Schnazz

Happy birthday man!

Not only is George W. Bush no longer President, not only do we have our first black President, but we now have President Obama! Outstanding!

The Colts are going to win it all!

Merry Christmas!!

Thanks for the link, I dug it.

They were getting better.. just drop like they didnt drop in a long time.. And not only in america. no, bush's after 9/11 policy managed to screw the whole world economy 7 years later..lol :wickedwisdom: Gotta love it. It really made my 5 hours economy class a week intresting tho. I'm not certain, but I think AJ was talking about the elder Bush. That was not the only reason, as Bob pointed out, but that was one of them.

Yes.

This is an amazing moment.

Thanks AJ, I used to love Heavy D.

A few weeks back, a US Bank, Sovereign Bank, lost about 72% of it's stock value. The next day, I think it regained 70% of that value. That would have been an excellent short term buy to turn around and sell. I agree that it's a tough time to buy... we don't know which industries are going to crash, and in truth, all of them seem pretty bad, but if you're looking to invest long term, you'll be getting in at bargain prices right now. The key is to put your money in carefully and leave it alone... While you guys are right in that when the market sucks you want to be buying, now is a tricky time for lay investors. First, with as crazy as the market's been in the past little bit, how do you know it's not going to drop another 20% next week? There's been a number of times over the past year where the market has shed a lot of points but was no where near the bottom. Second, some major institutions have been going bankrupt. If you invested in them, you weren't going to be making any money no matter how long you waited. With such strong companies going under, it's hard to know what companies are safe from bankruptcy. That's part of the reason why the credit market was so frozen, even the experts didn't know what was coming next. I'm still investing (for better or worse), but I wouldn't begrudge anyone who's staying out of it right now.

So you want to vote for the guy who'll make your tax rate 7.5% with no social security taken out while other folks kick in like 40% all told? That's just a wee bit self serving. Schnazz, can you imagine what would have happened if partial privatization of social security had gone through. SS is already broken, but with the way the stock market has collapsed of late, think of what would have happened to people's savings that were diverted from SS into the market. :shakehead: No doubt man, that would be hurting a LOT of people right now. This market, and specifically the bankrupt companies, are exactly why social security (and medicare and medicaid) should exist. Right now a lot of hard working people lost a lot of security and years off of their retirement by "playing it safe" and investing in stable companies. (see also Enron, World Com, etc...) There should be safety nets in place to catch people. Not everyone deserves a mansion and to live to be 125 years old, but everyone deserves a roof over their heads, healthy food, heat in the winter, an education, and basic preventative medicine.

You're right, some of the people who vote for Obama are doing so purely for selfish reasons. Not all of them are though, my voting isn't in line with my own short term self interests. I'm a liberal Democrat but I fit many of the stereotypes for a conservative Republican. My wife and I are both pretty successful professionals and we do pretty well financially. We have health insurance and the cost of our premiums and deductibles would have to rise a LOT faster than they have been before it would alter our standard of living. We have investments that could benefit from a 7.5% tax rate. Shoot, we're not planning on taking any money out of our retirement funds for quite some time, so even the faltering market helps us since we're still investing. The reason why I'm a Democrat is because it's not right that I'm living this well and others aren't. I may not have been born on third base, but I was at least taught how to play the game, and that's a hell of a lot more than a lot of people were born with. It's not right that I have more "disposable income" than one in four families have to straight live off of. It's not right that my medical bills for my son's birth would take ever penny of the average workers income for two years. It's not right that my son will get the best health care and education, simply because I am his father, while the average US kid would fair much better in any other first world nation and even a few third world nations. The reason why I'm a Democrat is because it's not right that people are hated, abused, and downtrodden through no fault of their own. It's not right that I'm allowed to marry the love of my life and others are not simply because the person who I'm married to has the "right" body parts. It's not right that the religious beliefs of the few allow mythology be taught as science in classrooms across this country. It's not right that birth control education is ignored and instead failed methods of abstinence only education are used. Not one of these issues directly touches my life, but I'm lucky, I have a great life. The reason I'm why I'm a Democrat is because I want everyone's life to be better as well.

So you want to vote for the guy who'll make your tax rate 7.5% with no social security taken out while other folks kick in like 40% all told? That's just a wee bit self serving.

