"Gullible are those who believe what they are told without Investigation. Misinformed are those who investigate and come to the wrong conclusion. Stupid are those who do not investigate and criticize those who do."
- David Maddox
Conservative media attack Obama’s Supreme Court criticism as untruthful read the rest of this entry » January 28, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Fox & Friends’ Kilmeade revises economic history to defend Bush read the rest of this entry » January 28, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Quick Fact: Ignoring nonpartisan CBO, WSJ claims only "devoted partisans" believe health bill saves money read the rest of this entry » January 28, 2010 at 6:15 pm
Conservatives are trying to spread misinformation regarding this beautiful bill (HR3458) and even countered it with their own bill (HR3924).
H.R. 3458 aka Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 aka “Net Neutrality” is a bill proposed by the Democrats to make it unlawful for ISP companies to discriminate lawful websites, lawful internet contents and lawful internet applications. This bill requires the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to enforce this neutrality, and to make sure that ISP companies do not violate the freedom we enjoy now being able to visit any lawful websiteS we want and to use any lawful applications we want to use.
For those who do not understand, I will make an example.
Let’s say that you hired a driver to drive you where ever you want to go. And you are paying him a monthly salary to do so. One day you wanted to go to Burger King, and you asked your driver to drive for you. (Remember that you are paying him a monthly salary to do this for you.) Your driver says to you, “Sorry I can’t take you to Burger King”, you will of course, ask why. Your driver will simply answer, coz Burger King didn’t pay me.
Basically with this bill, it will prohibit your driver whom you paid, to discriminate or decide which places you can and cannot go. Since you are already paying him to drive you, why would Burger King or your destination place have to pay him too? Not only do they get to tell you which place you can go, they also get to say “well McDonalds pays me $100 while Burger King only pays me $50, so even if you want to go to Burger King, I’ll take you to McDonalds instead, but if you insist you’ll have to wait for 6 hours before I can drive you there.”
The driver I am talking about are the ISP companies. This bill will prohibit these ISP companies who already made public statements that they should be able to charge websites or application providers for using their “pipes”. First of all, websites are not using their “pipes”. Consumers are already paying them to be able to access the websites they want to visit. These websites are just sitting there waiting for you to visit them just as Burger King would. These ISP companies should not be able to limit which websites you can go. And this is exactly what Net Neutrality is all about.
On the other hand, GOP proposed a bill that is against Net Neutrality, saying FCC should be stopped from trying to regulate the internet. The truth is FCC is not regulating the internet, they want to regulate the ISPs to PREVENT them from controlling which websites you can or cannot go or which internet application you can or cannot use.
You do not believe that these ISPs want to control the internet? Well read their public statements below.
William L. Smith, chief technology officer for Atlanta-based BellSouth Corp., told reporters and analysts that an Internet service provider such as his firm should be able, for example, to charge Yahoo Inc. for the opportunity to have its search site load faster than that of Google Inc. (Source: Washington Post)
Former AT&T Chief Ed Whitacre
Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain’t going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there’s going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they’re using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes? (Source: BusinessWeek)
Verizon (Ivan Seidenberg)
We have to make sure they don’t sit on our network and chew up our capacity. We need to pay for the pipe.
(Source: Wall Street Journal)
Again, these websites are not using their pipes, these websites are just sitting there waiting for you to visit, you are paying these ISP companies to provide you the means to access these websites. This will affect every Mom and Pop websites on the internet, where only those who can pay these ISPs gets to be shown. And while the rest of the world are free to visit Mom and Pop’s website, the citizens of the United States will not be able to visit the site, unless Mom and Pop pays these ISPs the amount of money they demand. I urge all thinking citizens of the US to support Net Neutrality, do not be partisan, this affects every US Citizens. Write your representatives to support the Net Neutrality Bill.
Read the bill proposed by the Democrats and compare it with the bill proposed by the Republicans, you can download them below.
Our RD Forum accounts were re-instated by the forum administrator. They said it was a mistake made by the staff, they thought we were somebody else because our IP matches “sockpuppet’s” IP who is apparently a spammer.
