I thought it was us techies, who keep promising that tech advances will kill jobs.

(Keeping in mind that killing jobs is a desirable; achieving a near-100% unemployment rate is part of how resources (labor, in this case) could cease to be scarce, thereby overturning all previous economic theory (e.g. Adam Smith and Karl Marx become irrelevant), and allowing people to live like the characters on ST:TNG. Sure, it's a fantasy ideal, but fantasy ideals are what you always aim at, right? It's not like Adam Smith and Karl Marx don't also target fantasy ideals.)

It sounds like it's the luddites who have (metaphorically) thrown a wrench into the plan, showing that no matter how well we automate, some asshole somewhere will find a way to keep people wasting their brief limited lifetimes on toil rather than hedonism.

Interesting. How did that work out for Paris?

So Democrats elected Regan and Schwarzenegger?

I believe we're on the same sheet of music now.

They weren't, which was exactly my point. The parent was speaking out of his anus.

Blaming voters is taking responsibility. It's all the alternatives to voter-blaming, which look like desperate efforts to shift responsibility away from the One And Only group who actually has the power.

Oh, you mean like Castro, Ahmajinedad, and Gaddafi, right? Oops, must have been someone else.

Do you find it offensive? I remember being in a college class back in the 80s where our feminist professor informed us that the word "lady" was offensive. Personally, I follow George Carlin's view...words are not offensive. I swear people as so thin skinned these days.

I was by no means arguing that the country has shifted in one direction or the other. It's not what the point of my comment or the prior discussion was about at all. Everyone knows what Sollord meant when he stated "There is no middle ground anymore theres the far left and the far right and a giant gulf in the middle with a few real centrists mixed in. " The context is clearly in current American politics, and picking at that is just being anal.

And just to be clear, I agree that we've shifted too far, and I'm none too happy about it. I consider myself to be financially conservative, and rather socially liberal. But then, it all depends on which topic we're talking about....immigration, abortion, socialized medicine, legalization of weed, etc., etc. I don't take a "party line" on any of it.

They must be doing lots of good, because we keep voting for them. I say: Republicrats in 2014! Lets make it Yet Another landslide! Who is with me on this? Oh, that's right: nearly every single voter. Any dissent? (Crickets.)

Just to be clear, it was Obama who was schooled. Many of us tried to tell him what an idiot he was being.

The US position relative to the rest of the globe is irrelevant in this discussion. What is relevant is the relative positions of the parties compared to each other in American politics.

Left and right are relative to where you are. YMMV, and since you're obviously not involved, your relative position just doesn't matter in this case.

What an idiot.

Yes, BUT...

You're listening to a priest, whose entire authority and stature is based upon knowledge of paranormal things, mystic phenomena that no person has ever seen or measured, but that he happens to know about, thanks to his special lore or insight. IF you've already accepted that (it's a big "if" but actually very common!), then there's nothing unreasonable about the gods or a god choosing to inflict damage upon ovaries upon women who drive, but choosing to abstain from harming women who sit at home.

That is why his statement, as absurd as it is, is totally valid within the FUCKED UP CONTEXT (that people listen to that guy about anything at all).

Why wouldn't Allah mess with some women's organs and not others? Do you know something special about Allah's motives and thoughts and capabilities that I don't? WHO ARE YOU to tell the Flying Spaghetti Monster what kinds of sauces are appropriate for Him to cover Himself in? Are you FSM's controller? It is blaspemous arrogance for you to say His priests are incorrect, as foolish at their statements may seem to you, puny human!

There's nothing crazier about believing this stuff, than believing that Xenu threw aliens into volcanos, or that Jehova parted a Red sea, or that Cthulhu will rise from the depths when the stars are right. Maybe some of it is true and some false (and I can't begin to prove anything about any of them) (and no, actually none of it is true) but from a "what an idiot" perspective they all have exactly equal what-an-idiot-ness. If we assume the statement "1==3" is true, then don't start trying to logically convince me the statement "4==2" is stupid. It's not any stupider than where we started from.

Europe didn't have http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_housing_bubble