“Cunt”'s a slur.
A seasoned driver with a 0.08 BAC is far less of a threat than a teenager with a learner’s permit.
People who refer to their favorite team as “we,” and feel a sense of accomplishment when they win are fucking stupid. You had absolutely nothing to do with their victory. Profesional atheletes are in it for the money and couldn’t give two shits about the fans.
Here are some of mine.
[ul]
[li] Better than litter duty, detentions, or irate letters to apathetic parents, is the cane. The cane is the answer to the vast majority of disciplinary problems faced in schools today. The benefits of the cane are twofold:[/li]
(i) It hurts.
(ii) It is the only meaningful sanction which can be administered immediately after offensive behaviour. The closer the association between the offense and the reprisal, the less likely it is that it will happen again.
[li] Monotheistic religions are inimical to genuine tolerance, and those people who consider themselves both deeply religious and deeply tolerant are either scripturally ignorant, have not thought their beliefs through, or don’t really believe them. Not that these options are mutually exclusive.[/li][li] DJ’s are not musicians. They should not be venerated as such.[/li][li] Pimp-worshipping, woman-hating, drug-saturated, bling-drenched, pathologically avaricious, thug-life hip-hop, grime, and garage “artists” genuinely are corrupting our youth.[/li]
[/ul]
Reading a lot is not that much different than watching TV or surfing the web a lot. Especially if the stuff being read is the kind of schlep that makes it on the bestsellers list. Anyone who pats themselves on the back just because they average 5 books a week–and yet looks down on anyone who spends the same amount of time intaking the same stories via video–is a pathetic idiot. Unless you’re under 10 and are in the RIF program, that is.
Nothing is more boring than pit threads about lousy drivers.
Whenever someone starts a “What’s the stupidest/most ignorant thing you’ve ever heard” thread, I have to restrain myself from posting about stuff said on the SDMB.
The Federal Government needs to get out of the student loan business. Student loans have become entirely too easy to get. A college education is NOT a right and there are millions of college students who do not need to be there. I’m all for student loans and need-based-financial-aid of all kinds- Pell grants, even, but the non-credit based/non-GPA based/non-major based loans for students that the government gives have so inflated colleges that diplomas are becoming worth less every year, making them mandatory for decent jobs (car salesmen need college degrees at some places- that’s ridiculous!) and I don’t understand why parents need to pass a credit check but students don’t or why the caps are the same whether the person is going into a lucrative health sciences career or getting a B.A. in romance language poetry.
When I worked for the Dept of Ed in student loans you wouldn’t believe the number of people I spoke with who have a Masters in English or some equally “license to print money” degree that enabled them to get a $26,000 per year job who have 3 times their yearly income in student loan debts, ALL of it either funded from public monies OR guaranteed by the government (and it’s going to go into default, period, count on it).
At every college I’ve ever attended or worked at, the stupidest students I have known were, as often as not, Education majors. Oh, this is not to say that all Education majors are stupid- I’ve known several who were very bright- but they were outnumbered by the walking braindead who answered the old “Why isn’t our children learnin’?” question by themselves.
While I agree that many things are done wrong in America and should be reformed, at the same time I really don’t give a damn what Europeans or Asians think of American lifestyles or attitudes. We’re not European or Asian, we have an incomparably different geography/ethnic makeup/history/mindset, and while I’m not at all averse to learning from systems that do things better most European/Asian institutions simply are not going to work here. We cannot get rid of our cars (our cities evolved differently and a lot more recently), most mid sized cities and smaller cannot afford good mass transit, we are not going to pay $5 per gallon in gas taxes, and socialized medicine just does not work as well as profit driven capitalist medicine. (When I was uninsured I was terrified too, but I’m increasingly convinced that socialized medicine isn’t the answer- subsidized health insurance premiums to private companies [using money saved from student loans and aid to dependent children] is more viable.)
Anybody who says money is not important has never paid a bill. Money’s like food and water: having it doesn’t make you happy, but not having it sure as hell makes you miserable.
And while I have no problem admitting Israel is very much sinning as well as sinned against and that the USA has done some very evil very destructive stuff to other countries, Fundamentalist Muslims are the most fucked up ethnicity on Earth. They are not peaceful and misguided and responding to a modern world that’s threatening their traditions, they are easily led group thinking dangerous mongoloids. One of many reasons that I’m against the war is that, residents of the cradle of civilization or not, the Muslim world has devolved into a land led and dominated by chest thumping savages. (On the individual level I am sure there are hundreds of thousands of exceptions, but I am talking their leadership and most vocal representatives.)
