anti-Semitism itself - the evidence is overwhelming and absolutely compelling - it's got unsettling implications, this denial.

But denying the Moon landing? It verges on skepticism of science - science IS skepticism in action: the deniers want to see more proof - why would science, the very temple of "Show us the proof," balk suddenly so loudly? Persistent doubting-Thomases should only invigorate.

Moon-landing denial reveals a deep distrust of government entities - distrusting the government is a good and healthy thing - it's better than blindly trusting your government.

Denying we landed on the Moon is benign. Landing on the Moon, for all its effect so far, has proved benign at best, but hardly monumental (you deny? we don't even want to go back there!). So how does believing, change anything?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 05:48 pm:   

The conspiracy theory architects who root out these apparent anomalies - whether it be the moon landings, 9/11, the death of Princess Diana or JFK - often knowingly withhold patently obvious counter arguments in order to woo the gullible public, either for profit or a misguided notion of fame. They should be exposed for the frauds they are imo.

There is nothing wrong with Joe Public believing in these relatively harmless theories (as opposed to Holocaust denial, etc), and much entertainment can be got from them, but it is my contention that, when it comes to the bigger picture, History shouldn't be messed with, All The Evidence should be presented and The Truth should always be allowed to stand.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.209.137
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 09:15 pm:   

"People who learn about politics from the internet are rather like people who learn about relationships from watching porn. Expert but ignorant. Well-versed but out of touch. They have the cynicism that only comes with prolonged and radical inexperience."

Ooh, I like this. Nicely put, Zed.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.209.137
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 09:19 pm:   

Oh, I mean nicely put, Joel.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.209.137
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 09:30 pm:   

"But denying the Moon landing?"

It's insulting to the people who gave their lives (figuratively and literally) to the space programme.

And it's exasperating to scientists. People complain about how science has failed them, and when science gives them something undeniably spectacular and life-enhancing, shows them worlds and wonders that previous generations could only dream about, they snort at it.

Much more of this and we're taking it all back and giving you another few millennia of begging to a magic ghost in the clouds.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.209.137
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 09:42 pm:   

"why would science, the very temple of "Show us the proof," balk suddenly so loudly?"

Conspiracy theorists are lazy. It's usually one guy putting the burden of disproving his paranoid fantasies onto others. The less inclined the establishment is to do his thinking and research for him, the more the paranoia is confirmed.

On the other side, scientists are people who got off their arses and tried to figure out how all this shit around us works.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.74
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 10:54 pm:   

The conspiracy theory enforces people's beliefs that they're important. 'Oh, my God, they had to lie to me about going to the moon! I must be SO important, because, like, what would happen if I really knew they never went? Like, oh, my, God.'
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.180.154.154
Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 - 11:15 pm:   



I think that's very true. There was a programme on TV a few years back when a member of the public said "I reckon they never went; it was all done to trick us", and he was then completely stumped by the follow-up question "why should the American space agency go to all that trouble to convince you that they really went to the moon?".
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 78.152.211.19
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 12:26 am:   

It's the waste of energy that gets me, too. It isn't even enjoyable, like believing in the Bermuda Triangle. (God, I even typed that as a proper noun!)
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 06:24 am:   

But "begging to a magic ghost in the clouds" - now you've just become the "conspiracy nut" to untold millions of human beings yourself, Proto. Not me, but to them, you might as well have said not only didn't we land on the Moon, but that Moon is made of cheese.

Empathy is something that everyone should exercise more - and I say, can't you empathize? Doesn't all aspects of the lunar launch and Moon landing seem - let's just say, so amazing and wonderful, that people might not believe it? Puffy Michelin Men bouncing around on the surface of the Moon - doesn't that seem wacky?!

But what do I know? For example, I can't even tell you... did the Russians actually *land* on the Moon? I could look it up and find out, but why deny my ignorance here? Is there a Russian flag and some cold borscht somewhere up there on the Moon too?
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 10:19 am:   

Vast conspiracies do still happen, however, and it is important to weed out the feasible (the JFK assassination involving more than Lee Harvey Oswald) from the fantastically far-fetched (the moon landings being faked).

A worringly large percentage of the uninformed public would bracket these two favourites together as equally plausible. And that's what scares me most! The application of Occam's Razor (or better still basic logic) should be taught in our schools imho.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.71
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 10:41 am:   

If memory serves, the Russian's initially impacted a probe on the moon, round about the time of the Apollo missions.

I can empathise with the belief systems of many people - all too easily too often - and do have some sympathy with someone who might hear the hoax theory and give it credance. I'd even ampathise to some extent with someone in denial about the whole thing even after they've gone into the details of the hoax theory. But it'd be from pitying them for not being able to relinquish a bad habit if they persisted in the belief. A bad habit is just the act of repeating the same mistake. So yeah, I'd be sad for them, see how they got to the position they've arrived at, but ultimately be frustrated they couldn't embrace something truly wonderful and awe inspiring.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.71
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 10:46 am:   

Without wanting to cause aggro, may I ask what it is Americans are so frightened of? Is it the decline of their country as the major power in the world? The moon deniers would seem to fit into that profile, perhaps prefering to believe the moon was always a dream too far, rather than for a few short, shiny years, the greatest achievement of humanity.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 03:50 pm:   

"But what do I know? For example, I can't even tell you... did the Russians actually *land* on the Moon? I could look it up and find out, but why deny my ignorance here?"

I appreciate the honesty, but I have to say that this doesn't reflect well on the level of research you've put into your opinion.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 04:33 pm:   

Oh yes it does, Proto - it represents a perfect consistency.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 05:51 pm:   

The Ruskies had plans for a lunar lander which looked a lot like the American one, but was less angular and as I remember in the picture, it was green. Much more photogenic, actually, which is another reason to believe in the Moon landings - who'd design a lander that looks like a Cubist painting?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.176.105.56
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 06:07 pm:   

A cubist painter???
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 07:57 pm:   

Stop your arguing, here's the proof that man did reach the moon (; -http://apollo-18.movie-trailer.com/2011/02/apollo-18-trailer.html
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 08:57 pm:   

Fake!
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Frank (Frank)
Username: Frank

Registered: 09-2008
Posted From: 85.222.86.21
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 10:20 pm:   

No, it's the real thing. I know because it was on the internet, so that nails any doubts before anybody starts up again.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.118.78.72
Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 - 10:41 pm:   

I think I've just spotted a black monolith through my telescope.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.88.70
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 12:32 am:   

I think they already made this film - it was as scene in Superman II. I always found that a horrific scene, actually.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.134.154
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 02:17 pm:   

That film looks sort of poor - the scariest shots are those of the footage of the rockets going up.
Awful acting, awful direction. Wasted chance, I think.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.134.154
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 02:23 pm:   

I can see why people are questioning the moon landings; we no longer feel we were ever capable of doing something so great. It almost makes me not believe it myself.
And you know, I'm not sure it was humanity's greatest act. Our greatest act is probably kindness, or art. And this is not for one minute me trying to make light of it.

