mckinley: I thought God was supposed to be left out of politics. A separation between God and the State.

... Lest we forget the past and what has happened when in 'Christian' countries the church was the state. St Thomas More had people burned at the stake for reading the Bible in English!!

...... King James launched a mass hysteria on Witches... even more strange since the most famous verse used in to vindicate this action was to do with ... getting a woman pregnant out of wedlock.

Iamon lyme: Did you watch the Dems convention where they were voting on putting the name "God" back into their platform? Half the crowd booed and voted no. They voted three times and then the moderator said he had a 2/3's majority. What a crock. Debbie Wasselman Schultz even denied there was dissension at the convention over the issue. CNN said she had to be living in a different reality to miss the obvious tension. Then Debbie cancelled all her other TV appointments. What a laugh.

in polls done, 9/10 Americans believe Obama is a legit American..

.... Apart from in the South.

McCain was ok, the senate said so, even though he was born outside the USA. Panama canal zone wasn't it!!

Oh well.

Tea party members seem to have no problem using the word ... nazi..

Other word in popular use is 'socialist', 'liberal', 'constitution', 'American'.

If the right here prefers it, the use of the terminology from "1984" and/or "Animal Farm" are to those who've read such classics could be employed if they feel a bit 'sensitive'.

Iamon lyme: Is this what you're talking about?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx4R0Sw9z2w

Iamon lyme: [...ever be trusted to run a legitimate and clean election.]

I meant to say legitimate and clean campaign.

But it's not just the campaigning. They've been ignoring the consitution for longer than some of you have been alive, appointed people to offices with little or no representation or oversight (or accountability) and on local levels work to overturn measures voted on... and then putting other measures to be voted on several times until they get the vote they want, and then often times simply go to judges to over rule the will of the people.

The idea behind "We The People" is being ignored to the point where it could soon become meaningless.

The Democratic leadership has more to worry about than simply trying to get their guy re-elected. I think many of them are "showing" their support but secretly hoping he will lose.

But win or lose, the overarching hope will be that the controversy surrounding Obama's presidency will eventually fade away... because this time it's not just about an election. It's also about the credibility of the Democratic party, and whether they can ever be trusted to run a legitimate and clean election. I believe the fate of the party itself may be on the line... but there are ways to fix it, like renaming the party. Wouldn't really change anything except in the mind of some voters, but let's face it, it's the voters they are the most concerned about. It's all about keeping as many of the voters as they can on their side.

The Col: The Col: [using nazi propoganda techniques are not not the same as branding someone a "nazi"]

No, but claiming someone is using nazi propaganda techniques is the same as equating them with the nazi's. A Democrat quoted Goebbels, claiming the Republicans were following his advice. Goebbels was a high ranking nazi, and what I said was "...the word has already been used or alluded to..."

allude: to refer indirectly, briefly, or implicitly

Iamon lyme: Yeah well Obama has plenty of skeletons in his double sealed - triple locked closet but Romney did a prank on a kid when he was in high school.

Übergeek 바둑이: Nah, that horse never even stood up. Thanks to a complacent media. But it is curious how that little brochure stated Kenya for all those years and no one noticed. Now as for his faked birth certificate.......

Iamon lyme: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over”

Joseph Goebbels

Artful Dodger: A little over year ago I first heard someone predict just how nasty this election cycle would be, and he was right. Up until today I haven't heard the magic word "Nazi" used, but I learned this morning the word has already been used or alluded to (twice) when refering to Republicans. One Democrat said something to the effect that some lies can only work if it's a big enough lie. No kidding?!!

Who would have believed that someone could go an entire four years as president with the question of his birthplace hanging over his head, and with virtually no consequences? It's like letting a minor into a bar and not questioning his age until after he becomes rip roaring drunk... and then hope he leaves on his own before someone questions the management's judgement and possible liability.

Artful Dodger: See? I told ya. They know the magic words. All they need to do is to say "birther" or "conspiracy" and then poof, the problem goes away. It's magic. And yes, I know, the magic doesn't work on everyone. But I don't need to tell you that.

If Nixon could see us now I think he would feel a little better about his own downfall. Carter is already feeling better, or should be... it's hard to tell with some politicians. I have no idea how honest or not some of these guys are able to be with just themselves.

Übergeek 바둑이: I think he's hoping to make some glue to hold the conspiracy together!!

Artful Dodger:

I see we are still flogging the old dead horse!

Bwild: Actually, I can believe that some people are literally able to see things that others don't. Magic Eyes pictures are a good example. The "hidden" patterns are there, but not everyone can see them. The trick to seeing the images is letting your eyes relax and let your brain "see" them... your eyes can't see it, but your brain can.