I am always pissed by how much some liberal intellectuals and professors will contort and twist themselves to defend Fundamentalist Muslims (usually at the expense of the US) but will at the same time trash Fundamentalist Christians (who I don’t like either) at the drop of a hijab. Fundamentalist Christians are also dangerous with heavy stupid and or crazy contingents and occasionally dangerous fucked up members, but they’re as yet incomparable to Fundamentalist Muslims, who are fucked up backwards individuals on a damned near unprecedented world scale. They behead homosexuals, go apeshit and murderous over cartoons of their prophet, won’t allow women to drive, cut off clits, believe heaven is chock full of virgins for those who blow themselves up and kill innocent people even though the Quran never says that, and allow no dissent in their country- these and many other things are totally indefensible. This conclusion is drawn not from Fox News but from observation, reading, and discussions with people from these nations.
I think that Saddam was indeed an evil sick s.o.b. and that most of the negative propaganda about him was either true or based in truth, but I also think that a brutal totalitarian bastard is the only possible type who could bring anything like peace or stability to an ersatz country like Iraq. That’s not justifying, just explaining. Iraq should never have been formed (it made as much sense as it would to tear off the north of Mexico, southern California, all of Arizona and NM, parts of Texas, throwing in some Indian reservations and a bunch of Mormon communities for good measure, and saying “Aw’ight Spanish speakers/English speakers/native language speakers/Mormons/Protestants/Catholics/irreligious/white folks/Hispanics/blacks/natives/etc. with absolutely no shared history or cultural bonds, y’all go be a happy country” and being shocked when 60 years later the only person who can rule them effectively is a total bastard. Partitioning into separate entities is the only thing that will ever end the civil wars (if anything will- Pakistan’s hardly a success after all).
I’m an atheist. I say with some embarassment that I have very real prejudices against religious people, even those who are liberal Christians and the like. That said, I think that people like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris who claim that religion is the reason the world is so fucked up but who exonerate Pol Pot/Stalin/Mao as “communist fanatics” are being self deluded, commercially provocative, and or just stupid. It would seem a reasonable “so obvious you can’t ignore it” that the enemy isn’t religion but fanaticism and the blind obedience to anything that offers quick and easy bite sized answers. I’d rather deal with a moderate Methodist than an atheist who believes the sky is falling any day.
Speaking of liberal intellectuals, I blame the massacre at V-Tech largely on bleeding heart advocacy groups for the mentally ill. They have tied the hands of therapists/counsellors/mental health service agencies so much over the past few decades that when a violent sick fuck like the murderer there is found and people are terrified of him and numerous people feel threatened, it’s damned near impossible to do anything to involuntarily commit him or even expel him for fear of violating his “rights” and risking everything from lawsuit to investigation.
I dont like most cats.
People who hate American Idol are really just too stupid to get it.
There are so many posts in this thread that would make for excellent conversation/debate fodder.
But starting such would break the thread’s rules.
(Did I just do that, anyway?)
Bob stopped following collegiate football in 1908.
I think the way to do it is to pick one you like, start a new thread, and link to it. Then discuss away.
[Perry Farrell] Some people should die, that’s just unconscious knowledge[/PF]
There are no such things as atheists. Science is as much a religion as Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, etc.
Tolerating intolerance is stupid.
Life is about choice and balance. Everything will right itself or be eliminated.
Neither do I. They scratch the rectum like all hell.
I can’t speak for others, but I think one reason people are posting in here is they don’t have the time or energy to debate it at the moment.
Here’s something I’ll only say in the Pit because it is debate-worthy and I’ve been called a Queersling for saying it by some of fellow So[m]domites:
I think it’s very selfish for gay couples (especially gay male couples) to adopt “premium” newborns. I think the right gays can make excellent foster parents or adoptive parents to “non-premium” kids (i.e. those who are harder to place due to age or race or special-needs or whatever and may otherwise stay in foster care or group homes til they’re 18) and of course many gays have biological children (which if you’ve got the money to hire a surrogate or can work something out with a willing lesbian womb-owner or whatever AND you’re confident your relationship is stable, more power to you), but I don’t think they should privately adopt “first rung” newborns.
First let me tell you what my reason for saying this is not: it’s not because I think gays are more likely to abuse (sexually, emotionally, physically or in any other way) the child. No reliable study shows that they would be and respected studies in fact show that they are not. My big reasons are instead that
1- currently most states do not have laws that recognize same-sex unions and or two same-sex unwed parents. This means that if the relationship ever breaks up (and the best relationships do- not that gay guys are necessarily flakier than straight couples but thereagain, it’s not unusual for even a 25 year marriage to end in divorce) it could be really thoroughly nasty. “Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned”- I’ve known both gay and straight couples who went from thoroughly in love with each other to can’t stand the sight or mention of each other and will use anything for petty warfare, and gays are as likely to do this as straights, but unlike straight couples only one parent is protected legally. They can pay lawyers $50,000 and both sign parental agreements that seem airtight, but such agreements can be flipped over like a spasming catfish on hot asphalt by the right (or right winged) judge and jury. (Some states even have initiatives proposed specifically to counteract legal agreements between gay couples.)