An odd fact; I have earlier memories of watching the moon landings out of the corner of my eye when there was a chance (my mum and nan weren't interested in it so they never put it on) than that of looking at the actual moon itself. In fact the plastic models of various rockets and capsules we had in the classroom probably caught my interest more.
Guess I always have lived in my head, after all.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.134.154
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 02:25 pm:   

Shit - I don't think I knew what the moon was till after the landings. I think I thought they were just some blokes going to 'some place'.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.118.78.72
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 03:49 pm:   

"By 2001, it seemed quite reasonable that there would be giant space-stations in orbit round the Earth and - a little later - manned expeditions to the planets.

In an ideal world, that would have been possible: the Vietnam War would have paid for everything that Stanley Kubrick showed on the Cinerama screen. Now we realize it will take a little longer.

2001 will not arrive by 2001. Yet - barring accidents - by that date almost everything depicted in the book and the movie will be in the advanced planning stage.

Except for communication with alien intelligences: that is something that can never be planned - only anticipated. No one knows whether it will happen tomorrow - or a thousand years hence.

Bit it will happen someday."

Arthur C. Clarke, "Epilogue: after 2001", 1982.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.134.154
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 03:51 pm:   

I think Earth is undergoing a mid-life crisis.

I don't want an Indian or Chinese moon. Those people are inconsiderate and cruel, ignorant of their greater problems. The moon will have power stations littering it in no time, a big dump in space.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.134.154
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 03:52 pm:   

A huge symbol of nothing ever being untouched.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.118.78.72
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 03:52 pm:   

Good old Arthur C. Clarke - what boundless optimism! I for one fear we are very lonely indeed.
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Stevie Walsh (Stephenw)
Username: Stephenw

Registered: 03-2009
Posted From: 194.32.31.1
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 04:36 pm:   

I agree entirely with Arthur C. Clarke's optimism - I'd even call it realism.

The one thing that could stop us ever contacting alien intelligence is if we've wiped ourselves out before we get the chance.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 05:34 pm:   

The magical thing I've always thought about the Moon, is that it's the absolute single object that I can think of, that everyone on Earth, no matter where you are, can look at (i.e., you can't really look at the Sun, it's too bright/intangible; and stars are mere pinpoints of light), that everyone else on Earth has looked at too. The Buddha, Moses, Socrates, Jesus, the Roman emperors, Shakespeare, Napoleon... everyone on Earth has seen the same Moon, the same way (the same face of it!). When you look at the Moon, you're linking yourself symbolically, with the long long chain of humanity.

It's of all things the grandeur of the Moon in this and other respects, the poetry of the Moon, that somehow makes landing on it not just too strange (as Tony might say), but sullying.

Launching a phallic-shaped rocket to the Moon, in order to spill out little puffy squirming astronauts. We did our deed, and then we left. That must be why we never went back.

"Hello?... Oh. Hey, Moon. Yeah, I had a great night too. What's that? Yeah, it was, uh - magical, right - whoops, got another call, lemme hit you back - no, your number's right here - somewhere - anyway, later."
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 89.19.73.196
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 10:55 pm:   

"I don't want an Indian or Chinese moon. Those people are inconsiderate and cruel, ignorant of their greater problems. The moon will have power stations littering it in no time, a big dump in space."

Steady, Tony! I'm sure they feel the same about seeing an American flag on it, too. You know, it was going to be a United Nations flag, but Nixon insisted it should be the stars and stripes. What should have been a symbol of people coming together became one of jingoism by the whim of a war-mongering criminal. Our actions, our whims and how we act on them, matter.

"It's of all things the grandeur of the Moon in this and other respects, the poetry of the Moon, that somehow makes landing on it not just too strange (as Tony might say), but sullying."

I feel this too. The Moon has been a symbol. It's like standing on the face of a god, or on love. But as Jung implied, psychological trauma is caused by compartmentalisation - an effort to isolate the "pure" from the "impure". It's hugely damaging and if we wait until we're perfect we'll never do anything.

Vaclav Havel: "Man is half-angel, half-demon."

Clarke again: "Earth is the cradle of mankind; but one cannot stay in the cradle forever."
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 89.19.73.196
Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 - 11:00 pm:   

"Launching a phallic-shaped rocket to the Moon, in order to spill out little puffy squirming astronauts."

Ack, Freud! Not everything that's longer than it is wide represents a penis. Those rockets shaped like vaginas didn't do too well.
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.143.134.154
Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2011 - 05:00 pm:   

I find releasing things from boxes difficult.
I was welded into my cradle at an early age. I think I like it.
:-(
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Thursday, March 03, 2011 - 05:25 pm:   

I wish we had dials like this inside us.

http://moodstream.gettyimages.com/
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 88.104.137.65
Posted on Friday, March 04, 2011 - 10:49 pm:   

'People who learn about politics from the internet are rather like people who learn about relationships from watching porn. Expert but ignorant. Well-versed but out of touch. They have the cynicism that only comes with prolonged and radical inexperience.'

Very true.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.78
Posted on Saturday, March 05, 2011 - 09:54 am:   

A bit like literary critics. Or eunochs. They can tell you how to do it, but they can't do it themselves.
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Hubert (Hubert)
Username: Hubert

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 178.118.79.219
Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2011 - 11:09 am:   

Or like teenagers. No offense, though - I love 'em for it.
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Gary Fry (Gary_fry)
Username: Gary_fry

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.31.184.78
Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2011 - 05:58 pm:   

>>>Ack, Freud! Not everything that's longer than it is wide represents a penis.

As was acknowledged by Freud, of course. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.199.129
Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2011 - 06:08 pm:   

Unless you're Bill Clinton.
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Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch)
Username: Mark_lynch

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.171.129.73
Posted on Friday, March 11, 2011 - 12:13 pm:   

The moon will be close to the Earth on March 19th, will look very large, if it's not a cloudy night. Closest it's been in 20 years. There are some theories that relate the close moon to super earthquakes...
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Mbfg (Mbfg)
Username: Mbfg

Registered: 09-2010
Posted From: 92.4.194.146
Posted on Saturday, March 12, 2011 - 07:59 pm:   

I will get my telescope out then.

Cheers
Terry
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, August 27, 2012 - 06:20 am:   

Why have we never sent a Curiosity-like rover to the moon?

Technology has advanced incredibly since 1976 (the last time anything landed on the moon, apparently). We could send, presumably, satellites to circle the moon at the very least, that can surely take pictures better than those I've seen that've been released as current... so why don't we?

Why do we want to study Mars so intently, when it's so much farther than Earth? Closest possible ever (it would be rare indeed, this number) that Mars can be from Earth is appx. 34 million miles. The moon averages 240,000 miles: this makes it 7/10ths of 1% of the distance to Mars.

We talk about moon bases so much, and a moon base would be a logical first step and jumping point... so why is there, like, nothing up there? Has been nothing up there since the 70's?

Why are there no pictures of the sun as seen from the moon? There's those famous photos of the Earth seen from the moon, half of it lit up... why did no one tilt the camera a bit and take another photo?

