Dear Mr. Bush,

Please don't. It's ok. You deserve a break. Hell, your hemorroihds deserve a break from almost 8 straight years of forcibly shitting on the constitution. Whatever you do, just please, put down your crayons, and stay away from anything policy-like.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
The Constituion, Bill of Rights, your hemorroids, the American people, a lot of really confused Iraqis still not sure why their country was invaded, and the neo-con popularity movement.

This message was not backed by the Association of Comedians who haven't had to work for material these last 8 years.

Ugh. I think I meant "endorphines" there. Teach me to post past my bed time.

I've always felt it's irrelevant. I will live my life by more empirical buddhist principles, where the point is that I have a happier and more peaceful fullfilling life in the long run if I'm more concerned about the well-being of myself and the people around me than materialistic concerns. I will be happier if I learn to let go of things beyond my control (loss of desire,) though that by no means makes it ok to not try to change for the better those things I can - not for hope of heaven or fear of hell, but because it is rewarding in and of itself.

With all the creation myths out there, I have to choose to believe in none, because not one has provided evidence of it's authenticity beyond the others, apart from the fact that they each say they are the only true way.

If there is a god who would throw me to some "hell" for eternity because of the accident of where I was born and the fact that I wasn't raised to the right religion, or was and didn't know it, even though I did my best, and would have done it that god's way if they had left some verifiable evidence, then I would rather take hell over that monster's company anyway.

But more likely, there is nothing beyond death, and what we can verify around us is all there is. Every time science advances, god is reinvented anyway, from tribal deities, to the designer of a newtonian clockwork, from somewhere just above the sky, to just outside 11 dimensional space/time.

The final problem is if there is a god and an afterlife, all the things wrong in the world are somehow OK, and that makes all the injustices throughout millenia done in the name of religions justifiable, which is a terrifying thought in and of itself. The biggest problem with belief in an afterlife is a feeling that inequalities here on earth will be made right, and if, as I suspect, they will not and this is all there is, religious belief takes away from the fact that all mankind should be working together for our own greater good, for a better quality of life for eveyone alive.

Most likely, they will merely find that an uncontrolled flood of oxytocin and endomorphines combined with oxygen deprivation and misfiring synapses haveing to do with the body's orientaion of "self" actually are the culprit for NDE's, and religious people will continue to debate with reality, as they have for centuries upon centuries.

Simply picking a dangerously conservative idealogue like Palin was nothing more than a McCain twist on wedge politics - just like the fear that a gay couple getting married could somehow desanctify marriage and cause a divorce tomorrow or something brought out the religious bigots in droves to vote, so now does Palin. The part where it all may backfire is exactly what this headline says - wedge politics not only fire up the base, but often decide undecideds, only republicans should have seen that the wedge isn't as likely to divide the surplus to their side this time. Eventually, people start to notice that the wool over their eyes has been hiding something not in their best interest, even if it seems to take the average voter an absurdly long time.

No conservatives anymore? Actually, compared to virtually all other nations, the US hasn't got a political left. Republicans take a hard right approach, and Dem's just take a weak right approach. A true political hard left would be a communist party, with a weak left of a socialist party.

Of course, I'm only talking about what they claim to be - actually our "conservatives" lately have been incredibly on the tax-and-spend side of things fiscally ever since the neo-cons took over the republican party. The trouble is that all the spending is on third-world nation type concerns that benefit only those already rich or those who like serving in the military at wartime. At least some liberal spending would be economically beneficial to the country instead of a few rich bastards, saudi arabia, and china, as the current administration has made it.

The funny part of it all is that our "liberal" side is now the more protectionist, our conservative side more guilty of flagrant deficit spending. Meanwhile, true to the part of siding with the rich, republicans policies are breaking our economy because they fear regulation, which is simply a set of rules to play by. Apparently conservatives also fear history books, where it warns about fat cat economics, and what happens when you don't have firm anti-trust laws and such.