2- Far lesser, but still worthy of mention (and the reason I’ve been called Queersling) is that a child raised by two gay men is going to have a harder time socially than a child raised by a straight couple. Sad but true. It may be different in Boston or NYC or parts of LA, and true biracial couples have this problem too (though that’s gotten better), but all factors being equal and in red or purple states especially a child raised by a straight couple of equal social status and domestic happiness is going to have to put up with a lot less shit. OTOH, the harder-to-place kids mentioned above, while they’ll still have to contend with prejudices, will still be much better off than they would be in foster care or group homes, but a “premium adoptable newborn” (i.e. the kind who have years-long waiting lists or cost gazillions in private adoptions) should have the family that will bring more happiness, and for reasons 1 & 2 that’s with straight couples. (This is NOT meant to imply in anyway whatever that a happy gay couple are lesser parents or less caring or whatever than an unhappy straight couple- far from it- but this is assuming gay v. straight couples of equal circumstance in socioeconomics and happiness).
Also, I wish there’d be less talk about gay marriage and more about standard workplace discrimination issues. Have people forgotten that gays can be legally fired in most states? It majorly pissed me off when I worked in southern universities where every other day some new memorandum or program to “honor diversity” was being announced but they wouldn’t even entertain the motion to add “sexual orientation” to the anti-discrimination policies. Ironically the two places I’ve worked that have had “cannot be fired for orientation” policies were both private: one was founded [but no longer owned by] Ross Perot and was super conservative, and the other is where I now work- a privately owned for-profit technical college with almost no humanities courses or diversity appreciation hollow catchphrases.
Where do they hold their services? And what about history, math, television, and literature?
A woman and her four children were found hanging by their necks in a trailer in Hudson Oaks, Texas. Mother and oldest 3 kids were dead, the 8 month old baby survived.
This is horrible. There’s no denying that.
But why does it need to make national news? How does it affect anybody outside of that family? Why do their need to be 4300 online articles about it already? It’s a sick fucking tragedy by a demented mind, the human equivalent of a tornado or a rabid dog, but it’s not national newsworthy. (And I’ll admit I enjoyed the Anna Nicole trainwreck as much as the next person, but I’ll also freely admit that wasn’t newsworthy either.)
Faith is a delusion and ought to be in the DSM.
Socialism has been tried. It has failed. Get over it, or move your ass to North Korea.
Redfrost’s ideas about atheism are a major cause of the violence and destruction in the world today and are completely indefensible. Promulgating those ideas is akin to handing crystal meth and RPGs to the criminally insane. The conflation of “Everyone Is Right” PC-ism and extreme anti-intellectualism will be looked on by later generations as worse than most of the things we decry these days, assuming there are later generations that have the right to think.
The people who bitch and whine about American society are racists, classists, or (commonly) both. They also tend to be anti-Semetic.
Israel was founded by morons for morons. Picking a tract of land based on where some of your distant ancestors may have lived thousands of years ago and then not taking a hint when EVERYONE IN THE REGION TRIES TO KILL YOU is, by far, the dumbest thing ever done to found a country. There can be no excuse for damning your children and grandchildren to endless car bombs, vests packed with C-4 and nails, and the threat of nuclear annhilation.
The UN is either an imperialist power or a useless Leage of Nations. For the good of the world, it needs to be a much stronger imperial power.
Don’t bother. Redfrost can’t comprehend that people exist who are not absolute blind-faith believers just like he is. Trying to convince him otherwise is a total waste of time. Sadly for the world, people with his delusion are quite common: They run the Intelligent Design movement, and form the core of the people who doubt anthropogenic global warming.
I’m with you about the gay issue. It’s the same as anthing else. Race, religion ,looks,whatever it’s all about passing judgment on the person standing next to you, down the street, across the ocean, where ever. Untill we as a people can get past it were pretty much doomed to suffer together until the last moment. That’s why I look up to my pal Jesus ----One man One act. That’s where it all starts.
But that rectum thing man, You got problems there . If you’ve graduated to cats you should give it a rest. It could get back to normal. I would leave the pots , pans and other kitchen utensils to those best suited for that task. Just relax and let the young uns’ do thier thing 
I don’t have to defend that statement in this thread, remember. Secondly, you are assuming I follow a Christian belief. What leads you to believe that? I’ll respond in more detail later, gotta see a client.
I ain’t that old! Criminy!