Oh yes, the answer is something convoluted, you can look it up: Apollo 12 "accidentally" pointed it directly at the sun, TV broadcast was terminated... so they knew enough to send a rocket to the moon, and they just "accidentally" pointed one of their surely precious broadcast cameras at the sun? Or better, no one knew how to make a camera that could take a sun shot, and then send it up with the mission?!...

All of these questions and more rise to my mind at the sad news of the passing of Neil Armstrong.

They are just, questions.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Monday, August 27, 2012 - 11:13 am:   

These questions are readily answered, Craig. I've answered similar questions from you before, Craig, but you seemed to have had already made your mind up, so I won't be answering these.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, August 27, 2012 - 03:54 pm:   

I just find this bizarre lack of interest in presently exploring the moon, when it could be so much (relatively) easier than going off to Mars, to be odd....

Do a google image search of "moon pics" or "photos from moon" or what have you. Note how all the pictures that come up, look like fugitives from the 1950's. Really? After all this time... really? That's the best we can do?

I know why they won't send another mission to the moon—they're afraid someone will find Barack Obama's birth-certificate there.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 80.239.242.138
Posted on Monday, August 27, 2012 - 04:15 pm:   

More likely they'd find mitt romney's tax returns.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.13.192
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 12:18 am:   

Obama did produce his birth certificate, Craig. He produced it. His birth certificate. Which proves when and where he was born. But there remain some Americans so stupid or dogmatic that they refuse to believe the fact. How many of those currently involved in the Romney campaign are self-proclaimed 'birthers'? The rest of the world looks on astonished at the stupidity, ignorance and corruption considered normal among powerful people in the nation that takes its domination of the world for granted.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 12:29 am:   

There's always going to be a "birthed"-ish fringe in any political party or otherwise, Joel. They're not many by any means; they're rather, the same small percentage of people that believe Elvis is still alive and that there were shooters on the grassy knoll and that we never landed on the... er... that is to say, that FDR knew in advance about Pearl Harbor, etc.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.18.194
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 12:56 am:   

It's "You ain't from around here, are ya, boy?" on a jaw-droppingly scale. Please, USA, stop continuing to embarrass yourself on the world stage.

Guns practically in vending machines, creationist theme parks, wondering if TORTURE is maybe possibly okay, while simultaneously the idea of co-operating to help the sick and dying somehow remains controversial.

Please, please stop. Do another moon shot or something. You were good at those.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 02:23 am:   

I just watched last night Witness For The Prosecution (1958), directed by Billy Wilder. There's a comic moment, where Marlene Dietrich's character's housekeeper, a crusty old Scot woman, begs the judge in the murder case, if he can speed up the bureaucratic wheels of the NHS—the poor lady's been waiting forever for her hearing aid. This request is met by howls of derisive laughter from all in the courtroom.

Yeah. Can't wait.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.30.216
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 09:06 am:   

Craig, the US spends more per capita on healthcare, but has a lower average life expectancy, than any other developed nation. Maybe if you took your ideas about the NHS from reality rather than from Hollywood you would understand what we're currently losing under Cameron – and how far short of it Obama's limited, compromised reforms are. The US health system is another aspect of your culture that most of Europe views with disgust and disbelief. I'll probably never go to the US, because I have a chronic illness and cannot afford the health insurance I would need to cover me while I was there.

Michael Moorcock and his wife moved to the US in the 1980s (or possibly 1990s). Within a few years his wife became seriously ill and their combined life savings disappeared into the pockets of doctors. Moorcock had to start again, without a penny from one of the most successful genre writing careers of the 1970s. That's not personal information by the way: he wrote an article about it in the British press.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.30.216
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 09:16 am:   

Health bills are the single greatest cause of homelessness in the US. When you consider that all the people concerned are seriously ill it's hard to believe this is a major 'democracy' we're talking about. The belated steps taken by one President to address this huge wrong are met with an implacable and hysterical campaign of distortion by villains screaming about 'death panels' and 'communism'.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.31.153
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 09:45 am:   

Sorry, Craig, but my view is absolutely straightforward. I like visiting America but would never consider living there, because of the health care. The NHS is flawed but by God, it's preferable. And I say this based on the American experiences of American friends.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.31.153
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 09:47 am:   

...based on their experience and also, if I need to spell it out, my own experience of the NHS and that of my family and friends.
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Mick Curtis (Mick)
Username: Mick

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.180.123.78
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 10:02 am:   

I've had to make a fair few visits to different hospitals for various procedures over the last fourteen months and I have to say the people were all professional and the system worked flawlessly. No, it's probably not quite as swish as some private healthcare but it's still bloody good.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.212.231.139
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 10:53 am:   

And you don't need to sell your house to say for the treatment. Because it's free. That is the central lynchpin of the nhs. Free treatment for all. Only in the usa is it considered morally acceptable that in addition to the joss of wages a person inevitably incurs with a chronic illness, they also have to worry about how to pay for their treatment.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.109.201
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 11:12 am:   

"I just watched last night Witness For The Prosecution..."

I watched this recently too. [SPOILER] After the court case the entire courtroom staff leaves the murder weapon sitting out on a table in plain view so that someone can murder someone else with it AGAIN. This is your evidence?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.217.32
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 02:02 pm:   

So a satiric jab from 1958 at a healthcare system that was pretty much brand new at the time is your evidence that the nhs doesn't work? Try harder craig. Look at the millions of people successfully treated every week by the nhs - with no insurance firm death panels deciding who can or can't have treatment depending on loopholes deliberately inserted into the policies.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.209.111
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 03:24 pm:   

But if hollywood said it so it's true is the level of debate you prefer, in the saw films, Jigsaw starts on his mission when he's turned down for the treatment he needs by his medical insurance on a technicality.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 04:05 pm:   

... And our guns are hardly in vending machines (operation "Fast & Furious" notwithstanding), nor does anyone think torture "okay" (defining what constitutes torture, has always been what's at issue). Then blowing up some clearly tiny fringe Kentucky churchers who want to build a "creationist theme park," painting that over all of America... and finishing it off with a blanket statement that no one here, on the other political side of the wildly controversial issue, seems to care about the sick and dying... hell, I only figured I was on a playing field anyway, where emotions arising from films entered into evidence, was perfectly okay.

I was originally going to respond: And please please please yourself, Britain, stop continuing to embarrass yourselves on the world stage, with your bad teeth, small cocks, and Russell Brand. Brew another cup of tea or something, you're so good at that.

Am I allowed to switch out snarky responses?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.216.35
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 04:07 pm:   

So as you can see, going by the irrefutable evidence of what happens in the movies- with the uk system there are waiting lists and sometimes people have to wait for minor treatments and if someone asks in an entirely inappropriate place like a courtroom, which has no link whatsoever to the nhs, to jump the waiting list - people laugh. In the US system, people become insanely devious serial killers as a result of their insurance firms refusing them treatment. Hmmm i thing i still prefer the nhs.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 04:47 pm:   

Well, to be more serious and less miffed (I do apologize), this health issue here is extremely complex, moreso than I can address in a simple post.