This fascinates me, because it suggests reality may be full of things we don't perceive simply because we've been trained to only see what is in front of us... but not the patterns those things may collectively form.

Bwild: I have enough trouble with science without trying to figure out how or why visions are parcelled out. For instance, if light takes about 8 minutes to get here from the sun, how long would it take to get here if you could get light to travel twice as fast? You would think the answer is 4 minutes, but it's not. Anything traveling towards us faster than light speed would get here before it left... I still have trouble wrapping my head around things like that.

Iamon lyme: imagine seeing such a site,in those days. if he would have told everyone.."hey! I just saw an ALIEN!" he'd have been stoned(maybe he was) or in the least,deemed a heretic.
preachers have a way with bending terms and words.
I think all deities are the result of encounters.

oops, it's Ezekiel, not Ezekial. I'm bad with names, always misspelling them or mispronouncing them...

Did you know that the word 'pronounce' is usually mispronounced? Neither did I.


I do now

Bwild: "the book of Ezechiel describes what I believe to be,an ALIEN encounter."

Depends on what you mean by "ALIEN". If it was a strictly physical phenomenon then the people he was with would have seen it too. But the passage doesn't mention anything about the other people witnessing the event.

"Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, as I was among the captives by the River Chebar, that the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God . . .

Since only Ezekial is refered to as witnessing the event, it really doesn't fall under the catagory of an alien encounter (physical creatures from another planet). Also, it was not a subtle event... if it was any kind of natural phenomenon (including alien encounters) everyone there would have seen it as well.

"Then I looked, and behold, a whirlwind was coming out of the north, a great cloud with raging fire engulfing itself; and brightness was all around it and radiating out of its midst like the color of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

Not the sort of thing only one person would have noticed. But then the vision refers to a man in linen told to gather coals and scatter them over a city, harldly a message you would expect to hear in an alien encounter.

"Then He spoke to the man clothed with linen, and said, 'Go in among the wheels, under the cherub, fill your hands with coals of fire from among the cherubim, and scatter them over the city.' And he went in as I watched."

"Then it happened, when He commanded the man clothed in linen, saying, 'Take fire from among the wheels, from among the cherubim,' that he went in and stood beside the wheels"

Parts of Ezekials vision sound a little bit like an alein encounter, but it better fits the picture of a vision apparently given specifically to Ezekial. Anytime the Bible talks about an event visible to everyone present, then it's always mentioned that everyone witnessed it.

Bwild: I think you're 100% right about that.

MissDelish: We're not alone!!
personally I feel politics are no more than diversions developed by the big business' that run the countries and their puppet politicians.

Bwild: it is hard to inject oneself into a conversation on here isn't it? Ive tried, but keep getting ignored, so I just read the crap others have written.

... Country music is lacking in some areas of .. .. power.

Speaking of which.. It looks like the common electron is not a fundamental particle, as in it is made up of smaller particles. But (adopting best Scotty accent) ... we need morrre powerr to prrrobe captain!!

This has become common, as has Republican candidates use of music without asking first.I guess there is always Bocephus in a pinch

The mother of Irish rock legend Phil Lynott has objected to the Mitt Romney campaign using Thin Lizzy's music at last week's Republican National Convention.

Philomena Lynott said her son would not have approved of the US Republicans playing the Thin Lizzy anthem "The Boys Are Back In Town" at Romney's nomination as presidential candidate.

She said that the late Thin Lizzy front man would have rejected any association with the Republicans particularly the Christian right wing of the party.

The Dublin woman told the Irish music magazine "Hot Press" that she was upset that one of her son's most famous rock songs was used by the Republicans to endorse Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan.

The Thin Lizzy singer would have opposed the Republican anti-gay and pro-rich policies, she said. Instead she believed her son would have backed Barack Obama.

She told the magazine: "As far as I am concerned, Mitt Romney's opposition to gay marriage and to civil unions for gays makes him anti-gay – which is not something that Philip would have supported. He had some wonderful gay friends, as indeed I do, and they deserve equal treatment in every respect, whether in Ireland or the United States.

"Neither would Philip have supported his policy of taxing the poor and offering tax cuts to the rich, which Paul Ryan is advocating. There is certainly no way that I would want the Lynott name to be associated with any of those ideas.

"There is nothing I can do about it except express my views," Philomena Lynott added, "but I do want to be clear that I would not want Philip's music to be used in any way that could hurt a single person, and this is the effect of what happened with Paul Ryan using and abusing my son's music in that way. A lot of fans and musicians are very angry about it and I can fully understand why.

