The serious stuff. Debates and discussions on politics, religion, etc.
What are the principles we want to establish for serious discussion here, and more generally? We have the chance at the outset of a new forum to discuss what these principles should be, and ideally to have them endorsed by the Mods and New PTB here....
The next election in the UK is likely to be a Conservative win with a majority in the House of Commons. However, given the public's current disfavour towards Labour, either Old or New, is there a chance that the Lib Dems could become the UK's 2nd...
Are they an example of "socialism"?
In planning a trip to Krakow I started following Wikipedia links and ended up on the Auschwitz bombing debate page. I'd never thought about it before, but after reading about the topic for a while it seems that a lot of people feel that not bombing...
The President has picked Craig Fugate, an emergency management official from Florida, to head the Federal Emergency Management agency. As the Director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Mr. Fugate oversees an agency with 138 full...
I have never heard a good argument for DST, and I don't expect to, but I'd be happy to be surprised. Surprise me! Defend this ridiculous practice! Make me not hate it with all the fairly feeble hatred I can summon! Is DST a good idea now? ...
I grew up in a socialist home. I have read some Lenin and Marx. I do believe that the best end result for humanity can only be achieved by way of socialist government. I further believe that in a country as small as Sweden, national politics are...
The Scottish government's about to attempt to push through minimum pricing laws for alcoholic drinks in order to try to break the back of the drinking culture here. Currently, with special offers, and the like, in supermarkets and pubs, it's...
I've just started Bart Ehrman's new book, Jesus Interrupted, kind of an popular introduction to the historical critical approach to the New Testament. A point that he makes up front is that noticing the inconsistencies and historical errors in the...
Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate entities. But they all have the same personality. And that personality is to be identified as God. The difference between the three is not in their personality, but in their circumstance. The Father...
Inspired by a thread on the dope where a poster wants Bernie Madoff to be raped in prison: If you want someone to be sent to prison and raped, you are morally defective, ethically retarded, and pose a danger to society. You want certain...
What influence did the Celtic languages, present in the British isles, have on the formation of English? As far as I can see, there seems to be no clear example of a major Celtic influence, other than a few loan words. Rather, there's many...
I absolutely hate discussing gender differences, as I am easily offended by such generalizations, and, while I fit the conclusion that I reach, I am anything but 'masculine' in the societal sense. However, I believe I know why the topic is so...
This is a few months old, but I don't remember seeing any chatter about it. No high-quality study done to date can document that having an abortion causes psychological distress, or a "post-abortion syndrome," and efforts to show it does occur...
I don't mean Rush. Who, within the party, is calling the shots? Who decided all the republicans should not vote for the Stim package? Who told Steele and Gengrey to apologize to Rush. Who is steering policy decisions? Does anyone know?
It currently has a record with no fatalities which for a workhorse of its capabilities is impressive. However there have been two recent incidents with ice in the fuel delivery system causing engine failure. A near crash at Heathrow averted by quick...
It is all over the news. A lady goes to McDonald's and asks for a 10 count McNuggets. She gives them her money, they ring her up. Cashier then discovers the store is out of McNuggets. She asks for her money back. The store refuses. She calls 911. ...
As an institution, is the UN completely outmoded? A number of high profile failures to "step in" to a conflict have lead to disaster (Rwanda's a good example). Most of the heavy lifting of the UN seems to be done by a few countries (NATO, larger...
A message board friend of mine (honestly, I do like this gal) recently proposed that overpopulation really isn't a pressing issue for humanity and is, in reality, a ploy by the Rockefellers (who are evidently responsible for the UN, the Federal...
In a thread on the other board about my agnostic/rebellious teenage cousin and her asshole fundamentalist parents, at least one person opined that she should flat-out lie to them about rejecting of their faith until she turns 18 and can move out. ...
Where does the US stand in terms of word ranking of socialist states? Have the recent economic troubles and gov't intervention materially increased our leaning in that direction? As I understand it, socialism and democracy exist on a continuum, and...
I gather there is a fair bit of support on these boards and among the general U.S. population for limiting the salaries and otherwise restricting executives of financial institutions that received capital injections under TARP (not necessarily...
Let's face it, this mopping up the mess after the fact doesn't seem to be working, so how can we work towards being preventative in our approach to criminality, as opposed to simply reactionary? We know there are 'pointers' towards a person's...
I was sitting around a few days ago listening to people discuss President Obama. They were genuinely confused upon hearing that troops were going to be reassigned from Iraq to Afghanistan. “Hey Nate, I thought your Obama was supposed to bring...