Health care, indeed, is prohibitively expensive; but how "Obamacare" (as its name's become) was passed was also, indeed, wildly controversial—and you can thank both sides for that. You Brits have had your NHS for a long time; clearly, at least since 1958 (judging by that film). It's like the U.S. thinking they can just inject democracy into ancient Arabian seats of despotism (some of that time, American-puppet-despotism!) and think it's going to be all sweetness and light upon first rush... no, not so.

I think Obama is good-intentioned. I firmly believe he's following what I perceive was the British model: exit the we-run-the-world power stage, and concentrate on its own citizens—it's hard to pay for a vast empire and remote colonial wars, as well as the health and well-being of one's own citizenry back home, at once; they (you) vacated the world stage for the U.S. to take on the police beat after WWII. I think Obama's entire goal, was to as well, retract its position as head-honcho, and focus inwards; "leading from behind" as an Obama insider once described the President's own foreign strategy.

But we are a polarized nation, and every move of the opposing side is declaimed as evil to the core. Deadlock is the inevitable result. And issues of healthcare linger painfully for decades. As well, and as you know, we are a nation that particularly despises taxation... that issue being the main core of disagreement over our proposed Obamacare (that and the religious issues raised).

You can't just change an entire people overnight. And though a lot of you detest Romney, you should know: he established his own mini-"NHS" in Massachusettes when he was Governor, which remains to this day... and that, even in the face of his own party, he proudly proclaims as one of his great accomplishments!...
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.81.96
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 09:34 pm:   

Actually I'm not British, Craig. But I think that by attributing insulting physical stereotypes to a nation has you've crossed the line into outright racism.

All of the opinions expressed about America here (however unfair you feel they are) were aimed not at the people but at the choices they make.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.30.101
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 11:07 pm:   

I don't think you really addressed what I said, Craig. I should say my teeth aren't bad and the size of my dick is on record. For fuck's sake let's not start protesting about racism.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.114.251
Posted on Tuesday, August 28, 2012 - 11:58 pm:   

"...the size of my dick is on record."

33 1/3 or 45?
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.114.251
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 12:05 am:   

If we're honest, many other countries are tearing themselves apart more spectacularly and doing much madder things than the USA, but we don't care as much about it because the USA used to be a good mate. America is like a friend who's going steadily insane and we're frustrated because our help is ineffective and unwanted. It's a co-dependent relationship.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.129.56.26
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 01:28 am:   

You may not have guns in vending machines but pretty much anyone can walk into a large supermarket and walk out with a small arsenal with no questions asked.

The reason given for this is the second amendment to the constitution. There's a clue in the name of that item that tells you it can be changed. AMENDMENT. It means change. It can be changed. The number of gun massacres in recent years is beyond what any civilised country should ever have put up with.

Surely common sense dictates that guns should be restricted.

And to top it all off, at least one of the victims of the cinema is relying on the charity of strangers for his medical treatment because he couldn't afford it.

If it had happened in the UK (where, incidentally, after the one and only school massacre we've ever experienced handguns were banned in private ownership) all the victims would have been treated for free.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.129.56.26
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 01:39 am:   

pic

Why does it seem like Obama isn't getting as much done as he should?
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 03:03 am:   

Oh, Proto, I was exploiting stupid stereotypes, which is rude and insensitive, and I apologized, but I wasn't being racist.... But I stand by saying, in essence, will one of you please retrieve your Russell Brand from our shores?

Ramsey, Medicaid/Medicare is what we have already for all-coverage health care, though it doesn't kick in until one is of a certain age (65, I believe). It's probably not much different than the NHS. But no, it's by definition, not as good as cradle-to-grave health care.

Weber, you just can't buy into the propaganda from any one side. Did you know that Obama's own proposed budgets didn't receive a single—not one—vote from either house of Congress, and that includes members from his own party?

I'm curious, Weber, how you rectify something. I understand you don't live here, but a gigantic point of contention about this Obamacare, is that it forces everyone involved, to pay for those controversial items/procedures you've probably heard about—birth control, abortions, abortion-inducting drugs, etc. As a practicing Roman Catholic yourself, how would you square this in your own mind? Because you would be dragooned into paying for procedures your religion finds not just sinful, but particularly abominable (as you know, as an RC, you can't receive Confession for any complicity [receiving, aiding in, etc.] an abortion: you must have the special dispensation of a Bishop to be "forgiven). By nodding to it and paying for it, you are sanctioning these acts. I don't have to worry about this, not being an RC, and being neutral on the issue... but you, I assume, are. So not only how would you rectify this... but how can you be so behind a candidate—Obama—that supports surviving fetuses (i.e., babies, by definition, once leaving the womb) being exterminated? When the hated and evil Romney, does not?... Do you have no personal, moral qualms over this?...
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.31.151
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 08:38 am:   

Sorry, Craig, but using abortion as an argument against health care strikes me as desperate. What's your alternative - that every individual should be able to specify exactly what their taxes are spent on? Is there anyone who doesn't object to some of the uses their taxes are put to? I'm afraid that's the way the system has to work.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.129.56.26
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 09:13 am:   

Plus Craig - you say his budgets didn't receive any votes from either side... You do know what filibustering is don't you? It stops a vote from happening full stop. So the opposing side can then tell the more gullible minions that the item being discussed didn't receive a single vote.

And Ramsey sums up the point about abortion and healthcare perfectly. Complaining about a detail like that is like telling your government they're not allowed to use your personal taxes to pay for their latest war. How effective would that be?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.129.56.26
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 09:15 am:   

Oh, and we don't want Russell Brand here either.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.129.56.26
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 09:42 am:   

IIRC the bible's stance on taxation - straight from the mouth of JC himself is "Give unto Caesar what is Ceasars". Not "Give unto Ceasar what is Ceasar's only if you agree with what he's going to do with it".
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 03:57 pm:   

Well, those are persuasive arguments, Ramsey and Weber. No, one cannot have a system that itemizes their taxes like that... and why not spend upon the citizenry directly, if they're so high?

Obamacare might very well be a great thing when it's all being implemented (doubtful it will be—even if so, it's not for a few years yet); that doesn't erase the simple fact that it wasn't sold well in the U.S., nor passed completely above-board. The vote was by the razorest thin of margins, and even this, by many reps that were going directly against the will of their own constituents (why so many were tossed out in the 2010 elections). As well, when you have statements like (at the time) House Leader Nancy Pelosi's, "We have to pass the bill so you can see what's in it"—that's when government is asking to be invested with far too much power than many (including me) want to give it on blind trust alone. Many of the elected leaders on the side passing it publicly admitted they never read the bill, and wouldn't.

