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I keep thinking also of Drudge report... how they select very specific stories and give them intentionally provocative titles which help reinforce a particular narrative. This is a very good idea, but like posters above... I'd rather shred nonsensical sources within the thread than mandate it. Seriously... What fun would it be if we didn't have any Fox News inspired pinatas to swing at? I did, however, vote yes since you put in the term "unofficially" before "be banned." Unofficially, we should all strive to do multiple sources and confirm the accuracy of our core point before taking a flawed story and running with it... but people just won't do that. It's like hard en' stuff.

That's an interesting idea, but one which the data seems to argue against. Most studies show, for example, how much MORE afraid of death believers are than non-believers. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7949111.stm In further support of this point, and negating the suggestion above, is that studies have found organic atheism to be strongly correlated with high levels of social and mental health, whereas groups with high religiosity scores tend to be the most afraid, neurotic, and unhealthy both socially and mentally. Here's just one example (read: there are many many more): http://www.pitzer.edu/academics/faculty/zuckerman/Ath-Chap-under-7000.pdf Finally, there's also been work showing that religiosity matches highly with poverty, and that churches and religions are most common in areas with high poverty and suffering, but I'm not sure that's too relevant... I'll leave it at the two above. You may have a point, but what I've read tends to suggest the contrary. Can you clarify your intended meaning here? Atheism is really little more than the outcome of a person who finds the case for god uncompelling. We've had many threads about this, so I'll avoid that particular rabbit hole. However, what do you suggest atheism is causing? (remember... no results have been found... what I put forth in this OP is a hypothesis, not a study outcome). For the purpose of this idea, I don't that is relevant. The issue here is that my physiology was unstressed and relatively calm until you pointed it out. The subject of my attention is not a factor, since my stress was a result of the action you took to point it out to me. Further (and I think you would have to admit this), many times what Fox News points out is hardly objective fact (hey! it's a spider). Very often, it's spun extreme bias with specific narrative intended to reinforce and magnify existing emotions from the reptilian areas of our brains. Anyway... Just because it's the spider which scares someone doesn't mean pointing that spider out is not the issue, especially when upon further inspection we discover that it was just a shadow being cast from the light coming through the curtains.

It's queued up on my DVR, but I'm on business travel this week. Hope to watch it this weekend after I land back home. I've seen some buzz about it on the blogosphere already... People excited about the fact that a news story actually used facts and science to support a position instead of giving both sides equal time... like they so often do even though one side has no evidence going for it and the other side all of it in their favor. Glad to hear it was a good episode. I hope to have something more meaningful and meaty to contribute soon to the thread after I've seen it.

Biblical logic stretching and strained arguments aside, Jefferson was hardly some christian, and most of his contemporaries... the key founders of the US... were deists. The only way to think otherwise is to skew reality to fit a preconception.

You know where else in the bible slavery is covered? Leviticus Exodus Ephesians 1 Timothy Luke In each place, slavery is rampant and approved. http://www.evilbible.com/Slavery.htm I don't disagree that some sects and churches believe that. My point is that their doctrine and belief is irrelevant to the truth of my own worldview and affiliations. I suggest that a much more reasonable response is that these sects and religious groups absorbed these teachings which themselves were already a part of successful human societies... that these teachings were actually absorbed and incorporated after the fact as part of their doctrine... that these ideals were actually a part of successful human societies long before the religions came along. In short, the concepts came first, and then the religions absorbed them and made them a part of their own teachings. The fact that I agree with many of these concepts... concepts which were absorbed by a religion after the fact... does not mean I can be reasonably considered to be a part of that religion. Likewise, the fact that Jefferson considered some of these ideas meritorious does not ipso fact mandate that he can reasonably be considered a believer in that religion (especially when you couple this fact with his many other writings on the topic and how strongly he was against the core tenets of their doctrine).

I tend to quite disagree with your argument here. Even I find the stories describing Jesus to contain a lot of good ideals and approaches to life which should be followed. Does that make ME a Christian? Hardly. Same applies to Jefferson. In much the same way, I find that there are passages in the Qu'ran which are meaningful and describe quality behaviors of humans which should be adopted. Does that make me a Muslim? Absolutely not. Your argument is deeply flawed, at least as you've presented it above regarding Jeffersons religious predilections. I don't see how one can hope to make a reasonable argument that a person was Christian when that person absolutely rejects the core tenets and foundations of Christian belief. If a person does not accept the divinity of Jesus, does not accept the resurrection, does not accept the virgin birth, then that person cannot reasonably be called a Christian. It's truly that simple. Those are core to the Christian system of beliefs, and if you reject the core, you reject the system.

