Naturally, the platform has to be mainstream enough to appeal to everyone possible. The reality is that the party has been co-opted by extremists hostile to some important pieces of science that impact policy. Here's your cites:

Exhibit A
Exhibit B (Yeah, it's Obama's list, but most would certainly embrace the denier label)
Exhibit C [youtube.com]

There are enough dangerous nuts in the great GOP Venn diagram (and a considerable overlap with elected officials) that the GP is basically correct.

Really? He just got lucky, like those morons Da Vinci and Einstein? Sounds like a vineyard of sour grapes to me.

I'm really excited, but I doubt the live broadcast will measure up to the bitchin' action movie NASA made of Curiosity's "Seven Minutes of Terror!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzqdoXwLBT8 Enjoy!

So... Grampa finally croaks at the age of 101. Hasn't been able to see, hear, taste, smell, or think straight for the last 15 years. When his magic soul is divinely uploaded to a new, angelic, ether-based model, is his consciousness just like it was when he died? Senile, socially disengaged, and slow to understand anything going on around him? Or, as many believe, would it be transformed to its former glory, when gramps was a young adult.

O.K... Now think about how differently you looked at the world; the skills, interests, and personality you had when you were much younger. Grandfather is a categorically different person from the vital young man he once was (he'd probably yell at him to get off his lawn if they met). So, in what sense would that angelic being be the same guy that died and not more so a recreation of somebody that existed 75 years ago?

I just can't see how the Judeo-Christian concept of an afterlife is anything but a big pile of paradox.

Amen. If de Grey, Kurzweil, and friends are right, by the end of the century religion and the clamoring for its promised afterlife will naturally extinguish. Who in their right mind would sign up for suppressing their sexual urges, spending their money building churches, and ruining several hours every Sunday, when there's no pay off?

Finally someone who "gets" it. They keep telling me that Spiderman is a fictional character, but I have read his texts and heard his message of justice and good deeds. I know that there are different versions of his tale, but that certainly doesn't mean that my understanding of his powers isn't de facto truth.

I have a magical unicorn that shits gold bars. The downside is that you won't be able to perceive it until you buy it from me for $10,000 (no personal checks, please). But, considering the value of gold, obviously you can simply assume the unicorn exists, right?

GPA doesn't matter much once you've got experience, but still... Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude or Summa Cum Laude fit nicely on the education section of a resume, right next to degree and specialization.

It's more like an hour of personal stuff and three extra hours of work (including work from home), but you're quite right on the point of reclaiming our personal lives. I'm not sure why we put up with it.

Your job has probably already been taken by robots. Sorry.

There are some jobs that require a warm body to be in place, answering a phone or managing an assembly line. Your presence, in these cases, isn't optional. It's not like I'm not being an elitist prick about this; it's simply a fact that many jobs (like help desk) require more rigid schedules. If the job doesn't, as long as you're giving 40 or more hours and you're there to collaborate with co-workers, a decent employer ought to trust you enough to allow some flexibility in your work.

The same reason you would expect a reasonable employer to let you see a dentist or take care of other personal things in a timely fashion. Basic respect.

I can understand how it would be unreasonable for people clocking out from the factory at 5:01 to expect anything beyond scheduled breaks. But for those of us with important, creative jobs, putting in over 60 hours every week, it's pretty heinous to expect us to save our personal lives entirely until we get home at 8:30. Considering that we go the extra mile in IT so often, it would be a little demeaning to treat us like we can't be responsible and reasonable with our Internet use. (Although we've all worked those shops.)

These all sound like good ideas we should move forward on --if partisans from both sides can just grow up and stop caring more about winning than about our common problems. Let's hope that when the majority of the GOP comes around to accepting AGW, Dems will be mature enough to not insist on exclusive control of the remedy. The sooner we get past politics, the sooner we can work together to fix the mess we're in.

Try Infected Mushroom, Shpongle, Ott, or Hallucinogen.

Hmmm... I can't believe I've made it this far into the comments and nobody has mentioned trance (and related electronic genres). Unlike classical, you don't have the dynamics leaving you straining to hear over your co-workers one minute, deafened by a crescendo the next. The repetition and lack of lyrics keep it from being distracting. Just pick something fairly textured and it sublimates all those inane conversations going on around you (as you wonder why you're in the middle of a call center while idiots paid less than you have quiet, private offices so they can do serious intellectual work like making PowerPoint presentations).