That's a valid interpretation of Jesus' line, Weber. I think personally it speaks more historically, to a religion that didn't want to tread on Roman power in order to stay alive... but that's just my interpretation. And did those "what is Ceasar's" include all that Christian-flavored lion Alpo?...
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Wednesday, August 29, 2012 - 06:35 pm:   

I agree we'd better keep Russell Brand out of the USA. Otherwise they'll make him a state Governor.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 08:26 am:   

I saw the same post about filibustering the other day Weber and shared it on fb. I'm really tired of the Obama bashing recently.

For months I've been disgusted to see all that has been going on about abortion in the U.S. If a woman gets pregnant it should be her decision as to what to do. Her body. Her decision. Shouldn't be even up for discussion.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 86.129.59.207
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 09:49 am:   

I agree with you on the Obama bashing - when the republicans are deliberately sabotaging as many of his bills as they can and then crying foul when he manages to get one through their delay tactics and at the same time pointing and shouting look his policies didn't even get one vote... somethings deeply wrong in a "democracy" where the people fall for that kind of thing.

We'll have to disagree on your second point. There are two humans involved in every abortion. One of them is completely helpless and unable to speak for his/herself and totally dependant on his/her mother for survival.

From a purely scientific viewpoint the moment a human life is created is conception.

There's no other time in the human life cycle where it's considered morally right to kill a human on the basis that they might be inconvenient to you in some way or will interfere with your lifestyle or you don't think you're ready to deal with this person (which is the root reasoning for any abortion not on health grounds - physical or mental health) so why should the 9 months preceding the birth be different?

It should be up for discussion - someone needs to speak out for the unborn children who can't speak out for themselves.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.16.85
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 12:22 pm:   

Uh-oh. And I thought I was opening a can of worms... This is a container truck of locusts.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 12:43 pm:   

'to kill a human on the basis that they might be inconvenient to you in some way or will interfere with your lifestyle or you don't think you're ready to deal with this person (which is the root reasoning for any abortion not on health grounds - physical or mental health) so why should the 9 months preceding the birth be different?'

It is a little more complicated than 'will interfere with your lifestyle'

http://thinkbannedthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/08/27/the-silent-ones/
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 01:37 pm:   

So abortion on medical grounds is never opposed by religious authorities, Weber?

Nobody is enthusiastic about abortion as a default solution, but I find it very worrying that those who oppose women's abortion rights also tend to oppose contraception and to insist that as birth is 'natural' there is no way it can be harmful or dangerous. Death is also natural but we try to delay it and stop it happening at the wrong time or for the wrong reasons. That's what medicine is.

Measures to make abortion happen less include contraception, vasectomy and a serious tightening of the laws around consent (so that the woman's right to say 'no' applies within a relationship and includes the right to refuse some forms of intimacy but not others). Religious authorities tend to oppose all such measures, which betrays the reality that they are primarily concerned with protecting male control over women. When women have more control over whether they become pregnant there is likely to be far less demand for abortion.

I agree with Ally that the right to terminate a pregnancy is important. We need a medico-legal framework to ensure that abortions are conducted in a safe and responsible manner. But we also need a wider social framework in which women only become pregnant when they choose to become pregnant, so that abortion is a last resort rather than being a means by which women routinely pay for male carelessness, selfishness and aggression.
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Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey)
Username: Ramsey

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 92.8.29.200
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 01:57 pm:   

I'm with you, Joel, and I speak as a man with two vasectomies. On the other hand, some of the comments on the Think Banned Thoughts blog bother me - moving from the horrific examples cited to "every unplanned pregnancy threatens the life of the mother" seems suspect, for instance, and I don't know many mothers who would ever have described a foetus inside them as a "clump of parasitic cells".
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.216.61
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 02:09 pm:   

I was stating my personal opinions and not those of the wider church. I am not against the use of birth control devices. I use condoms myself so i'd be a hypocrite if i said otherwise. However i know people who regard abortion as nothing more than a late form of contraception. Which i can't help but be dismayed about.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 02:10 pm:   

Ramsey – yes, anti-birth rhetoric doesn't help anyone.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 02:11 pm:   

Never mind who should be President of the US - I reckon Joel should be President of the World with all the sensible views he regularly expresses on this board.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 02:15 pm:   

"However i know people who regard abortion as nothing more than a late form of contraception. Which i can't help but be dismayed about."

That's true. I agree with you on that point, Weber. But Joel explained what is needed here:
"But we also need a wider social framework in which women only become pregnant when they choose to become pregnant, so that abortion is a last resort rather than being a means by which women routinely pay for male carelessness, selfishness and aggression."

I'd also add that we need better education to help minimise male and female stupidity on this score too. There's absolutely no excuse for using abortion as an alternative form of contraception.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 04:00 pm:   

But abortions are hardly simply women "routinely pay[ing] for male carelessness, selfishness, and aggression." That ironically makes the female a passive victim: she's a tool of men by default, allowed to exercise power only after men have had their way with them; with the whole Victorian-ish "men having their way with women" itself, prevailing in the face of an entire sexual revolution that's supposedly occurred (i.e., where women have taken control of their own sexual-lifestyle decisions). Even if we could conveniently remove male "carelessness, selfishness and aggression," we'd still have tons, I'm sure, of loving devoted committed couples, whoops-ing their way into wanting abortions—abortions that are every bit as repugnant to pro-life proponents.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 04:20 pm:   

One could—I say, could—make an argument that relaxing abortion laws itself, is an ingenious way of covering male "careless, selfishness, and aggression." When you abort the fetus away from the situation, you can cover such (by definition, according to the argument) male-centric sexual aggressiveness ever more effectively. Abortion so becomes quite the convenience for male Lotharios everywhere....

Further complicating the issue, is the fact that if a woman chooses to have the child, she can legally nail the father for financial support. The rights have been effectively removed, for the males in the equation. One must promote the fact that they are the "culprits," to at least a slight degree; or the fact that males are suddenly, without their own choice in the matter, nailed by the accidental circumstances of their sexual acts—what the whole legalizing-abortion issue is there to remove for women!—becomes, ever clearer, the blighting injustice that it is:

A woman decides she can't afford a child she created with another man, she decides to abort it, and is off the hook: society decrees her blameless, and beyond reproach. But wait, now she changes her mind at the last minute, and has the baby... and the man who didn't want it, is dragged into paying for it for the rest of his life?!...
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Thursday, August 30, 2012 - 09:36 pm:   

Hmmm. Put that way, Craig, you make a sound case for the relative merits of celibacy .....
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.145.130.231
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 12:12 am:   

Walter Huston - father of director John Huston apparently - here's a picture - see if you can guess...
pic
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.145.130.231
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 12:13 am:   

sorry, I was sure I was posting in a different thread
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 12:28 am:   

The lot of man, Caroline, is to learn more than occasionally, past disinclination and all too well, the relative merits of celibacy....
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 01:35 am:   

'Finally, this amendment seeks to draw humorous attention to the hypocrisy and inconsistency of this proposal – from the Republican perspective of down-sized government and less government intrusion into people's private affairs. Despite the great challenges our state faces, it is far more important that we address issues such as affordable healthcare to help improve our state's ranking of 48th in health status; to create good, secure jobs that grow our economy; and ensure that all citizens have access to quality, affordable education.'

https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/09/spill ed-semen-amendment-oklahoma-personhood-bill

And I can't get that Monty Python song out of my head right now.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 03:02 am:   

And it doesn't end there...2012 is certainly down to be a memorable year for American women.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/14/arizona-birth-control-bill-contraceptio n-medical-reasons_n_1344557.html?ref=mostpopular
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 03:07 am:   

Sorry...correct link for the post above this one.