Simple. The employers who cannot afford reasonable wages don't stay in business. Again, though... I was never making a living wage argument. I was saying that shipping illegals back home won't magically make employers start offering more money to its workers. You were the one who introduced living wage questions to the discussion... not me. Except that Arizona couldn't enforce that law because it was Federal rather than State. Now it can. I don't understand your point here. Can you clarify? Why exactly can't the state of Arizona enforce their anti-loitering laws? First, don't call people's opinions "silly". Zuh? Pangloss... really... WTF, man? Please, you really need to read more closely. My ENTIRE point with that comment is that nobody is making the argument you claim they are making. I said that the argument you are suggesting they are making is silly, and nobody is here making it. In short... you presented a pretty blatant strawman into the discussion. I was trying to be nice about it and not call it a strawman outright, but I guess I was too subtle. You said: "How about a little recognition that this is a problem that needs to be solved." When was anyone claiming there wasn't a problem to be solved? I must have missed that. Can you use the quote feature to support your suggestion, or maybe retract it and concede it was misrepresentative? My reading of the thread suggests that nobody was making any such point... that is not an argument anyone was putting forth... and since nobody was making the argument... and my whole point of that comment was to point out that nobody was making that argument... nobody was putting forth that position... I was not (by definition) calling anyone's positions "silly." I hope that clears up my point. Sorry for the confusion. I guess I just don't see the relevance of your approach, then. Nobody here was putting forth what you describe as the "common liberal position." In fact, I read a lot of various sources, and I don't see the position you suggest being common among liberals at all. In short, you are continually introducing ideological partisanship in an attempt to poison the well, even though there exists a tremendous degree of agreement across ideological positions on this issue. You reminded me a bit of Bill O'Reilly. I don't mean the above to be a slam, but an objective observation. In the interest of transparency, I'll just say it outright... You've really rubbed me wrong in this thread since the start talking about "liberal hypocrisy" this, and "leftie bias" that, and casting the thoughts of large swaths of people into the singular generalized bucket of "common liberal position." Speak to the issues, will you? Stop with the (what amounts to) childish name-calling. Many? I don't think so, but I could be wrong. I am sure some do, but that's hardly a fair representation of peoples position on this issue. If nothing else, it doesn't represent mine, or ParanoiAs, or Padrens, or anyone else really who has posted to this thread. Please stop "boogey-manning" the issue and stick the merit. More than money, it's resources and strategy, which was also discussed at the aforementioned round-table. Krugman mentioned that "for all the big talk about the need to secure our borders, nobody seems to want to step up and put the resources in place to do so... to spend the money to make that happen," and he's right. However, it's more than just that. The systems we've installed are lacking, and never seem to live up to their promises. We need better technology to assist, but even then... if someone wants to come in, they will. We need to do a cost/benefit on this. Yes, more money is needed, but it needs to be spent smartly to achieve the stated goal. Please... again with the "left" and "darling to the liberals." Is that really necessary? Of course people are divided on this issue. There are a lot of complexities to it. It doesn't matter in context of this thread, though... Most of what you're putting forth is little more than a red herring to the central topic. The law Arizona passed allowing cops to mandate that any random brown person without cause produce their papers does NOT even begin to touch the root cause, and is itself incredibly problematic for the reasons posters have already described above. Calling everyone lefties and liberal darlings and hypocrites won't change that. We are talking about this specific law in Arizona, and why it should never have passed, and why it should be revoked. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedKrugman would like to clarify his points: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/the-curious-politics-of-immigration/ Just a quick note: my take on the politics of immigration is that it divides both parties, but in different ways.

Yes, that's definitely possible in theory. However, you need to recognize the technological challenges involved in doing it well. If you're new to this arena, you may look up some of the work which has been done with transcranial magnetic stimulation, or with Braingate.