Thanks to Topsy (RD forum administrator) for taking time to investigate and I apologize for the previous post. I was extremely infuriated to be permanently banned without any warning or clear explanation why we were banned. They first banned our accounts for “duplicate account” reason. When we emailed them trying to explain our case, they blocked our IP Address. After Topsy investigated he found no reason for the banning and re-instated our accounts and sent an apology email for the mistake made by the staff.
I still stand by my previous comment that many atheists in the RD forum are an embarrassment to TRUE Atheists and thinking people. I am pretty sure that Mr. Richard Dawkins himself is on the side of “open mindedness” and investigation instead of outright dismissal of any witness testimonies.
Two people in the RD Forum doesn’t believe that we have been visited by Alien life forms, but they at least took the witness testimonies seriously to actually take time to investigate. That is all I am advocating for, investigation instead of outright dismissal. If they come to a different conclusion than mine, I respect that.
What many people doesn’t know is that we all act in faith, no matter how scientific we believe we are, we still rely in witness testimonies. There are things that we can establish as fact, where we do not have to rely in witness testimonies. Gravity is a fact, you can experience it for yourself, you do not have to rely on witness testimony. The moon landing is not a fact, you have to rely on NASA’s testimony and a video that may or may not be staged. Although evolution is debatable since most of us didn’t do our own investigation instead we rely on witness testimonies who apparently investigated, we can see for our self one of it’s evidence which is our diversity.
To prove that the moon landing actually happened based on NASA’s testimony and then say that witness testimony is of no value and only deserve a howl of laughter is ridiculous.
Witness testimony is fallible and flawed, but it is ground enough to make an investigation. One may say I saw a snake under your bed, You will never know if there was in fact a snake, or if it was in fact a snake if your response is outright dismissal.
As a friend of mine says, “How many people have to tell you that your zipper is unzipped before you take a look?”
Thanks again to Topsy for re-instating our account and taking time to investigate. It shows that not everybody in the RD forum are close minded.
“Gullible are those who believe what they are told without Investigation, Misinformed are those who investigate and come to the wrong conclusion, Stupid are those who do not investigate and criticize those who do.” - David Maddox
My husband and I got banned from Richard Dawkins forum for advocating open mindedness and investigation of the witness testimonies regarding UFOs instead of ouright dismissal and dumping them all in the category of lunatics.
My husband and I were arguing with somebody who is a very strong supporter of RD (with more than 7500 posts) and got his ass kicked. He resorted into name calling and then all of a sudden, we both got banned permanently on their forum. Now how is that open minded?
My IP Address is a shared IP and it was banned too, meaning everybody in my city who uses the same ISP cannot access their forum. My husband is an atheist, but I am a humanist who believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Maybe you can view the thread to decide for yourself if we were in anyway offensive.
My username in the forum is boniknik, my husband is maddave42 and a friend of ours is myvoice81.
When an astronaut denies UFOs, RD supporters believe them, but when another astronaut says I have in fact witnessed UFOs and the government is hiding info, he is automatically categorized as lunatic. How is that open minded? All that we were advocating for is for them to at least give them the benefit of a doubt and investigation instead of outright dismissal. They said, the only response that should be given to these people are howling laughter because they are just insane.
It is widely known that most of the people who claim to either have witnessed or have been abducted by ETs are crackpots, but what many doesn’t know is that there are also an incredible amount of credible witnesses whom we trusted before with our our National Security, people who worked for NASA, NSA, CIA and the military who claim that that the government is hiding information about ETs. More than 400 people who worked for the government already came forward testifying to this. Are we suppose to just dismiss them all as lunatics just because they spoke about ETs and UFOs? I salute those who investigate instead of ouright dismissal.
These people are the same people who otherwise if they never spoke about ETs we will continue to trust with National Security and scientific research, but after speaking, they lost all their credibility and regarded as insane. Don’t they at least deserve the benefit of a doubt and investigation?
