Loose Change: An American Coup
Posted by scipiomphs @
03:03 PM - 252
reads.
If you have watched this entire film at least once, please talk with me about it. Some of the assertions I found interesting in the film are:
1.That nano-thermitic material was found in dust samples from the World Trade Center. This is the scientific journal entry reporting those findings. Not a single mainstream news media outlet has covered this report. Here is an interview with one of the scientists.
2. Wargames in which terrorists hijack planes took place on the East Coast the day of 9/11/2001, which moved fighters away from Washington D.C. and New York.
You know what, it doesn't matter what I have to say. Watch Loose Change: An American Coup and decide for your..
Living Forever
Posted by bpopp @
12:03 AM - 139
reads.
I listened to an interesting podcast the other day on "Speaking of Faith". Krista was interviewing a woman that was growing human hearts in petri dishes. She described how she had used human embryonic stem cells to successfully regenerate a heart that had partially died. As she explained it, stem cells are the key to regeneration. Stem cells are basically cells that are able to divide and regenerate quickly. When we are young, we have many and are able to heal easily. As we get older, we have much fewer and healing becomes more difficult. The more we damage our bodies as we age, the more stem cells we use up.
So it seems that scientists are getting closer and closer to figuring out why our bodies stop working as we age. This made me think.. ..
Capitalism: A Love Story
Posted by bpopp @
10:02 PM - 177
reads.
It seems like every time I see a Michael Moore movie, I feel compelled to talk about it afterwards. Capitalism: A Love Story was no different. Love him or hate him, Michael Moore is good at what he does. He can tell a story that would otherwise be boring as sh*t in a way that almost anyone would find entertaining and can understand. He's very good at bringing a lot of different people and subjects together into one central point. He's NOT, I think even he would admit, very good at attacking a subject in an impartial way. He tends to just find/produce the things that support his point and disregard any facts or arguments that happen to get in the way.
He's addressed guns and violence, the neocon movement, healthcare reform, and now, in his latest movie, Capitalism. This was my favorite of the four.
The opening sequence is great. He takes some old footage from a documentary of the fall of Rome, and overlays modern-day images and video sequences. It's not a..
There is no reason at all for the U.S. to attack or invade Iran. I am so infuriated, so flabbergasted, so outraged at the nonsense they run on Fox about how we should bomb Iran. Iran has not in modern times invaded a country unprovoked. Iran does not have, and will not have in the foreseeable future, nuclear weapons. So what if they are upgrading their uranium to 20%? You have to get to about 90% to make a bomb, and no one even makes bombs with uranium anymore!! Iran doesn't even have the capability to get it's uranium to 90%. Even if they did, so what? Israel, Pakistan, and India have had nuclear missiles for years, and no one fusses about it. The U.S. is still the only nation to use this technology in combat. Iran does not have any capability whatsoever of attacking American soil. Iran has 66 million people, which means if 10% were willing to fight, we could be facing 6 million armed men. For what? So we can control their oil and natural gas and sea ports? Stop this madness, stop i..
The Nova Experiment
Posted by bpopp @
02:11 AM - 1597
reads.
Ever since the engine in my Explorer ate itself, I've been getting into working on stuff (especially cars). There's a really unexplainable pleasure in fixing something that seemed hopelessly broken. Just doing something trivial like changing out a set of spark plugs can make the whole car seem new again. It's a weird, very addictive sense of accomplishment. And then like any high, it starts to wear off so you have to find something else to fix.
So a few months ago I decided I wanted to take it to the next level and get an old car to fix up. I looked at Camaros, Mustangs, and Chevelles, but the car that just really seemed to speak to me was the Nova. What's odd about the Nova is that it seems to be a love it-or hate it kind of car. It has this uber-cult following, but at the same time, everybody I've showed it to just kinda gives me this look like, "why?!" (which, true to my character, actually adds to the appeal).
It's Very Tiresome
Posted by bpopp @
09:09 PM - 299
reads.
This is what absolutely drives me crazy about Glenn Beck and his friends on the right. Of all the things that they could be bitching about, they choose to bitch about stupid sh*t like death panels and birth certificates. There are so many genuinely boneheaded things we could be talking about w/ regard to our government and Obama and instead all I've heard about for the last week is some dumbass Acorn "scandal".
Let's look at what's in my inbox this month:
1) Dave Kaiser supposedly compares Obama to Hitler
2) DC Tea parties are ignored by the Mainstream Media (even though that's all I heard about for 3 days)
3) Series of Comics criticizing Obama for having the nerve to apologize to the middle east (for needlessly killing millions of people)
4) A critique of Obama by the Russian magazine, Pravda, featuring a painting of Obama straddling a U..
The Free Market
Posted by bpopp @
06:08 PM - 367
reads.
I hear a lot of my friends who used to be conservatives calling themselves libertarians now. Glenn Beck has made it all the fad. They espouse the virtues of small government and claim that bureaucrats need to stay out of the market. They claim that this government intervention in the market is unconstitutional and is the real cause of economic disasters like Enron, the tech-crunch bubble, and our recent housing-market/credit fiasco.
What they are missing, I think, is that the "communists" over there in China have exactly the kind of system they are asking for. Government does not regulate what businesses can and can't do. In fact, they seem to encourage their businesses to do things as cheaply as possible in order to boost their economy (at the expense of the people). The consequences of this "hands-off" policy has been disastrous.
The police acted stupidly
Posted by micah777 @
04:07 PM - 345
reads.
This is one reason why racism will never end in this country. Any reasonable person in the world would have supported thie police officer in the instance but because Obama is racist, as he was taught by his preacher, he said the police acted stupidly. The cop did his job the blacks in this country will always through crap like this in their defense. Go Mr. President!!
Father Barron
Posted by bpopp @
09:06 PM - 697
reads.
I saw this clip of a catholic priest named Father Barron on Reddit the other day. Reddit wasn't too excited about what he had to say (of course), but I was really impressed with the guy. He's very eloquently criticizing this new Harris/Dawkins-led Atheist "movement" that is all the fad right now. At the end he uses CS Lewis' argument (which he unfortunately doesn't site) that people seem to have a hard-wired need for God (or a god) which perhaps wouldn't be there unless there was God. Ie. we get thirsty-- there is water. We get hungry-- there is food. We get horny-- there is sex. It not an argument that is going to convert anyone from their disbelief, but it is an interesting observation.
Tonight I started listening to some of his other stuff and I really like him. It's very odd (and refreshing) to see a catholic priest reviewing "No Country For Old Men" and saying "I'm a big fan of th..
Intolerance Should be a Sin
Posted by bpopp @
02:06 PM - 524
reads.
A few months ago the Department of Homeland Security put out a document that basically classified certain groups of people as potential terrorists. One paragraph reads:
Quote: Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
When this came out, I started getting lots of emails from conservative friends and family complaining that Obama was unjustly "targeting" them as terrorists for their conservative belie..
Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration. 