The firing pattern is what matters. No sensation comes from one cell alone, nor from any specialized nerves. Different cilia (small hairs) are suspended in inner ear fluid. Those cilia are different lengths and different tensile capacities, and bend at different frequencies and magnitudes of sound. When those cilia bend, they cause the nerve cells to which they are attached to fire. The location of the cells which fire, as well as the number of cells firing, determines the interpretation of the sound. http://www.dls.ym.edu.tw/chudler/hearing.html

Krugman just put forth an interesting article along these lines, basically suggesting that people stop focusing on Goldman and instead focus on the rating agencies who twisted the truth so as not to lose market share, and how it's the system itself which needs fixing. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26krugman.html The bad news is that most of the headlines were about the wrong e-mails. When Goldman Sachs employees bragged about the money they had made by shorting the housing market, it was ugly, but that didn’t amount to wrongdoing. No, the e-mail messages you should be focusing on are the ones from employees at the credit rating agencies, which bestowed AAA ratings on hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of dubious assets, nearly all of which have since turned out to be toxic waste. And no, that’s not hyperbole: of AAA-rated subprime-mortgage-backed securities issued in 2006, 93 percent — 93 percent! — have now been downgraded to junk status. What those e-mails reveal is a deeply corrupt system. <...> The Senate subcommittee has focused its investigations on the two biggest credit rating agencies, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s; what it has found confirms our worst suspicions. In one e-mail message, an S.& P. employee explains that a meeting is necessary to “discuss adjusting criteria” for assessing housing-backed securities “because of the ongoing threat of losing deals.” Another message complains of having to use resources “to massage the sub-prime and alt-A numbers to preserve market share.” Clearly, the rating agencies skewed their assessments to please their clients. These skewed assessments, in turn, helped the financial system take on far more risk than it could safely handle. Paul McCulley of Pimco, the bond investor (who coined the term “shadow banks” for the unregulated institutions at the heart of the crisis), recently described it this way: “explosive growth of shadow banking was about the invisible hand having a party, a non-regulated drinking party, with rating agencies handing out fake IDs.” <more at the link>

I appreciate your thoughtful post above, Jackson. I would just caution you, however, to recognize the extreme and biased nature of Michelle Bachmann. She is severely and objectively wrong on a large number of the positions for which she argues. Otherwise, I will leave it at that. I'm not going to open up the birther can of worms here.

No. What I said is that it isn't meritless. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Precisely. This is exactly the point padren made in post #4, which I personally reinforced in post #5, and which has still gone unaddressed by supporters of the law. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged As shown in the video I shared in post #18. It doesn't matter WHY it is wrong. It only matters that it is. If the issue is that they are loitering on the corner, then the existing anti-loitering laws clearly suffice. This new law is (by your own argument) extraneous, irrelevant, and unneeded. But what they're doing is wrong, and worse, unconstitutional as per the 4th amendment protecting against unreasonable search and seizure. Really? Is that what you think? NOBODY here fails to recognize that there is a problem which needs to be solved. Stop pretending there are here or elsewhere espousing such a silly position. The issue, as I thought was plainly obvious, is that the manner which Arizona has chosen fails completely to address the root problems, is unconstitutional, and further is in stark contrast to the ideals for which this country has repeatedly shed the blood of its citizens. If you think peoples challenges are because this law "doesn't match their ideology 100%," then you are quite simply not paying close enough attention.

No, of course not. I just didn't really appreciate you swinging the "lefties are hypocrites" bat so early in the thread, especially since nobody had espoused an unreasonable position.

President Barack Obama is expected to nominate Jesus Christ, an immigrant originally born to a virgin mother in Bethlehem, to fill the new vacancy on the Supreme Court. Although Mr. Christ is over 2,000 years old, He is immortal, so Democrats and Republicans expect that He will serve on the high court forever or until He decides to start the End Times. Republicans are expected to fight the nomination on the grounds that Mr. Christ would radically move the Court to the left. The GOP is also concerned that, despite decades of controversy and speculation, Mr. Christ has never revealed his position on abortion. Mr. Christ, according to many authorities, is expected to oppose the death penalty in all forms. Michael Steele, the head of the GOP national committee, issued a statement: "Christ is a complete mystery to us. He won't reveal His physical appearance and many of His positions are unknown or the subject of speculation. He is a stealth candidate. Why won't He reveal himself? Who does He think He is?" Republicans are reportedly outraged that Mr. Obama even considered Mr. Christ, who has been widely quoted for his sentiments supporting the poor over the wealthy. In a Facebook post, former half-term Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin called for an investigation into the Bethlehem chapter of ACORN because of what she termed the "highly suspicious" coincidence that both President Obama and Mr. Christ had each spent three years as community organizers. In her post, Palin also wrote that "More and more of good God-fearing smalltime Americans from hardworking smalltime towns from great parts of this real America, West, South, East, North, are seeing more and more every day that Christ is a community organizer. We don't need another community organizer in the White House!" Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) asked, "We're not even sure where He was born. Why is He afraid to show us his birth certificate?" Bachmann also announced that she would vote "no" when the Christ nomination came before the House of Representatives. Later, her congressional staff released a statement saying that the Congresswoman had forgotten that the House does not vote on judicial nominations. According to Rush Limbaugh, "Christ doesn't know anything about free enterprise. This is part of the Obama conspiracy to drag us to socialism. If this guy is approved, I'm moving to Costa Rica." Sobbing, Glenn Beck attacked Christ's support for the separation of church and state, telling his audience "You know who else wanted a separation of church and state? Hitler." Several Catholic priests were contacted for comment but refused to discuss the issue, and, even though they weren't asked, all empathetically denied that they had personally molested any children. Democrats are optimistic about their chances of shoving Mr. Christ down the throats of Americans using normal constitutional and parliamentary procedures. Many Democrats are hopeful that Mr. Christ's past associations with prostitutes will earn him at least one Republican vote, that of Sen. David Vitter (R-LA). If confirmed, Christ will be the first Supreme Court Justice who has at least one American city named after him: Corpus Christi, Texas