'Finally, this amendment seeks to draw humorous attention to the hypocrisy and inconsistency of this proposal – from the Republican perspective of down-sized government and less government intrusion into people's private affairs. Despite the great challenges our state faces, it is far more important that we address issues such as affordable healthcare to help improve our state's ranking of 48th in health status; to create good, secure jobs that grow our economy; and ensure that all citizens have access to quality, affordable education.'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/feb/09/spilled-semen-ame ndment-oklahoma-personhood-bill
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 03:16 am:   

'The Senate voted on Thursday 51 to 48 to reject a controversial amendment sponsored by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.)'............51 to 48.

Opponents of the bill pointed out that the amendment not only would have allowed employers to cherry-pick women's health care options based on moral beliefs, but it also would have rolled back some of the basic anti-discrimination protections in the Affordable Care Act. For instance, under the amendment, an employer could refuse to cover things like HIV/AIDS screenings, prenatal care for single mothers, mammograms, vaccinations for children and even screenings for diabetes based on objections to a perceived immoral lifestyle.

'While Republicans have been trying to frame the issue as being purely about religious freedom and not about women's health, female lawmakers and Democrats have argued that the amendment is the latest front in the so-called war on women.'



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/01/blunt-amendment-vote-fails-senate-contr aception_n_1313287.html

I think I'll go and read Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale again.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 03:53 am:   

Actually, I'm curious about Britain's NHS rules, and those too, concerning abortion and contraception....

Are abortion procedures provided by the government free of charge, and contraceptions provided free of charge as well? (Frankly, is the whole pro-life/pro-choice debate settled completely over there, so that you look at the USA as a land of savages locked in religious superstition?)

Is everything free there in Britain? Medications, prescriptions, procedures, tests, etc.? How does it work, in sum?
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 07:29 am:   

There is some information here, Craig.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/healthcare_e/healthcare_nhs_healthcare_e/w hat_health_care_can_i_get_on_the_nhs.htm


http://www.mariestopes.org.uk/Womens_services/Abortion/Abortion_FAQ.aspx
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 07:46 am:   

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/10/america-war-on-sex-hots-up


'That might be so, but the spat is white hot and part of a much larger argument. Only last week protests broke out in Texas, Arizona, Utah, Georgia and Alabama that all involved some aspects of sex and sexuality. In Utah, it was over the passing of a law that means the only sex education children will get in school will be about abstinence. In Texas, it was about cuts to health insurance that covers birth control. In Georgia, eight of the nine women in the state senate walked out over a bill that attacked abortion rights.

Barely a day has gone by in recent weeks without some fresh fight breaking out over sexual politics. The most fierce was over radio shock jock Rush Limbaugh's comments on Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, who had testified in Congress on the importance of government mandated funding for birth control. Limbaugh told millions of conservative listeners that this made Fluke a "slut" and "prostitute".'
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.37.199.45
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 02:22 pm:   

Craig, the debate in the UK is obviously not "settled" in the sense that everyone agrees. But as with most of Europe, there is a consensus that those who don't believe abortion to be ethical make that decision for themselves and not for everyone. Abortions are therefore provided within the NHS, on the grounds that inability to pay for a private abortion should not be a factor in anyone's decisions.

Contraception is available through the NHS on various terms. Women can obtain female contraceptives (pills or devices) from their GP, but GPs do not give out condoms as these are readily purchased from pharmacies. However, women at risk of unwanted pregnancy or any people at high risk of sexually transmitted infection can obtain free condoms via family planning and sexual health clinics, whose services are also free. We don't believe in making health a factor of wealth.

Having said that, of course, UK legislation passed in May has removed the responsibility of the NHS to provide any free non-emergency services, and current legislation is seeking to drive private sector takeovers of NHS services. These services must remain free but can be rationed and limited in order to make patients pay for private health services from the same providers. So within the next two three years, the NHS will not be a major direct provider of healthcare, and most NHS services will no longer be free.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 05:29 pm:   

That's illuminating, Joel (and so was that page, Ally, which broke things down exceptionally well).

This goes to the point of what's some of the debate here. The whole Sandra Fluke kerfuffle is relevant: Obama is pushing to make female contraception free—100% taxpayer paid—even though, like in the UK, it's plentiful and cheap. The reason can only be surmised to be political. And Fluke's treatment by various idiots notwithstanding, her essential point has been debunked: the cost of BC is for all intents and purposes non-factorable; and to push it is as a vital and yet burdensome cost of living, again, whatever one's stripes it can't be denied... must be political.

While the UK is lapsing into private sector shared responsibility, the US (or, the current administration) is pushing it ever more into the realm of full-coverage, taxpayer burdened. We are already trillions of dollars in debt, and that debt swells every second. To compound matters, the Obama administration is shoving these issues in the face of religious institutions, especially the Roman Catholic Church. Now, me, I think the RCs are bleating sheep, because they raised not a peep about Obamacare until it suddenly became evident that their own constituency was up in arms... but now, for better or for worse, willing or not, they are taking a stand (and again, it's not just the RCs).

Obama didn't sell well his plan, and it didn't pass in a fair and honest fashion. One elected official switched parties after being elected, from Republican to Democrat, and cast a vote for Obamacare, one of the crucial votes needed (even one less meant it wouldn't have passed). Whatever side you're on, I think everyone would agree, this is a direct betrayal of the people who elected you (and he was tossed out in 2010, hated by one side as a Benedict Arnold, by the other as a useful idiot)—if the situation had been reversed, the Democrats too, would be screaming foul.

This is why, birthed in ignominy and despised through its infancy, most of the nation now wants to strangle Obmacare in its cradle.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.66.23.11
Posted on Friday, August 31, 2012 - 06:16 pm:   

So when the Republicans are deliberately sabotaging huge numbers of policies which would directly benefit the US public (see above), why are the US public not jumping up and protesting against the behaviour of the republicans? Instead they're complaining about the most beneficial thng that Obama has managed to slip through the net. The naivity of the American people in swallowing the republican party lines (and the huge corporate interests that go with that) is mind-boggling.
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Allybird (Allybird)
Username: Allybird

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 202.174.163.204
Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2012 - 12:50 am:   

Another interesting article.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/terry-oneill/medicare-romney-ryan-budget_b_1844950 .html
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2012 - 03:41 am:   

Again, Weber—no one knew what was in the bill, not even the promoting politicians (see Pelosi quote, above). And, and again, Republicans weren't "deliberately sabotaging" anything. That's like saying, if the Democrats vote against a tax cut for the rich, they're "deliberately sabotaging" the proposal... uh, no, that's a loaded propagandistic phrase: what it's really called, is a difference of vision and opinion, expressed politically.

