Dr_Evil_Mouse

Thanks, d - got it streaming right now. Nice way to start the day .

- that's my quote of the day.

Shhhh, you'll tilt the balance of power for the next election in the US with that sort of thinking. Hmmm, I'm starting to see a pattern here...

read: we can rape their resources. :crazy: like we haven't benefitted off anything from them! Stockholm Syndrome

I wish there were some way to post the results here. I made up a zinger last night (which is now of course gone).

Shhhh, you'll tilt the balance of power for the next election in the US with that sort of thinking.

I'm sorry to hear this Cully; every moment now is going to that much harder, but it's still good to have those moments. Take care.

Happy birthday, Jay, and yes, it's very good to have you back again .

My guess is because he - reminds people of him - (the difference being that instead of getting elected with the promise of getting the trains to run on time, O'Brien got in having promised to make them not run at all)

Yes - thanks, Mike. I am at a complete loss for words right now, but thanks.

Yeah, I saw this coming from the first things I started hearing about him. Now, it's confirmed: Mel Lastman redux.

This is such a fucked up medium to reach out with. I know at least he'd be chuckling about that. I can hear it right now. At this moment, I miss my friends, and need right now to be with them, as at least we soon will. Words are too feeble, struggle as we do with them. This song has been the only one to course through my soul over and over tonight, and I've never felt it so deeply; it's a sacrament. I've known nobody like Marcel that this could ever fit so well, and if anyone has had the sweet fortune to have known him, they'll know. Truer, more open, and more uncompromisingly honest and direct people I've never known. And he's still here, which is what hurts so much. Marcel had a heart for music like few others; I've known nobody with a heart so big. This is the last I can say here on this. Sorry for reaching out like this. The song is him. It's hard to be so far from tomorrow, when we can be with his friends.

It's a very sad night for reasons I won't go into right now. This is just right. Presently on disc 3.

My bad - "funding" was a perfectly inappropriate word. "Support" would be marginally better, and conveniently vague. Let's start with tax-exemptions, and let my point peter out from there.

I wonder if McBain and Count Chocola have been given this as a portfolio, too .

You're very right - that's exactly the problem, and that's what recognised religious groups are going to exploit as well as they can at the expense of others that might well be understood as "religious" groups in the more circumspect sense of the word. (And still, universities continue to threaten Religious Studies departments, who might be able to contribute to figuring out what it is that they study in some workable way.) Why government funds people locked in their own delimited fantasy worlds (and I'm not trying to be facetious with that) is beyond me, aside from trying to keep the status quo as best it can. Yes, they serve useful functions (and governments are typically functionalistically oriented), but so too are all sorts of other social groupings, and you're right, there would be way too many of those for funding them to ever be practical. Just thinking out loud here, but maybe a practical middle ground would be government restricting funding to religious groups committed to ecumenical or interfaith directions. (Hahahahahahahahahahah!! Sorry, must be the wine talking. What was I thinking.)

Bonne fete!

Am getting good and excited about this, and the chance to see everybody thereabout again!

I trust in human psychopathology enough to believe that we are in fact fucked. Just about everything we have exercised control over in our evolutionary history has ended up messed up as a result. We're just not that smart, sensitive, or long-sighted.

Very happy birthday, Will! (And yes, awesome avatar )

Or, "Palestinians: hard done-by Arabs that much of the Arabic world doesn't actually give enough of a shit about to get down and take real care of except for cheap rhetorical effect"?

A subforum in Politics for easily distracted people spinning convoluted, verbose, and circular webs of logic? In! Dibs on moderator (or at least regular contributor) .

Thanks for that link, d_rawk - somehow I'd let myself forget about those characters (shudder). Hamilton - I think what I was trying to get at was the chronic and maybe insurmountable difficulty coming to a clear definition of religion; this is the inside "secret" within Religious Studies (well, they make no secret of it themselves, but it's often used as a reason for shutting down departments in a number of universities, that they can't define what it is exactly that they're studying). Is religion to be defined functionally - i.e., what "religion" does, how it works on or does for individuals and societies - or is it to be defined essentially - i.e., what properties is has or shares in common among a variety of traditions? The usual example that gets trotted out, of course, is Buddhism, which some people would rather treat as a philosophy in some of its forms, while others will point to the metaphysics and the ritual in much of it. But the history of all that comes from how "religion" as a word evolved in early European modernity from an attitude to life (commitment to a certain tradition - namely, Christianity) to a term to classify other traditions that looked like Christianity. That was still only possible where there was an attitude of openness and inquiry, which was part and parcel of the Renaissance; there's always been a stubbornness in many places, though, where people refuse to grant the status of "real religion" to traditions other than their own (I still get a kick out of students who would use phrases like "Christians and Catholics" in their essays). So, yes. And then we get into that hopelessly nebulous world that comes with the world "spiritual". I mean, what does that word mean, to put a fine point on it? In the world of law, religion has to meet certain criteria, like having an adequate pedigree, some discernible metaphysics, a charter of sorts, identifiable congregants, governors, and so on, but the more I think about it, the more frustrated I get by that conservatism, since it seems to generate as many problems as it tries to solve. If I had my druthers, I'd have psychedelics classified as religious sacraments, and have jambands get all the perks that organised religions get for what they do for their audiences. Sorry if I'm prattling; I'm trying to avoid getting down to my marking .