I am not saying witness testimonies are not fallible and flawed, but it is at least ground enough to make an investigation.
I am not asking anybody to believe, I am only asking for people to investigate. What’s is wrong with that? Is that ground enough for me to get banned?
Many of the atheists in Richard Dawkins forums are an embarrassment not only to true Atheists but ALL thinking people.
A year ago, I did not believe that we have been visited by Extra Terrestrial Life Forms. I thought anybody who believes that is just crazy.
Until….
More than 400 people from NASA, NSA, CIA, FBI, NAVY etc. came forward testifying the presence of UFOs and aliens. Astronaut Edgar Mitchel also came forward with several other astronauts and cosmonauts. These witnesses together with the Disclosure Project, they are urging the US to disclose all classified information regarding UFOs.
UK, France, Belgium and Mexico already admitted the presence of Alien life forms and released some of the classified information. UK already released some of their top secret / classified information regarding extra terrestrials and promised to reveal all of them.
France admitted that a secret UN meeting regarding Extra Terrestrials was conducted in the US.
The defense minister of Canada issued a statement saying the classification of the files regarding Roswell incident is amazingly even higher than the US’ nuclear warhead.
One might ask, after 40 years, why is it that we never came back to the moon? According to the testimonies from people who worked for NASA, the US is hiding information about the moon. And that they are editing the pictures of the moon before they are released to the public, and that the truth is that there were alien artifacts, old buildings and space crafts found in the moon. And that a lot of the technologies we have now were reverse engineered from the artifacts found in the moon.
India’s space agency on their first unmanned moon mission, Chandrayaan 1, they claim that they found water in the moon. They were holding this information for 10 months before it was finally revealed to the public. They said that the UN Security council didn’t want them to release the information. After the information was released, NASA issued a statement that they are going to bomb the moon to see if water really exist there. Hmm… after 40 years, they haven’t discovered that?
I do not think those 400 people who came forward are just crazy. These people are scientists, these are the same people we trust with our nuclear weapons, all of a sudden when they speak of ETs they are automatically dismissed and regarded as insane?
If you do not believe, please take time to investigate, the information is out there, sure there are lots of bogus claim and misinformation, but the truth is out there buried in those lies and misinformation.
Hi again folks, I found these videos on youtube and just want to share it with you.
Kirk Cameron, best known for his role in the 1980s sitcom Growing Pains, now spends much of his time advocating for far-right Christian evangelical causes. He and his buddy Ray is planning to distribute 50,000 copies of altered version of Charles Darwin’s book to dozens of U.S. universities.
He should have just stayed being in sitcoms. A woman named Cristina on youtube and k-rina or @ZOMGitsCriss on twitter took him down and tore him apart using logic. Watch the video below, if you’re not a moron you’ll love it!
Yeah, I know, she’s not just intelligent, but also very beautiful! (Damn she’s prettier than me!) I know you want some more, so here’s another video she created, not about Kirk Cameron the moron but some thoughts about God, Death, eternal life, heaven and hell.
I read an article on ThinkProgress.com about Michael Schwartz, the chief of staff of Republican Senator Tom Coburn regarding Pornography and Homosexuality.
Michael Schwartz was saying that ALL pornography is homosexual and that ALL pornography can make you homosexual.
So all of you people who have seen pornography must be homosexual, if not you will one day become one. That is totally ridiculous!
I am heterosexual, I am female and I know that no amount of porn or any influence can make me lesbian/gay, if you are having doubts about yourself and you think watching pornography can change your sexuality, then you are probably gay! And the worst thing a person can do to him/herself is to live in denial, but that’s ok, it’s your life who cares! But to insist it to everybody is just wrong.
My husband told somebody this, in the argument whether sexuality is a choice or not. “When was it that you thought about sucking d*ck and decided…nah I’m just gonna eat p*ssy?” The person said, never! My husband replied, so you didn’t have a choice then huh?!
So all of you people who have seen pornography must be homosexual, if not you will one day become one. That is totally ridiculous!
