That I agree with completely. Unfortunately, only about .000001% of the population (no, not scientific, heh) fails to fall for identity politics and, therefore, not see everyone that disagrees with them as an evil heretic. Congratulations on, apparently, being one of those few.

The fact that the European perspective doesn't consider American liberals to be mud-flinging extremists as well shows a herd-mentality bias itself. Again, get off your high horse, Europeans suck just as much as Americans.

Funny how conservatives are just like liberals in that way. Get off your high horse. Your herd sucks just as much as theirs.

The problem is that the reporter that originally covered this (New York Times's Ashley Parker) has stated that Romney said it in the form of a joke and was not being serious. Seems like not being a moron is a fine line even for Linux creators.

Ashley’s response to the question:

The Los Angeles Times story that relayed Romney’s airplane remark to the world was based off a pool report written by the New York Times‘s Ashley Parker. When we asked Parker this morning whether it seemed as if Romney made the mark in jest, she left no doubt. “Romney was joking,” she e-mailed. Parker told us that while the pool report didn’t explicitly indicate that Romney was joking, it was self-evident that he was. ”The pool report provided the full transcript of his comments on Ann’s plane scare,” she said, “and it was clear from the context that he was not being serious.”

My bad, Macgrrl. I misread the order of posts and, therefore, your topic. I blame the phone for having too small of a screen.

What the hell are you talking about? A candidate jokes about plane windows and suddenly the Presidency and country are a joke? So the leader of your country has never joked about anything? You must be really upset with Obama then, because he considers himself something of a comedian when talking to people. Or maybe you consider plane windows far too serious to joke about.
Good luck with the operation to pull that stick out of your ass. Though the prognosis isn't very good, it seems to be way up there.

Dan Amira at New York magazine did a little fact checking and found (emphasis mine):

        The Los Angeles Times story that relayed Romney’s airplane remark to the world was based off a pool report written by the New York Times‘s Ashley Parker. When we asked Parker this morning whether it seemed as if Romney made the mark in jest, she left no doubt. “Romney was joking,” she e-mailed. Parker told us that while the pool report didn’t explicitly indicate that Romney was joking, it was self-evident that he was. ”The pool report provided the full transcript of his comments on Ann’s plane scare,” she said, “and it was clear from the context that he was not being serious.”

The problem is that the reporter that originally covered this (New York Times's Ashely Parker) has stated that Romney said it in the form of a joke and was not being serious. Seems like not being a moron is a fine line for even Linux creators.

I've never understood this statement. It's invariably made by people who wouldn't vote for Romney if his tax returns showed that he gave 50% of his income to charity and the other 50% to the IRS, so why would you care if he releases them? It's not going to make one bit of a difference in who you vote for.

The problem, of course, is that the rich are the entrepreneurs. That's how they become rich in the first place. The other problem, of course, will be the need to kick those awesome entrepreneurs you speak so hopefully of out of the country once they commit the sin of actually making some money and magically morph into one of the damn dirty rich people.

lol

Because our technology was not advancing as fast as it is now, or capable of the level of destruction that it soon will be. The answer to the Fermi Paradox is that species destroy themselves when technology gets to point where true space travel is possible. Technology advances technology, to the point that technological evolution advances far faster than societal evolution. As a result, technology is created that a species is not responsible enough to handle, and it destroys itself either in the form of weapons or its inability to control the technology it creates.

How long do you think our species would last if a way was found to create a fusion device from household products that could be used as a weapon? We're one discovery away from killing ourselves off, and the faster our technology advances, the more likely that discovery is to be found.

I'm not saying that we need to stop scientific advancement, I'm just saying that it's very likely to lead to our own destruction due to our immaturity at handling the technology we have and are on the verge of discovering.