Go to the original language, and you'll see "Kephas" (sorry about the spelling). Peter was the first Pope. The Pope is the Bishop of Rome, as the other Apostles are Bishops as well. Peter is consulted in issues of faith in the New Testament. Peter, Petros, Kephas, Pope all are under the root idea that Jesus left the keys to the Kingdom (in the next verse) to Peter. I do Catholic Apologetics, so I'm very well aquainted with the history of the question you raise. If you see Matthew 16:18-19, you first see Jesus make Peter the rock. (Some question translations, trying to say a gender difference in the translation of rock, but it really is an issue of Jesus masculinizing the word rock in the original written language, as to not call Peter a female rock...but that's deep into the discussion, not neccessarily what you raise) Then you can look later in John 21:15-17 where Jesus reaffirms Peter as the leader of his sheep. And then finally, so to not confuse the power granted to Peter with the positions of the other Apostles, Jesus affirmed the faith of the other Apostles in him as the leader of the visible Church (Luke 22:32). So when all said and done, yes, there is the Pope, the leader of the Church directly in the New Testament. This is all an aside when recognizing the Bible doesn't constitute all of Christianity, considering it's compilation happened long after Jesus died and Christianity began. That's the oral tradition that many miss. Yet the scriptures didn't come until decades after the death of Jesus, and his Apostles were already practicing the sacraments (like reconciliation John 20:23) that were later affirmed in the written portion of the faith. So I hope that cleared up any confusion. Kephas means rock, petros means rock, Peter means rock, Pope means father. Yes, Jesus made Peter the leader of the Church, of that there is no doubt. However, the Pope is the Bishop of Rome and neither term appears in the Bible. Maher was right. If you want to start another thread to delve more deeply into the Bible and Christian history I'd be more than happy to participate, as I have studied both fairly extensively for the last 32 years. I would like to see this conversation continue, so I moved it over here. One question I have is, and forgive the simplicity of it, I have not studied the bible extensively, nor have I ever been Catholic, however: even if Peter was in fact leader of the Church, why does that translate in there being a concept of a Pope, why didn't that role end with Peter?

I thought Biden was outstanding, but of course the big story was Palin. Max is right, the bar was so low that she would have had to try and fail. I think that she did fine for the most part, regardless of the bar, but with the bar being low she seemed quite good. The one thing I thought was pretty sketchy on her part was her VP powers response. She looked downright panicked by that question and her response was questionable to say the least.

You're an idiot. Because I have no faith I should keep my mouth shut and I "don't have any reason 2 stand up for anything"? I have plenty of reason to stand up for plenty of things. Religious zealots in this country are fighting to have myths taught as science to my child. How about I require that devil worship be taught in every class? How's that sound? Religious zealots in this country are fighting to prevent two people in love getting married, they want to institutionalize bigotry. How about we ban heterosexual relationships, only homosexual relationships are legally sanctioned by the government? Does that sound fair? Would you be up for that? Or how about the sham that is "abstinence only" education funded by my tax dollars and pushed for by religious zealots? Teen pregnancy and STD's are a serious, serious problem and study after study after study have shown that abstinence only education fails miserably, that safe sex education is needed to counter the problem. I'm not "running' my mouth "2 get attention", many, many, many religious groups in this and other countries are causing major problems because they would rather back something based on "faith" than facts, and I have EVERY reason to shout at the top my lungs "Hey, morons, stop it, you're screwing it up for everyone!" By the way, it's "you" not "u" and "to" or "too" not "2". Your an adult, try using big person words now.

I'm planning on going to see it. I strongly agree with Bill Maher's religious views and I'm always entertained by things like this. :)

.... ... I have nothing to add, I just wanted to say that I'm finding both of your guys' posts fascinating!

Ha, yea, that's not very surprising. What's interesting/important is that the polls show that independents thought Obama won, by a little bit. As I watched it, I, not surprisingly, liked Obama's answers better. However, I really thought the general population would like McCains answers better. I figured McCain had a slight (general population wise) edge on both the economy (mostly because of the taxes argument) and foreign policy (because he was more aggressive). The whole "precondition" thing I thought Obama really came up short. McCain was mischaracterizing Obama's stance and Obama kept letting it slide. I would have rather seen him say exactly what he would and would not do, rather than trying to play defense on it.

Wow, that's awesome. I've watched all of the Palin interviews so far, she has a scary amount of ignorance about the world and seems to have no interest to learn more. She seems to think that the only thing she has to master is not blinking.

I like him better as a rapper

I'm voting! Come on folks!

Ahahahaha, brilliant!

Congrats man, enjoy the honeymoon!

Not to be pedantic, well maybe a little, but Ready To Die sold well from the get go. But I agree with your general point :)