Except, as recent emails from their chief executives demonstrate, they lost some money knowing they'd make back much much more. Your presentation unfortunately oversimplifies matters. Yes, there were losses, but those losses came amidst a net gain. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704627704575203882067718088.htm In one of the email exchanges, Mr. Blankfein appears to bluntly acknowledge the firm's strategy in broad terms. "Of course we didn't dodge the mortgage mess," Mr. Blankfein said in an email on Nov. 18, 2007. "We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/24/business/la-fi-goldman-sachs-emails-20100425 The e-mails released contradict previous statements by Goldman officials that the investment bank did not aggressively bet against the housing market and that it, too, lost money on mortgage-related investments along with many of its clients. <...> The e-mails go to the heart of civil fraud allegations brought this month by the Securities and Exchange Commission against the investment bank. The agency alleges that Goldman sold mortgage-backed securities to investors that the company knew would fail. Goldman has denied the allegations and reiterated Saturday that that it did not make money by betting that the mortgage market would collapse. <...> One of the e-mail exchanges featured Michael Swenson, managing director of Goldman's structured products trading group, commenting on news that a credit rating agency downgrade of $32 billion in mortgage-related securities would cause losses for many investors. But Goldman had bet against those securities, the subcommittee said. "Sounds like we will make some serious money," Swenson wrote on Oct. 11, 2007, to a colleague, Donald Mullen, who e-mailed back, "Yes we are well positioned." <...> Under "bad news," one employee noted Goldman lost $2.5 million from the soured investments. But under "good news," the employee said Goldman had bet against the securities, which the Senate panel said the firm had assembled and sold to investors, and would make $5 million. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5defa420-4fa9-11df-a1ab-00144feab49a.html Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive of Goldman, told other top executives in a November 2007 email exchange: “Of course we didn’t dodge the mortgage mess. We lost money, then made more than we lost because of shorts.” <...> Mr Blankfein and other top Goldman executives will appear before the Senate subcommittee on Tuesday. The SEC complaint has alleged that the bank committed fraud when it failed to tell investors that a hedge fund manager, John Paulson, was betting against a security that he had helped to create and was designed to fail. <...> Revelations that Goldman shorted the mortgage market are not new. In a letter to investors early this month, the Wall Street bank acknowledged it “went short” even as it was trading its clients’ mortgage-backed securities, the financial instruments that lie at the heart of the financial crisis. I'm not sure your representation accurately describes the reasons why so many people are livid with them. I am rather confident there are many other details which better describe the motivations for peoples disgust and anger. Which proposals are doing that, exactly? I've not personally read any which suggest any such thing, and I'm looking to fill that gap in my awareness. Could you cite something or share a link or two?