The other thread's now into its second page, and it's got some serious contenders. Please vote for one. If there is a tie, it'll go to a run-off. I took the names with serious support, so Syllojism didn't make the cut. (Sorry). Voting will close at...
Much controversy is brewing over the president's designation of Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius for Secretary of Health and Human Services. She will head the FDA, the CDC, and the NIH to name a few. But in addition, President Obama has indicated...
Now, I know that many nations will every now and then be nice, in the form of financial aid, medicine, military security, etc. But is it possible for a nation to, at least most of the time, place the needs of others ahead of their own? To give an...
I'd put this in the polling booth, but it's far from trivial: What's YOUR number? That is, how much capital would you need to feel good about retiring? In the US, this is complilcated by some factors, so I'd outline mine as examples: from what I...
So newspapers (even aside from the Reader) are not doing so great lately. The Chicago Tribune went bankrupt in December. Closer to home, both of Detroit's newspapers are now only doing delivery Thursdays and Fridays, and on other days are selling a...
A hypothetical for the good people of domebo: Suppose the state of Wisconsin recently held an election for dog-catcher. It was a heated battle. Many first-time voters were registered. Among the instructions given to first-time voters was this:...
"As for the Republicans—how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial...
An old friend got in touch with me last week, and we spent several hours last night getting caught up. He mentioned something about Second Life. I know it's been around awhile, and I had a vague idea of what it is and what it's about, but I...
How do you find the boundaries there? Between letting go (which seems to be one of the Major Tasks of adulthood) and letting it ALL go. It seems to me that most of us enter our 20's with a fine set of notions of how the world should be. And for...
I've seen numerous mentions, sometimes annoyed mentions, of Republicans called the Democratic party the "Democrat party." Apparently, this is supposed to bug me. Why?
OK, not really. But.... Primarily “Red States,” right? The article cites Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma and Montana, South Carolina, as harboring some dissidents willing to wield the legal shears that would carve their silhouette out of the map. ...
CPAC did a straw poll of attendees to find out who has the early conservative support for the 2012 Republican nomination. Mitt Romney won with 20%, as he did in 2007 AND in 2008. Jindal came in second with 14%. Considering that Romney won in...
I've been watching kids programming lately, and I hear this theme over and over again. It's supposed to be a self-esteem builder but I think at the root of it's a highly destructive thing to tell kids that sets them up for disappointment. It's...
What is the point of a country being divided up in to many States, each with it's own laws and legal systems? Would things be better if all laws were nationwide, yet there were still state governments to run the state? It seems to me that the...
This is the only forum that still has a SDMB name. I'm thinking it needs a new one. Personally, I'm partial to "Plato's Academy" but other suggestions are welcome. When we've got enough suggestions, I'll do a poll and run it by Crispy for his...
Something occured to me while looking through the political threads, that although I knew the names of some of the people being mentioned, I did not necessarily know the policies or where they stood in the political spectrum. I am aware that...
Question inspired by a family I saw at the store yesterday. Boy, around 7 or so, is heading around the corner towards me and I hear him say, "So, I'm not going to die, ever?" and two women, mother and grandmother in age, both assuring him, "No!...
Qadgop started an interesting thread about the ethical dilemma of being a prison physician (and haven't we all wondered how he manages to DO that?). But you know, when I worked for one of the Big Soft Drink Companies on the account team for a Big...
Uh, oh.The Central intelligence Agency (CIA) has destroyed 92 tapes of interviews conducted with terror suspects, a US government lawyer has admitted. The agency had previously said that it had destroyed only two tapes. The American Civil...
'Cause that will be weird.
Having been raised Jewish, and having since found my own set of rational reasons to behave morally as an atheist, I've wondered about this for a long time. Altruistic behavior, ISTM, is practically always rewarded in some fashion or another. If...
During my lifetime, Third Party candidates (for national office) have at best been spoilers (e.g., Perot in 1992; Nader in 2000). But if a third party -- Green Party, Libertarian Party, or what have you -- took a significant number of seats in...
Damn, the titles are short here. Anyway, we saw how pissed a lot of Republicans got when Snowe, Collins, and Specter voted for cloture on the stimulus bill. If they continue on this path (which Specter, at least, pretty much has to do in an...
Use this control to limit the display of threads to those newer than the specified time frame.
Allows you to choose the data by which the thread list will be sorted.
Order threads in...
Note: when sorting by date, 'descending order' will show the newest results first.
Forum rules