Again I feel compelled to put you, Weber, on the hot-seat: I'm just curious how—okay, you explained the "render unto Ceasar" line, and it makes sense. But Jesus never said, You must support Ceasar's views, even if they go against Mine, and if you have an alternative available. The Democrats have it in their plank, it's part of their "mission" if you will, to make abortions widely available throughout the land; the Republicans, do not, and have it in their plank to have it eventually excised (legally). You, Weber, are pro-life and not pro-choice; so how can you voice support for a party that is committed to keeping abortions legal, common, and constant—in direct opposition to your own Church!—and yet be so against the party that does not? Is this not a tad, well... not so great, in the eyes of the RC God? Because again, the Roman Catholic Church you worship in, has taken an extremely (dare I say, insanely?) adverse stance on abortion....
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.217.16
Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2012 - 09:07 am:   

Craig, refer to the filibuster issue above. That is deliberate sabotage. If you don't know what it means, look it up. I am against hypocrites and people who use their religion as a battering ram to attack people with. That is how romney comes across. That is why I am against him. Obama being pro abortion is unfortunate imo but you can't judge people just on one issue. You have to look at the wider picture.
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Joel (Joel)
Username: Joel

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 2.24.39.218
Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2012 - 11:46 am:   

The US health reform bill was extensively and publicly debated for a long time, Craig. Are you seriously trying to tell us that Obama presented the bill to be voted on while refusing to disclose its contents? If true, that would have been an international scandal and he would have been impeached. But it's not true: it's yet another Republican canard of the kind you habitually echo like some kind of specialist search engine for total bullshit.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.145.130.231
Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2012 - 11:51 am:   

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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Saturday, September 01, 2012 - 03:58 pm:   

A teacher makes War & Peace "available" for his students to read three days before a comprehensive test on the novel. Would one call that fair and above-board? Apply now to Obamacare.

http://youtu.be/ACbwND52rrw Keep in mind, that's a Democrat & proponent of the bill speaking!

Forget the bill itself—Jesus Christ, is this what we want from our leaders?! It requires far more trust in elected officials than I frankly have....

'Cause what they do
In Washington
They just takes care
of number one
And number one ain't you
You ain't even number two....

-- Frank Zappa
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Monday, September 03, 2012 - 05:31 pm:   

Back to the moon above: I read this today...

http://news.yahoo.com/eureka-light-bulb-solar-storm-erupts-active-sun-122042380. html

... And think—forget about Moon-landing denials and all that fun-to-imagine fantasy—anyone can wonder: With the technology capable of doing this (1995 tech!), why oh why do we not send a sophisticated rover of some kind to the so-relatively-close-it's-practically-next-door Moon?! I mean, how awesome would that be, a "Moon Channel"? Where you can tune in and watch the rover roving, hither and yon, upon the crater-y surface? Where we can get some more up-to-date photos of the damned place? (Really, the pics we have on record, they're friggin' embarrassing.)

Want to return to Moon-landing-musings? Maybe actual footage from the Moon, would look a whole lot different from all those old pics of the Moon we know so (too?) well... so different, that people would start to scratch their heads and go, "Waitaminnit here...."

Perhaps we're not going back, exactly because we could do it so easily now, the results proving so amazing....
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, September 06, 2012 - 05:48 pm:   

For you, Weber: Here's your beloved American Democrats at work. Forget for the moment what they're voting on, that's irrelevant: just look at the process here! It's tin-pot dictatorships that govern this way.

Antonio Villaraigosa, Democrat Mayor of Los Angeles and Chair of the Democratic Convention, can only be one of two things: deaf, or lying. Listen to the audio yourself, you tell me….

Note the female flouter of democracy who pipes up behind him: "You've gotta rule, then you've gotta let them do what they're gonna do." I.e., impose your imperial will, then let the masses eat cake. Sounds like what one of your English king's servile hangers-on might have said, in ye good ol' days….

http://youtu.be/09cEwnivdr0
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.50.32
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 12:15 am:   

The interesting parts start at 3:00 and 4:40. Aldrin and Armstrong adopt different responses reflecting their personalities. I applaud Armstrong's and completely understand Aldrin's.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7KgdehBBsw
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.50.32
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 12:23 am:   

I don't know why I'm reducing myself to doing this, but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo11-LRO-March2012.jpg
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Simon Bestwick (Simon_b)
Username: Simon_b

Registered: 10-2008
Posted From: 213.106.77.123
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 12:50 am:   

Totally understand Aldrin's reaction, and I have to say that's not a bad right hook for a 72-year-old man.

Armstrong, though, handles Sibrel with real class.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:29 am:   

Gee. Why don't they swear on the Bible? I do find it odd... I didn't know they weren't willing to do that, and now that does seem to be more evidence against them.

I hate to say this, but I'm even more disinclined to believe the evidence. Sure, this interviewer's a jerk, no doubt. But....

I've seen those photos Proto. I'm just wondering why we've gotten no better photos? Why we don't go again? Why no missions, no rovers of incredible sophistication, have gone back? Why no plans to build a moon base—and when they are proposed, they're ridiculed? (Witness Newt Gingrich, this year.) Why am I the only one asking these questions? Am I the really last person left with an open mind?...

I also honestly don't know the history of the Russian moon missions. Can someone in just a couple of sentences tell me—did they make it, and is there photographic evidence/footage available?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 82.145.208.162
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:35 am:   

Check out the documentary Apollo 18. That'll tell you why they didn't go back.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.50.32
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:40 am:   

Honestly, Craig, you can't expect someone else to do your research for you: the Russian attempt was discussed earlier in this very thread.

Why haven't we sent a rover to the Moon? Off the top of my head it's because we don't need to. It's close enough to do good telescope work. Also because it's simply a lot less interesting than Mars from which there's much more to learn geologically, biologically and meteorlogically.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:42 am:   

Ah, it looks like they didn't make it. Oh well.

Why is doubt about our going there, consonant with beings somehow anti-science, anti-etc.? I'm just chronically distrusting of government, and government-controlled information/propaganda.

Remember "Star Wars" everyone? Reagan's proposed anti-nuclear-assault defense, supposedly being developed in the 1980's? It was all a lie... a feint... a fake-out.

Anyone ever heard of "wikileaks"? Governments routinely lie and cover-up all sorts of shit. Government isn't your friend. Government info is to be distrusted first and foremost, then analyzed for potential facts in evidence. The other approach—trust first, verify later—is robotic goose-stepping.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.50.32
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:42 am:   

Actually, I forgot to say, the Soviets never did get their lander to the moon, though they did send probes.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.50.32
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:44 am:   

"robotic goose-stepping"

Oops, the Nazi Alarm just went off.
End of discussion.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:44 am:   

So that's why we don't go back to the Moon, Proto?

