Turns out our good buddy Darrelll Issa was holding back evidence.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/06...se-corruption/

Yep, he tried to intentionally hide evidence that there was no conspiracy, and that there was no white house involvement.

Darrell Issa should be impeached.

Theres a series of shows on a program called fact or fiction. One of the shows had a young boy who was afraid of a monster in his closet and he was picked on by other boys including his older brother. One day while being picked on by his brother and his brothers friends the tormented kid dared his brother to go in the closet and shut the door.

Screams came out of the closet and the mother came in. She opened the door and no one was there. The police were called but the boy was never located.

Ok at the end of each program you were asked if it was fact or fiction. Much to my surprise and dismay the story is supposed to be true. Has anyone ever seen this and does anyone know the origin of this absurd tale?

From NYT:

More Brits believe in extraterrestrials than in God, haha!:D

I agree that the idea of European unity (for whatever it's worth) is originally a Christian idea. The Roman Empire was not a European empire, it was a Mediterranean empire that never covered even half of Europe. With very few exceptions, all of Europe is the historical Christendom.

It's a bit of an irony that western Europe is more secular than eastern Europe (with some notable exceptions, like Estonia and Czech Republic). The former has a recent history of state-enforced atheism, the latter has an organically grown atheism.

http://peacersvp.wordpress.com/2013/...ott-2x-felony/

Now pipes are illegal. If I read it right, this could even read on tobacco pipes.

I guess their private prisons weren't full enough?

When I look at something blue, I know it's blue.

When someone else looks at something blue, they know it's blue.

We both associate the colour that we are seeing as blue, but how do I know that I am seeing the same colour they are seeing ?

Couldn't they see it as green (by that I mean, what I would say was green) but we have both been raised to say the colour that we are seeing is what we call blue.

I know the light bounces off the blue thing and that is going to be the same for both us, but once it goes into my eyes and my brain processes it and I "see" it. How do I know my brain is making me see the same colour as someone else's brain ?

Does this make sense ?

I assume we must be, as we all see blue as cold and red as hot, but is that learned behaviour ? Could what I look at and see as blue and think of as cold be what other people look at as red, but we have both learned that the colour we are looking at is "cold".

Is their a way that we know for sure and I'm just being an idiot here, confusing myself ?

"I'm not blaming the girl, but if you're a 16-year-old and you're drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don't take drinks from other people."

"... she shouldn't have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that's different."

http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireSto...1#.UcIpwOszKzw


She has since apologized.


"What was written — what I supposedly said — is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame."


Supposedly? Sounds like she is saying that Rolling Stone misquoted her?:confused:

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/18/po...html?hpt=hp_t3

Me thinks it will hurt America's enemies if they're dumb enough to believe they actually can say anything they want or write unencrypted emails discussing terror plots freely.

Didn't see this posted anywhere yet but:

"If drug ‘addicts’ can give up their drugs by using self-control, then ‘addiction’ doesn’t exist"

http://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co.uk/addiction/

reads fairly laughably to me...sure, addiction is probably a bit of a slippery concept, but I don't think anyone ever pretended there was a hard and fast definition. He just seems to be picking a reflexive definition of 'addiction' (as 'insurmountable addiction') and then saying because some people who are said to be addicts beat their addiction, it isn't insurmountable and therefore not an addiction.

I'm not really sure what he's saying to be honest, other than deep down I'm sure it is 'humans can't be addicted like animals demonstrably can, because god made us and gave us free will'

I propose someone forcibly habituates him to something addictive and then we'll see...

ETA: oh and Russell Brand is the cheerleader for the other side of the argument. Sadly.

I've been doing a fair amount of travelling recently and reading a lot of ebooks. I've read and re-read a lot of stuff, mysteries, scifi and fantasy along with non-fiction and a lot of althist.
So, as there don't seem to be any threads devoted to favourite and recommended mysteries I decided to start one.

My top three atm:

• John Sandford: his Prey series and the Flowers' spin-offs. Superb mystery/police procedurals with excellent writing, good plots.

• Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher series. Think a female Wimsey in Australia.

• Laurie King's Holmes and Russell. A cut above the usual Holmes pastiches.

Anyone else got any to recommend?

The French Revolution truly shaked autocratic power in Europe and certainly left its mark on the future history of the continent. But it was rather bloody in its aftermath.

The American Revolution was actually more of a war for independence. Though it seems rather timid by comparison to the French ditto, the revolutionaries had some great ideas.

Which one do you think was better? Which one led to better developments? Which one had better ideas? Which one had the better philosophy of government?

I'm not very interested in sports myself, but come on! This is ridiculous!

So sports is a great capitalist conspiracy to keep people distracted from politics and make them jingoistic. One wonders what kind of entertainment there will be in Chomsky's ideal society. Will we all sit and discuss politics all day?