"There is a black president of America, which to me – as it would have been to Philip, as a proud, black Irishman – is wonderfully symbolic.

I have a lot of time for Barack Obama, so to hear 'The Boys Are Back in Town' being appropriated by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan in their campaign against him is deeply upsetting."

The now 81-year-old Philomena Lynott wrote a best-selling autobiography My Boy about the extraordinarily difficult times she and Philip endured in the UK and Ireland at the beginning of the '50s, following Philip's birth in 1949.

Bwild: The wheel is also a common symbol when it comes to the Gods. A variation on the crucifix and other ancient symbols. The moving God I think it represents.

N' no.. that was from a library book on spiritualism and mysticism. Some old prof explaining it, not google.

I also said "....or just the strange world of unconscious conscious dreams?"

I guess you've never had one of them.

In the end.. Christianity and Aliens.. The book was never about science. Just the church made it that way. Just the way in the UK we are taught about Christianity or was by the teachers at the Catholic school I went to.

If nothing else, then getting Obama out of there would mean not having to listen to him anymore. If you're not enchanted by the sound of his voice, then what else is there?

mckinley: "I heard that last night and am very disappointed."

I haven't read the entire Bible, but I'll bet you won't find anything in there that says just because you voted for a stinker the first time around, you have to vote for him again. I'm not saying you did, I'm just saying you always have a choice.

In the Garden of Eden man voted for a stinker and ever since then God has been trying to win us back. If you listen closely you might even hear Him saying "Miss me yet?" or "Had enough?" We always have a choice.

Bwild: That one I never could figure out. I assumed the parts of that vision represented something rather than being something. Or maybe he was seeing something in the future that wouldn't make sense to someone living then. I don't know. I've heard different explanations, but I still don't get it. This is what happens when I don't read things all the way through.

Some people read the health bill all the way through... I wasn't even going to try slogging my way through that one.

(V): being the google king..I would have thought you'd have cyphered this out.
Rod asked"Is it "anti Christian" to believe there may be life else where in the universe?"
I stated" Ezechiel saw the wheel"
the book of Ezechiel describes what I believe to be,an ALIEN encounter.

now as far as "shrooms" go......lol heres a guy that was picking the wrong kind.


but...as I was feebly trying to add input.. I was at least staying with the conversation at hand.

....But good news for the poor.. Texas will not be allowed to introduce a poll tax!!

mckinley: We get politicians trying that trick of fake moaning all the time in the UK.

Not very Presidential to ignore the troops in his address to the nation

(V): LOL.. u DO crack me up

Well I have to say. I loved Romney's speech! I'm SO excited for November!

rod03801: I'd simplify the tax system and end stupid multi million court cases... but I'd end the 3 strike rule.

I'd also have a viable NO2 dispersal system for riot control.

rod03801: Well you managed on finding one person that would be worse for any country than Obama. I didn't think it possible.

mckinley: Artful Dodger: "Too bad he isn't the nominee."

It doesn't hurt for Ryan to get some White House experience before considering him as a candidate later on down the road. The fact that Romney picked him for VP position says a lot about Romney. There may have been political considerations, but I don't think Romney is playing a strictly political game. He knows as well as the rest of us what that can lead to, and four years of it are more than enough for me to choke on. And if there are times that Ryan looks like the smartest guy in the room, I don't think that would bother Romney. When I look at the contrast between Romney/Ryan and Obama/Biden it almost makes me laugh.

So the bottom line for me is I like Ryan too, but a little seasoning can only make him better.

Artful Dodger: Mitt wasn't my first choice by any means. Leans a little lib for me. But I'd probably even vote for (V) if he was the one against Obama


ok, maybe not.

Übergeek 바둑이: I think myth stories are facinating. Not that the flood didn't happen or the Biblical account isn't true. But it is interesting that there are so many different accounts. I particularly like the Greek Myths. Man has apparently always tried to figure out the what/why/where/when/how of our existence.

mckinley:  I agree with you on that one.  But it is what it is.  For many, a vote for Mitt is simply a vote against Obama.

"Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan has come under fire for alleged inaccuracies during his convention debut in Tampa, Florida.

Mr Ryan attacked the president for making cuts to the Medicare healthcare programme, but did not say that his own budget plan includes the same savings. He complained that proposals by a budget commission were not adopted, but did not mention he opposed its report."

Exactly the same as our parties do to each other each election time. A politicians memory is selective to say the least!!