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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2008 : 20:07:15 [Permalink]
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It is a good answer... I already did send mine unfortunately.
I will definitively pirate some of your writing, though and include it in the 'official answer'. Later.
My main fear, of course is for the letter to be too long. I might need to split it up in two, one answering the disinformations in this particular letter and one targeting the more general myth of a Christian origin of the US.
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Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
 Posted - 11/29/2008 : 20:14:00 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
And it's great that Dave W. has volunteered to edit it. It's what he does, professionally, after all. |
If by "professionally" you mean "at the SFN website." |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2008 : 21:19:33 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
Originally posted by HalfMooner
And it's great that Dave W. has volunteered to edit it. It's what he does, professionally, after all. |
If by "professionally" you mean "at the SFN website."
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Actually, I thought I'd read that "editor" was your day job. There's certainly no sign of that profession at SFN, so I must have read it.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2008 : 21:37:51 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by HalfMooner
Actually, I thought I'd read that "editor" was your day job. There's certainly no sign of that profession at SFN, so I must have read it.
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Naw, Dave is some sort of computer geek in real life (I believe), and pretty good at it I'm sure. He's the official editor here at SFN, cleaning up any "Kilbonics" in the articles and putting together the skeptic summary. I think I have that right, at any rate.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 11/29/2008 21:39:25 |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2008 : 21:41:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Simon
My main fear, of course is for the letter to be too long. |
Aye, that's a concern of mine as well. There's a fine line between thorough and TLDR.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 11/29/2008 : 22:48:33 [Permalink]
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| H. has me nailed. 'Cept I've been working my code poetry skillz for SFN also (if I can ever rip myself from Spore's evil grip again), but the title of 'webmaster' is, deservedly, @tomic's. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2009 : 11:04:32 [Permalink]
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Well, my relative just sent me another email, this time with a link to the World Net Fucking Daily. I knew it couldn't be good. The article in question was a write-up on some guy named Bob Basso who likes to dress up like Thomas Paine and post anti-factual, xenophobic rants on YouTube. It's typical conservative demagoguery at its finest. She encouraged all of us to watch the two videos embedded in the article. So I did. This was my response:Yeah, the the World "Nut" Daily is the most ridiculous source for right wing paranoia on the internet. Real tin foil hat stuff. After years of shouting that it was unpatriotic not to support a Republican president who ran up the national deficit to record levels and passed some of the most dangerous legislation to our civil liberties since the government threw American citizens into internment camps, these yahoos are now actually trying to claim that it's unpatriotic not to threaten violent revolt! WND even published an editorial advocating the secession of Texas, if you can imagine. Their blatant disregard for facts has been amply demonstrated in their promotion of egregious falsehoods ranging from literal biblical creationism to lies about Barack Obama's secret Muslim faith. One website I frequent makes it almost a daily habit to post hilarious quotes from World Net Daily content, each seemingly more hysterical and outrageously dishonest than the last. All you can do is shake your head.
As far as the videos go, I actually had to laugh out loud when that Paine imitator started ranting in the second clip about atheists and the ACLU. (Think about that. This is a guy dressed as Thomas Paine who actually opposes an organization dedicated to protecting the civil liberties guaranteed by our founding fathers.) I wonder what percentage of the WND's readership is aware that Thomas Paine was vehemently anti-Christian? I mean Paine is the guy who wrote: "Whenever we read the obscene stories the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon rather than the word of god. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind; and, for my part, I sincerely detest it as I detest everything that is cruel." Seems an odd personality for a right-wing Christian propagandist to embrace. But historical accuracy (or accuracy of any sort) has never been a major concern of theirs, I suppose. The fact remains that no mention is made of any god, Christian or otherwise, in the U.S. Constitution aside from the date. For men who were supposedly intent on founding a Christian nation, the omission is glaring (but quite intentional).
The majority of his rant was typical demagoguery. Impassioned, militant, xenophobic, racist, isolationistic, and intolerant rhetoric wrapped in the guise of fiery patriotism and religious values. The parallels between these people and the Nazis are striking. The Nazis were at heart a conservative movement. They stressed the importance of God and country. They shut down nightclubs with "loose" morals, promoted "family values," purged their communities of "intellectual liberals," atheists, homosexuals, and of course Jews, as they were historically blamed for killing Jesus. And with "God is with us" emblazoned on their belt buckles, those good Christian salt-of-the-Earth folk set about engineering the greatest atrocity the world has ever known. Brutal fascism is where the religious conservative's desire for social homogeny inevitably leads. It's frightening to witness it rearing its head again in our own country in our own times. These calls for armed uprising should be eyed with great alarm.
In these scary economic times, many people are looking for someone to blame. They can't blame the Republican leaders who got us into this mess because many of them voted them into office in the first place, and that would be too much like acknowledging that they have no one to blame but themselves. So thanks for passing on the link. It's just scary to think there are some people who really buy into this stuff. |
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 03/29/2009 11:05:42 |
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Simon
SFN Regular
USA
1992 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2009 : 16:13:49 [Permalink]
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Nice one.
My own spammers forwarded me an Islamophobic emails a couple of weeks ago.
I corrected some of the many mistakes and linked him to the Snopes article debunking it.
The guy actually contacted me after than and even apologized, so, that's good...
[Edited to fix link - Dave W.] |
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
Carl Sagan - 1996 |
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Chippewa
SFN Regular
USA
1496 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2009 : 21:00:53 [Permalink]
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The instruction at the beginning and end of this spam is "Agree or Delete." In other words, "Agree" - or: "delete", (i.e. "shut up"), (i.e. "obey".) = (Agree or Obey). An appeal to authoritarian rule via some twisted and false appeals to authority.
That's pretty much where its coming from.  |
Diversity, independence, innovation and imagination are progressive concepts ultimately alien to the conservative mind.
"TAX AND SPEND" IS GOOD! (TAX: Wealthy corporations who won't go poor even after taxes. SPEND: On public works programs, education, the environment, improvements.) |
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular
USA
854 Posts |
Posted - 03/30/2009 : 01:45:26 [Permalink]
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I like this:
"It is said that 86% of Americans believe in God.
Therefore, it is very hard to understand why there is such a mess about having the Ten Commandments on display or 'In God We Trust' on our money and having God in the Pledge of Allegiance. Why don't we just tell the other 14% to Sit Down and SHUT UP!!!"
Americans saying they believe in God necessitates that they are Christians/Jews? CIA Factbook says 79.2% Christian/Jewish, but that's from 2002. |
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking
"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus |
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R.Wreck
SFN Regular
USA
1191 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2009 : 18:22:40 [Permalink]
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| Not only did Andy Rooney not say it, but most of it is bullshit. |
The foundation of morality is to . . . give up pretending to believe that for which there is no evidence, and repeating unintelligible propositions about things beyond the possibliities of knowledge.
T. H. Huxley
The Cattle Prod of Enlightened Compassion
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| Edited by - R.Wreck on 04/01/2009 18:23:09 |
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Rational spamming!