A good discussion this morning on THIS WEEK about exactly this. As it turns out, there truly ARE others out there who see this as parallel to what happened in Nazi Germany, as an infringement on rights, and contrary to our ideals. Another interesting tidbit: The people making these points are not all left or liberal ideologically as some in various arenas have tried to imply. WATCH: http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/roundtable-immigration-debate-10470602&tab=9482930&section=1206874&playlist=6505465&page=1

Is reading hard? Do you prefer videos to books? Are you a knuckle-dragging paste-eater who had to ride the short bus to school and wear a foam helmet? Well, then this is for you! Enjoy. 5j5ncmZizJ0

Except, that's not a picture of him. http://lost.about.com/od/secondarycharacters/p/jacob.htm

What you're referring to is called "decussation" (also, as trasnslateration). My understanding is that decussated arrangements in the cortex and body are very robust, and that it has an advantage in minimizing errors in neural wiring during development. Errors in wiring are relatively common in organisms with simpler wiring schemes on the same side of the body. Given that, organisms with wiring problems were less likely to reproduce than organisms without wiring problems, and the decussated arrangement of neural architecture was advantageous evolutionarily and selected for through the generations. I might be wrong. It's been a few years since I read about this stuff, and I'm still working on my first cup of coffee today.

Further, this approach allows good ideas to be brought to the table which could help to mitigate the adverse effects and risks which (by default) come with the implementation of the imperative. In your example above, the discussion might lead to the ability to both end slavery AND find a way to minimize the negative economic impact. My reading of your well-written post, and what I seek here to reinforce with my own, is that discussion of moral imperatives and discussion of the impact of implementing those imperatives are not mutually exclusive, but we tend to focus far too often on only on one or the other. It's not either/or, yet that's how our discussion so frequently frames itself. And, to bring this back into context of the thread, one of the problems with the tea party (IMO) is that it's quite easy to understand and relate to their principles, but they have yet to offer reasonable non-absolutist solutions based on those principles... they have yet to offer a well-reasoned consideration of the costs of implementing their principles coupled with plans to mitigate those risks... and they (as a broader movement) have yet to move beyond decrying that what is happening "is wrong" into the realm of "here are some alternatives along with the costs and benefits of moving them forward." Additionally, they have yet to demonstrate any signs of a willingness to compromise or to find middle ground with those who espouse a position contrary to their own. In short, they seem stuck in the "identification of a problem" phase... stuck in the "pointing out of a problem" phase... and they seem thus far unable to successfully advocate alternative directions based on reasonable discussions of their underlying principles and imperatives, or to work with others to achieve them. I acknowledge a degree of generalization above, as there are certainly a handful of individual exceptions, but as a party or movement? I think the above is rather accurate.

That's not what I was trying to say, but I can see it was not as clear as it could have been. Sorry about that. Let me try again. Passing a law which allows cops to mandate that any random brown person they choose must show them their papers, without cause, does nothing to address the root issue. The root issue is that employers are seeking cheap labor and illegals are filling that niche in a symbiotic manner. Profile all the beaners you want... Until we crack down on the employers, nothing will change. Send everyone you catch back across the border... 10 more will come in to replace them since there remain scores of jobs to be found. As you and ParanoiA both elucidated above, the core of the problem is in the hiring of illegals at slavish wages, and this law does nothing whatsoever to help address that. Second, I should clarify... I was not arguing that lack of funds makes hiring illegals okay. My point was a direct rebuttal to the claim that employers would de facto pay higher wages if all illegals got shipped out of the country. This was my understanding of the comment quoted below from Pangloss, and my comments were aimed directly in response to that. Sure, they could... I guess that's sort of possible. However, it's not quite that simple.

Seems reality disagrees with you, even just within the confines of this very thread. Others beside me see fascist parallels. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged You, too. Calling it an absurd analogy doesn't negate the validity of my point, nor the fact that many others agree with it. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged It's not like shipping illegal immigrants back across the border is going to magically make those employers suddenly have access to more funds which can be used to pay non-illegals higher wages. Further, this new law which increases the legality of profiling and provides cops with the ability to mandate that people "show them their papers" won't have any impact whatsoever on the hiring practices of employers nor will it have any impact on their focus on cheap labor. You can toss about fancy meritless talking points like "liberal hypocrisy" and "hypocrisy by the left" all you want... the amount of money available to employers is limited (often painfully so), and taking a hard line and tough approach on illegal immigration won't change that reality. Finally, where did anyone call you a nazi? Are you reading the same thread I am?

That's good to know, and I appreciate the correction. My primary point stands, however, that sound can and does reflect, even though the example I chose to help visualize it was such a poor one. How about this... Yes, sound reflects. Ever yelled into a canyon and heard an echo?

Show me your papers! Am I the only one who sees the fascist parallels? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I, too, am curious to see if some sort of reasonable response to this point actually exists.

Bah... That's hardly the only thing, friend. It's just that the disagreements tend to be much louder.