Here's another thing to look at - ever wonder why our prison population and recividism rate are so vastly higher than other westernised nations? It really started to break the camel's back when we started hard-line republican "tough-on-crime" legislation that just said, "we're scared of criminals, lock them up and give them nothing more to live for. Make it harder for them to get jobs, lose the stigma or anything else, and maybe it will make less crimes happen." Yet had we taken a less terrified "liberal" approach, we could have been looking at canadian or european crime levels, by simply paying attention to consequences of such legislation - ie when it's tough to get a job and prison doesn't care about rehabilitation or teaching skills, going back to crime is just a whole lot easier.

That's where conservative fear is the problem - conservatism as pragmatism is useful, it keeps some common sense in among the idealism, but when it becomes a knee-jerk fear reaction with no attention to consequences, you get exactly the negative impact we've been seeing all along with the bush admin.

White trash priviledge extends to calling Obama "Osama" and using his middle name to show how xenophobic and racist one is, I might add.

Also, noone said Mrs. Palin said she should be treated better for it - she doesn't need to. She will be anyway. Nor is the "mantle of white privilege" something to pin against her, so much as an observation of how very hypocritical the right is and how they get away with using those two words again- racism and xenophobia.

Truthfully, the left doesn't need to pin that against her. We have the weight of the fact that people will get bored of her whining about sexism in the face of legitimate questions and start to ask them anyway, and when they do they will find out she's a tragically uninformed right-wing idealogue who is dangerous in her fundamentalism, cronyism, and other ways in which she mirrors Bush - only in an even more back-woods hick way. We don't even have to call her inexperienced - we just have to compare her experience to another religious wing-nut who was against big government even as they implemented it, and had executive experience as a governor. His name, again, is Bush. Lastly, as glaringly anti-intellectual and irrational as his term in office has been, one can compare that Bush's education makes him look genius next to Palin.

Even if McCain were JFK, George Wahington, Thomas Jefferson, and Lincoln all rolled into one, at his age, having Palin a heartbeat from the presidency would still make him a gamble not worth taking, and McCain's a far cry from any such historic figure.

Have to agree with the cynic in all of this - of course Bush is following Obama's ideas - here at the end of his term, he has to do some damage control, and someone's spouting off some common sense. Sure, he's 7 years late in taking it, but what the hell. Why not? What's funny is McSame is only 90% up Bush's ass, so these new good (stolen) ideas he's shitting out haven't made it far enough down the republican intestinal tract for him to start spouting out. He's still stuck at the surge.

Meanwhile, I agree - in the end, all these politicians are much too much alike, and probably really don't care about any of us. However, even if almost every last thing out of their mouth is BS, at least Obama's talk is BS in the right direction, while McCain's is tragically muddled talking points from Bush's '04 election. Somewhere along the way, a scrap or 2 of it might work it's way over and actually benefit me, whereas NOTHING the republicans are trying to sell have any positives for me, so I'll still get my cynical butt in gear and throw a vote in the popularity contest for the guy who at least actually has some brains. It can't hurt, and a vote for the guy older than the earth his prospective VP believes in just may.

what - Black sunday?

What's to say really? If the loons legally agree under one system to operate within it's bounds and then within a further stricture (once again, WITHIN the secular system's laws, including methods of enforcement) then there should be no conflict.

The big issue should be making sure that their following of Sharia rules in no way violates that of the greater society they live in. Beyond that, I agree with everything Klifferd said about sharia law, so I'm just not sure why anyone would agree to follow it. In the end though, there is no generalized law against stupidity.

Oh, and feeding christians to the lions was a move done by the Romans in the name of their religion, just like burning ignorant peasants as witches and taking their property was done by christians in the name of their religion. So I'd say it didn't work out that well, especially since the bullied so often end up as bullies themselves.

They find positives to believing in an invisible friend who apparently makes people jump around speaking gibberish, and is obviously concerned both with Alaskan oil pipelines and making hundreds of thousands die in an Iraqi holy war?