History lesson: Some sort of sports/competitive games has been practiced in pretty much every culture on Earth. The Greeks may be the most well-known, but Germanic, Celtic, Eurasian steppe nomads, etc all had some sort of competitive games. A few months ago I read that Afghanistan had started practice its national sport that was prohibited during the Taliban era. I don't remember the name of the game, but they rode on horses while fighting for a dead goat, and was brought to the area by the Mongols during the Middle Ages. Evil Western capitalists trying to distract the Afghans by letting them do sports.:rolleyes:

While labor laws and government regulation probably do play a part, I think it is also cultural. In the Us it comes more naturally that starting one's own business is an option. In Sweden the attitude is more like what's the point of that if you can get a job at some big company anyways?

I have a Windows (Vista) PC with a multi card reader.
One drive (g: ) has developed a fault.
It does not appear in the Windows drive list and CMD G: fails to find any drive.
But- Some software programs do seem to be aware that it should be there, as they throw up errors when they fail to find it.

Any suggestions for how to either fix it or tell the system to ignore it?

An interesting aspect of the gospels is that they all have pericopes. A pericope (pronounced: per-ih-CO-pay) is a story that, while being part of the gospel, is complete in itself, such as the story in the Gospel of John (though apparently added to it after the gospel was written) of the woman taken in adultery. The word "pericope" is derived from two Greek words, the prepositional prefix peri, meaning "around," and a word meaning "to cut." Thus, a pericope is a "cut around," a story that can be cut out from the narrative and stand on its own as an independent tale.

The four canonical gospels all contain different versions of a pericope often referred to as that of the "anointing woman." In all versions of the tale, Jesus is a guest at someone's house and is sitting or reclining at supper. A woman comes up behind him and anoints either his head or feet with ointment. The act is rash and presumptuous, since a woman would not ordinarily have the right to anoint someone. Somebody, either the host, the disciples or a particular disciple, condemns the woman for the act; but Jesus reproves them (or him) and praises the woman. In other words, he flouts tradition and propriety to champion an open act of generosity.

In Mark and Matthew, the same story is told (Mk. 14:3 - 9; Mt. 26:6 - 13) Two days before the Passover, Jesus and his disciples are having supper at the home of Simon the leper (actually, the probably refers to any scaly skin disease, such as psoriasis), in Bethany. An unknown woman comes in with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, breaks it open and pours it over Jesus' head. Some of the disciples are indignant, saying, "Why was the ointment wasted? It could have been sold for more than 300 dinarii and the money given to the poor." Jesus says, "Let her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me." He goes on to say she has anointed him beforehand for burial, then adds that they will always have the poor with them, but they won't have him with them much longer. He adds that wherever the gospel is preached, what she has done will be told in memory of her. After this incident, Judas goes out to the chief priests to betray Jesus.

Luke changes the story considerably (Lk. 7:36 - 50), putting it earlier in the ministry of Jesus at an unnamed town, at the home of Simon the Pharisee, and making the act all the more scandalous, since the woman - often conflated with Mary Magdalene - is a "sinner" (Gr. hamartolos), with the clear indications she's a prostitute. She is obviously penitent, since when she comes in she is weeping. She wets his feet with her tears and wipes them dry with her hair, then kisses his feet and anoints them with ointment. Jesus' host, Simon the Pharisee says to himself that Jesus couldn't be a prophet, or he wouldn't allow the woman to touch him, for she is a sinner. Jesus responds to him, telling him a parable of a creditor and two debtors, one owing him 500 dinarii and one owing him 50 denarii. When they couldn't pay, he forgave them both. Which one, Jesus asks, does Simon think will love the man more. Simon says the one who owed more, and Jesus says he's correct. Then Jesus says to Simon that when he entered Simon's house, he didn't give him water to wash his feet, but the woman has wet his feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. He says that Simon didn't greet him with a kiss, but the woman hasn't ceased kissing his feet. Then he says that though her sins are great, she is forgiven.

John seems to have taken something from both of these versions. He sets the story again in Bethany, this time six days before Passover, at the house of Lazarus, whom he has raised from the dead, and his two sisters, Martha and Mary (Jn. 12:1 - 8). Mary of Bethany takes a pound of pure nard (i.e. spikinard, imported from India), which is very costly, anoints Jesus' feet with it and wipes them with her hair. Judas says, "Why wasn't this ointment sold for more than 300 dinarii and the money given to the poor." John adds that Judas really didn't care about the poor and that he was a thief. Jesus defends Mary, again saying, as in Mark and Matthew, "Let her alone," and also saying, let her keep the ointment for his burial, adding that the they always have the poor with them, but they won't always have him.

For those who see the gospels as, to any degree, historical, I'd like to ask what they see as the historicity of this incident. Did all three of these anointings take place? Did it happen once, then get retold different ways? If so, which of these versions is the true one? Or, do you think, even though you take the gospels as basically historical, that the entire story was made up?