winsor

Why don't cannibals eat clowns? They taste funny. The world has just changed, and not for the better. Dave was one of the greats.

Tuition free college is a reality in this country at quite a number of first-rate schools. At each of these institutions the student body is hardly made up of slackers, and they have 100% placement rate upon graduation. Of course not everybody qualifies for West Point, Annapolis, King's Point and the like but, having worked with their graduates, I consider their education to be money well spent.

This goes with my recommendation for universal conscription as a requirement for full citizenship. I figure that, after grade 12, everyone should be committed to a minimum of 18 months of service - say 6 months of training and 12 months on the job. This need not be military, the Park Service would do as well as the Marine Corps. Either way, get away from mommy and daddy and take responsibility for yourself as part of achieving majority. The various academies could serve as a basis for 'free' education. You enter with a 6 year commitment upon graduation. If you fail or drop out that commitment remains, only you're Enlisted instead of Commissioned. Not everyone is management material. I realize that things that work just fine in Switzerland fall apart when our passion for 'diversity' enters the equation, but it's an improvement on whatever we are or are not doing now. BSBD, Winsor

"The sports team from my area is superior to the sports team from your area." Onion T-shirt

I thought it came from his anti-immigration promises.Part and parcel of the same thing. Trump-led changes in the American spirit: 1. Hatred of brown-skinned people. 2. Hatred of immigrants. 3. Hatred of the poor (except when you need them for votes). 4. Hatred of the educated. 5. Hatred of anyone with a history of health problems. 6. Hatred of anyone with a gender identity other than traditional male or female. 7. Hatred of anyone with a sexual identity other than "straight". 8. Contempt for clean air and water. 9. Contempt for free speech. 10. Contempt for judicial institutions. 11. Contempt for our descendants (i.e. sticking them with a crippling national debt, and a fouled planet. 12. Contempt for anyone in the world who was not born a rich white American. 13. Contempt for the US's history as a world leader. 14. Hatred of anyone who is not an evangelical Christian. I'm sure I've missed a couple of things, but that will do for a start. Don If the goal was to promulgate a hyperbolic crock of shit, this pegs the meter many times over. Using 'hatred' and 'contempt' for each category is a clue; it's like the use of '...phobic' is a clear indication that the speaker is chock full of shit (and/or semi-literate). Each category justifies a detailed response, so I won't waste the time on oversimplified rebuttal. I understand that you dislike Trump, which is a valid take on the man's basic character. To say that he's an asshole is an insult to assholes everywhere. Having said that, to use Trump's loathsome persona to support the nonsense put forth above does nothing but demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of how he wound up where he is. I suppose there is a right to ignorance, though I question why so many people insist on the vigorous exercise of said right. BSBD, Winsor

Slight point of order but they actually sent just short of 50,000 troops to help the Nazis on the Eastern Front. I stand corrected. Okay, so Switzerland and Sweden were better places to serve during the early '40s.

The support that changed politics in Spain in the '20s and '30s was, to some extent, motivated more by repudiation of Communists than by adherence to Franco and his generals. Regardless of how fucked up the Fascists were, the Communists, Socialists and Anarchists were just that much worse. I know it is/was fashionable to criticize the Franco regime, but it is worthwhile to note that Spain sent zero troops to be slaughtered in the war that swept Europe. When I was in Spain under Franco, there was much with which I was (privately) critical. Having said that, many things became significantly worse after his demise. In exactly the same sense that Franco sucked but was MUCH better than the Communists, Trump sucks out loud but is a vast improvement over Democrats. I admit that it would be nice to have someone competent, but anyone who is qualified for the job would have nothing to do with it. BSBD, Winsor

Having spend a great deal of time in 'interesting' places, I have run into rather a few people who turned out to be dyed-in-the-wool spooks. By and large they were very good at their cover jobs, and would convincingly deny working for any covert organizations. Graham Greene's "Travels With My Aunt" really nails it, which is quite fitting, since Greene was a spook. The only case that comes to mind where someone claimed to be CIA and turned out to be is Peter Falk's character in "The In Laws" - which is, of course, fiction. If you're around Langley, you are likely to meet people who can admit they work for the CIA, but most of these people are clerical, maintenance and the like. Thee people who actually gather intel generally have no direct links with the organization. In any event, if someone claims to be a member of a covert organization, all I can say is "gee, that's fascinating - tell me all about it!" BSBD, Winsor

0^0 = 1

In that case, Obama is ten times the man Trump is. 10 x 0 = 0

I understood there would be no Math.

During the campaign against Clinton, I saw a sticker on a lamp post in Philadelphia that read "Bush is a weenie." That's probably the worst thing I'd heard anyone say about him. I am impressed that 41 was the embodiment of class and integrity. 45, unfortunately, is remarkable for a dearth of either. George H. W. Bush was a mensch.

He was the Magic Jewish Zombie.

Jesus saves. Moses invests.

During the Troubles, an American visited Belfast. As he was sipping a pint in the local pub, one of the regulars asked him what church he attended. "I don't go to church, I'm an Atheist!" "Would that be a Protestant Atheist or a Catholic Atheist?"