The ridiculous part is most of these far-right christian types are amazingly unlike what the Bible describes their christ as being like. In fact, I find myself often more concerned with following the teachings of Jesus than many christians, who seem seem more concerned with old testament judgementalism and use of "god" to support their biases. Yet I'm so atheist I think all christians (as well as any other follower of an invisible friend, ie. muslims, hindus, jews, definitely mormons, wiccans, pagans, etc.) should all recieve psychological treatment akin to that given to schizophrenics. I realize that sounds uncharitable, but I mean it for the good of humanity. Religion has it's ideals, and it's moments of clarity and beauty, but you can have those without thinking there is a god or afterlife that will make everything right, when it won't necessarily be. Not to mention that those few moments of beauty and clarity exist on a framework that can be taken and misused for virtually every kind of crime against humanity imaginable.

Sorry, but there are no positives to catering to a system of beliefs based on being delusional.

Typical. McAlzheimers can't remember using the same phrase about Hillary Clinton, but can sure jump on Obama about it. Actually, seemed to jump to the conclusion fast enough, maybe he noticed that with her views on every socially progressive issue, Palin is a pig. Or maybe her pork spending that he turned down made him connect the dots really fast. Meanwhile, somewhere out there, some idiot will actually believe that's what Obama meant, because it's what they want to hear.

Of course, now that the price is dropping, the oil companies can pull back on supply, creating an artificial shortage, and keeping the prices still inflated.

I don't remember who, but some comedian once said, "I don't mean to go nuts with conspiracies, but if we had elected the CEO of IHOP into the white house, and by the time they left, pancakes had gone up nationally by 400%, people might start talking."

Just another way the rich get richer off the poor, and republicans still convince "values voters" that they're really looking out for them. Even as McSame want to drill for that 3% next decade and make it look like he's doing something for the american people. Meanwhile, if we instituted some sort of renewable energy policy, that made use of wind, geothermal, nuclear, solar, and wave/tidal, one has to wonder what that would do to oil speculations. Sad thing about that hope is oil lobbyists have a lot more money than the more green groups, so not hard to see how that one will play out.

I love how the media manages to drum up scary stories to get a headline. Particle flung out from cosmic events hit our atmostphere with more energy than the LHC will ever be capable of, and noone's fallen in a black hole yet. Anyone with the barest understanding of the physics at play here knows better, but they keep printing about people whining about that.

Meanwhile, I'm extremely excited as well. Possiblities of delving into enough mass to produce some evidence of supersymmetry if it's there, the Higgs boson waiting to be found, or even a forced reworking of the current standard model. Any advance into the very nature of reality is incredibly exhilerating.

And, as was said, it's the politicians that misuse the gifts scientists give us. Don't knock advanced technology when someone finds a draconian application. Misguided leaders have been finding ways of having old men talk young men into killing eachother and innocent bystanders since the sharp stick was noticed. However, even a relatively simple system like GPS would fail if we didn't have an advanced understanding of relativety. Science is our future.

Oh, and one comparison of ripping tags off pillows as being on par with the concept of putting another inept bumbling small town crony-loving theocrat in office. I'm sorry, little things like what Damon said about someone who believes dinosaurs roamed the earth 4k years ago having the codes to nukes worries me, as well it should. But i guess nuclear (i'm sorry, nukular) war isn't something we should be afraid of. Pillow tags are just as important because in the end, god will make it all ok. Unless you're jewish, of course.

Nice. I give actual reasons why the left can't stand the republican's hickville hockey mom, and get "she's a breath of fresh air." They're right, the issues really don't matter.

People even have to ask what the left's problem with Palin is?

Wow. Let me see, we'll start with the left's odd preoccupation with schooling. Alaska has some of the lowest scores and graduation rates in the country, and Sarah Palin is the type who reduces funding to libraries and museums and other educational services. Plus, she would like to see creationism taught alongside evolution in a day and age when American schools are already floundering against other nations in terms of math and science. So, she'll do nothing to help the further loss of higher paying jobs that require decent education levels. Lovely.

Next, the left is sick of Bush with his bumbling near-theocratic agenda, that Palin supports whole heartedly, with such things as her stated belief in the Iraq war being "god's will." I thought we left the crusades in the last millenia. Silly me.

We on the left are a little sick of the constant neo-con hypocrisy, making her further lies on everything from the bridge to nowhere to her obvious success at teaching her own family her vaunted "abstinence" a little unpalatable, and none of that begins to cover my disgust that the chest-thumping "we're number 1!" crowd of republicans who can't let a little slip of Michelle Obama's go have nothing to say about her support for a group that wants to secede from the US!