And why didn't that one astronaut swear on the Bible? "It's probably fake," he said. Oh, sure, that's why.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:45 am:   

The irony—that he thought the Bible was fake! Ha!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:54 am:   

Here's a perfectly possible explanation of all, utterly simplified:

We made giant radiation bombs and covertly set two off in Japan (with Japanese resistance forces—remember, Japan is the one major world power to never have developed nuclear weapons) at the end of WWII. The Soviets believed our propaganda that we had air-transportable (soon to be missile-transportable) nuclear weapons, and we needed this belief, as a giant "Beware of Dog!" sign to keep them at bay, because there really was a world-wide potential and deadly "red menace." That nuclear "race" morphed into a second space "race," where we Texas Hold-'Em-bluffed, over just over 40 years, the Russians into pushing in all their chips (i.e., bankrupting them), and finally folding, their empire collapsing.

Do I believe this? Not really. But I wouldn't put it past anyone to have done this.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.50.32
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:55 am:   

I thought Mr. Armstrong was a credic to your country in that clip, Craig. Calm and witty in the face of shrill lunacy (and I choose the word and its etymology carefully).

He's right. The bible IS fake. They all are. Council of Nicea, and all. Or maybe I'm wrong and a magic ghost in the clouds did write it.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.50.32
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:57 am:   

I'm off to watch BORED TO DEATH now.
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.216.157
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 02:17 am:   

Craig,do you Americans really, genuinely vote on things according to who can shout loudest?

Do you not, in these computerised days, not have a system where you say "those in favour press the yes button"?

If this is your proof that Obama is in some way evil, try harder.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 05:38 am:   

This thread has gotten quite bizarre.

Proto, just as "robotic goose-stepping" seems to have pushed off the Nazi button for you (however that reaction's relevant), so does claiming "the Bible IS fake" sends it off for me. Not because I necessarily disagree with you, just as I'm sure those who "robotically goose-step" to their governments is something you'd agree with either.

But anyone who goes on even a one-line rant about the Bible being fake, the councils of Nicea, magic ghosts in the clouds... it's an argument-ender. To me, saying the Bible is "fake" by running to ghosts and Councils, is completely missing the point (unless you're telling a very sophisticated joke I'm missing). It'd be like saying Shakespeare's just a bunch of stories made up by some guy in England. Or the American Constitution is just a piece of paper with writing on it. One doesn't have to believe in the "truths" of the Bible (I don't), to acknowledge its various and powerful "Truths."

Not to mention, why then doesn't the astronaut just put his damned hand on it and swear? Why?!?!
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 05:42 am:   

Weber... ugh, okay....

First, Obama is not evil—btw, neither is Romney.

Second, your response is like saying, "Well why didn't the poor dead car-jacking victim learn the value of mass transit, and so be taking to work the bus instead? He'd be alive right now!"
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.216.157
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 08:50 am:   

PLease answer my queston Craig.

Do you genuinely decide things in America by who can shout the loudest in a room? Is that really the extent of "democracy" in America? Is there no system of actually counting the yes and no votes to guarantee an accurate answer?
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.155.216.157
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 09:15 am:   

In our country when votes are taken in council meetings it's done by people raising their hands - and then a count can be taken. Then there's none of the nonsense in your video above. I really can't believe that you use a system of voting where if a section of those on one side of the argument have a sore throat (or have quieter voices naturally than people on the opposing side) their votes won't be heard...
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Tony (Tony)
Username: Tony

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 217.42.48.249
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 09:52 am:   

Craig - I don't know why you come on here when I read all this. Facebook is much lighter.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.44.198
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 12:47 pm:   

"... it's an argument-ender."

Yes, it is.

I was a fool to think that when you said you wanted evidence, you wanted evidence. Of course you didn't. It's the last thing you wanted to see. Anyway, the facts are there should you want them.
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Carolinec (Carolinec)
Username: Carolinec

Registered: 06-2009
Posted From: 92.232.244.38
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:38 pm:   

Good grief! You all hold strong views on either side of the political/religious/scientific divides, but why do you have to attack each other so much for those views? We all have a right to our views. If we don't like other people's views that's fine, but we shouldn't attack them for their views. Chill, you guys, please!

"Facebook is much lighter."
Is it? I'm seriously thinking I might end up joining it after all ...
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Weber (Weber_gregston)
Username: Weber_gregston

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 194.66.23.11
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 01:41 pm:   

I'm not attacking anybody. I'm asking a question which still hasn't been answered.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 04:22 pm:   

Weber, that was a Democratic convention platform amendment. No, it's not how we run our representative republic, and you do bring up a good point (without realizing it )—this is exactly not government at work, but the equivalent of a club tinkering with its own internal rules: it has no bearing on government, laws, etc. To me, it's indicative of the corruption of our elected leaders... but then, I guess the fact that elected leaders can be corrupt, is nothing new....

Concerning this, I had to admire the overt Machiavellian quip Representative Barney Frank (D) took, with a smirk, on an interview I saw a couple years back: he said, if the people didn't want corrupt leaders, they shouldn't elect them. I.e., the people are to be blamed for corruption, not our corrupt leaders. Gotta love logic like that....
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 04:29 pm:   

Proto, there's a whole wide swath of Christians, who could give you all the evidence you want that the Bible is all true, front to back.

I'm not buying them. But there'd be no acrimony on either side. No need for anyone to be a torch-bearing Torquemada.

And sorry—again, you should know if you don't that going around trumpeting your Bible-hatred is, well... let's just say... unseemly, in polite company....
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 147.252.230.148
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 04:59 pm:   

I'm afraid you're making huge assumptions there. I don't hate the bible any more than I hate the yellow pages.
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 05:02 pm:   

It sure seems like you hate the yellow pages.

Maybe you're not aware of that...?
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.196.160
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 06:58 pm:   

As the world's foremost expert on my emotions, I assure you, you are quiet wrong.
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Protodroid (Protodroid)
Username: Protodroid

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 109.79.196.160
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 07:00 pm:   

Damn, that sass would have a lot more zing if there wasn't a spelling mistake in there.
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John Forth (John)
Username: John

Registered: 05-2008
Posted From: 82.24.1.217
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 08:17 pm:   

The quiet wrong are okay. It's the loud wrong who are a problem.

This used to be such a nice thread...
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Friday, September 07, 2012 - 09:03 pm:   

You mean, way back when it was dick jokes?
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David_lees (David_lees)
Username: David_lees

Registered: 12-2011
Posted From: 92.22.61.240
Posted on Wednesday, September 19, 2012 - 05:42 pm:   

This is an interesting article about the now mostly forgotten opposition to the moon mission in America: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/09/moondoggle-the-forgotten-o pposition-to-the-apollo-program/262254/
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2012 - 06:35 am:   

I like that song, "Whitey on the Moon."

Though it should be titled, "Whitey Allegedly on the Moon."
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Craig (Craig)
Username: Craig

Registered: 03-2008
Posted From: 99.126.164.88
Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2012 - 06:53 am:   

There was a clock in America, tonight, that was well-cleaned....

Sorry. It's a consensus.

"He that hath ears to hear, let him hear."--Matthew 11:15

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