A Lawyer, a Doctor and a Priest wound up sharing a stateroom on an ocean liner. The ship shook mightily, and the Lawyer ran into the room. "We've hit an iceberg and we're sinking! Head to the lifeboats!" "What about the women and ?" asked the Doctor. "Fuck them!" said the Lawyer. "Think there's time?" asked the Priest?

Perusal of History of Religion shows that a primary function of religion is the projection of power. Afghanistan, the Graveyard of Empires, was never (and likely never will be) defeated militarily, but fell to Islam. Similarly, Ireland succumbed to Catholicism (and whiskey). Adherents to a particular ideology need not actively participate in active violence to be complicit. Boston Irish who funded the IRA for generations or Pakistanis who tolerate the insane excesses of Islam are prime examples. It is a software glitch in the human psyche that makes most people susceptible to the mental malware that is religion. Like many trojans, worms and viruses, religious conviction can lie dormant and apparently harmless, but be catastrophic when activated.

Holy Christ, what a load of pretentious bullshit. I bet the people here just let you ramble on like some once respected college professor that now scours the campus for empty bottles. . . Yeah, I guess I'd have a real hard time coming up with examples of large numbers of people performing ghastly atrocities in the name of their 'peaceful' religion, or even unspeakable horrors recommended by someone's invisible friend. You sure put me in my place.

An engineer died and went to hell. A week later the phone rang. "Hi, this is God. I understand you have an engineer there." "You bet! Our HVAC is working for the first time in ages, and we have bids out for infrastructure upgrades." "Well I'm afraid there's been a mistake, he was supposed to come here. I'd appreciate it if you'd send him up." "No way, we have too much going on to lose him." "Look, if you don't send him up I'm going to have to sue you." "Right - where are you going to find a lawyer?"

Nope. I make it a point not to ridicule or belittle anyone's beliefs in whatever deity they choose. We all have to believe something. I only object to the way people use their beliefs to justify mistreating or forcing others. I also have absolutely no problem jumping without an AAD. Although I do now have one in my main rig. Your conceited belief is that I will eventually come to believe as you do. The conceit in that is you are stating that you are right and I am wrong. And that one day I will see my error. it is hard to take religion seriously, beyond such works as result from one particular system of delusion or another. This is to say that one need not accept Ra in order to appreciate the odd pyramid. It is a trivial exercise to note that, given 100 mutually exclusive tenets (where a maximum of one can be true), the greatest likelihood is that they are all equally false. The great deal of commonality born of reliance upon the Bronze Age family lore of a big, dysfunctional family fosters the false impression that the 'truth' must take a form similar to the perceived reality of isolated desert dwellers who really didn't get out much. Since religion is, by definition, a communicable form of mental illness, one should be polite to those afflicted with a belief system for precisely the same reason one should be nice to an escapee from a mental institution who is holding a chain saw. While some isms are fundamentally more pathological than others, as Hitchens noted, the problem with fundamentalists is the fundamentals. When people adhere to patent nonsense, their reasons are emotional rather than intellectual, though a veneer of intellectualism may mask the atavistic nature of one belief system or another. Said intellectualism is typically subject to Poe's law. Thus, the reasons one should be polite regarding religious delusions are that failing to do so is both pointless and all too often incites True Believers (tm) to Ultra Violence. BSBD, Winsor

A chap steps into the street without paying attention and finds himself before the Pearly Gates. A mans says "I'm Saint Peter. Welcome to Heaven!" The fellow says "this is wonderful, but I am a muslim and hope to meet Muhammad." "Sure thing! Go through the gates, into that door and you'll be all set." After going through the door he meets a man who says "Hi, I'm Moses. Welcome to Heaven!" The fellow says "I am pleased to meet you, but I want to find Muhammad." "No problem. Just go down that hall and through the door at the end." Through the door he finds someone who says "I'm God. Welcome to Heaven!" "I am honored, but I was told that I would find Muhammad here." "Certainly! Say, do you like coffee?" "Why yes, I love coffee." "Muhammad! Two coffees!"

People have been saying that sine the beginning of time. Barbara Tuchman's preface to The Proud Tower gave a thoughtful treatment of our tendency to view the past fondly. Otto Bettmann also went into depth regarding our misconceptions of the past.

It is not illegal to present yourself at the US border and ask for asylum. Having said that, international law mandates the application for asylum in the first country of arrival after crossing the frontier. This would be Turkey for Syrians, Mexico for Guatemalans and so forth. For Syrians to head to Stuttgart and Guatemalans to Chicago rather invalidates the legitimacy of the claim of 'asylum.' FWIW, the Tokugawa Shogunate, which strictly excluded Gaijin, resulted in three centuries of stability for Japan. Rome, OTOH, fell in large part by virtue of 'diversity.' Politics today is enough to shake one's faith in Nihilism.

Gravity is just a myth propagated by The Deep State to keep us all down. There is no gravity. The earth sucks.