Arguments about her fiscal responsibility show both a touch of responsibility where she can advertise it, and a lot of waste spending as soon as she thinks noone will catch it.

Finally, as sick as I am of the Bush years, cronyism has got to go, and every single article I've read about her management as mayor and governor say she's more worried about people supporting her "side" than their expertise. Didn't we see enough of that somewhere around Katrina?

She is, as written before, a right wing talibaptist type, a loon, and after all we've been through, even more than McSame, Bush in drag. We don't need four more years of Bush policies in McCain, and we really don't need them coming in from some uneducated slighty insane arch-conservative country bumkin.

oh well, been meaning to go vegetarian for a while now, then i just have to worry about the e. coli. yay for the bush administration's continued concern for science and the people who elected him one time.

I wish god would rain nachos.

Huh. He must have missed being around them. No wonder he joined the republican party. Now he's got all those wonderful Ted Haggarty types in his life again.

Wow. Disturbing new meaning to getting head in the back seat.

ALRIGHT, FINE, LORD, I BELIEVE! Now, can you just get on turning my whole tub into wine please?

Shameful. I've already viewed the link 42 times, and every time I see something new that makes the baby jeebus cry. I will go view it again, to pray for their forgiveness. And again. And again.

All I can say is good for Florida, but the actual article was depressing to read. I wish the best to the teacher, but ow. The way some people willfully hold onto their ignorance is amazing. People don't even begin to grasp just how much science affects their lives. GPS systems couldn't even operate if it weren't for our understanding of relativity and time dilation effects, for instance. Try explaining that to an average high school grad anymore. Back in the day, (lol, i sound old) Einstein was on par with a rockstar, now "elitist" is a dirty word. Maybe the trend is finally coming around. Even if it is, though, how someone can believe in a talking snake and an angry tribal deity who hates both gays as well as polyester blends for fabric, over a rather simple concept like natural selection is beyond me.

In our government? Virtually none are on solid footing, and no, I will not come close to laying sole culpability on Bush for that one. Try going back to Reagan. So many people remember the 80's as a time of decadence, and go figure! We started borrowing money hand over fist, these supposedly conservative smaller-gov types figured out that just because we had zero dollars in the treasury didn't mean we had to stop spending. We began deficit spending like a freshman who had just taken out college loans and suddenly noticed their surplus of beer money. The hangover's coming, along with the bankruptcy, and it's not going to be pretty.

However, one may notice that these government programs since then, primarily military and having little or nothing to do with ACTUAL home defense, are (with the exception of the clinton era, and he was fiscally rather conservative, actually) all run by republicans who claim to hate the very government they're running. Go figure they can't make it work right, and shame on all of the american public who haven't seen through the ruse, that these self-same "conservatives" have grown government spending exponentially, all while selling themselves as pro-smaller government.

Also, FFS, where do the people arguing with my previous statement pull their facts from? One wants to blame our oil problems on our lack of additional drilling. Talk to the oil companies about why the won't drill on all the land they already have if you want the answer to that, not me. Then, when you've convinced them to, see if they affect the price by even a measly 10%. Gas has gone up about 400% in a mere decade, and by the way, more drilling would take an additional decade to have any effect whatsoever.

Final two things here. Calling our government "already socialized" and placing the blame there for our econmic issues is a neat way of viewing the world, but apparently so is LSD. Actually, it's beginning to look a lot like a global version of the old corporate "fat cats" issue we had before anti-trust laws became a necessity. To function at all, even a free market has to operate within a decent framework. True laissez faire econmics are actually anarchy, and like all power vaccuums eventually fill, and as in the real world, not with the nice guy going to do the most good for people, but with the biggest bully. Follow up on your late 19th and early 20th century history, you seem doomed to try and repeat it right now. We've just changed the scale from national to global. Also, "Bushlovertwo," apparently we need a bit of nanny government, because right now according to the world health organization, we're number 37 in the world for quality of healthcare.