Some of us are still tapped out from the money bombs for Ron Paul. Hopefully some of these other candidates can garner more support from their local constituencies and reach outside the RP audience in different ways. And f.y.i. many think the Obama money bomb and his so-called "grass roots support" (at least financially) is more like Astro-turf (artificial in nature) And since I'm a RP supporter who's also a free thinker and "outside the box" conservative I'm not playing into this mantra that McCain will be the next nominee. It's been an uphill battle of perceptions since day one. So why play their game and assume it's McCain vs. Obama?

Walt Thiessen
Walt is a 1980 graduate of Colgate University (BA, Political Science) and is owner and operator of DLD2000.com, LLC. He discovered Sudbury Valley School in the early 1990s through his involvement in the Libertarian movement and hopes to help establish many Sudbury-style schools, including Mountain Laurel.

Another paid citizen that has been bought by the demeanor of his own crime. This guy is not true Libertarian or even human at that fact. such absurd conduct . He needs to wither away before a high wind catches him undertow

Apologies for adding to the off-topic discussion, but come on... someone had to say it. Whoever wants to help put this antiquated idea out of it's misery, just join me in educating your kids, your neighbors' kids, and all their friends that you come in contact with about the beauty and wonder of evolution. Several of the posts on this topic demonstrate a real lack of understanding about the process of evolution. I'm convinced that once a person really understands how we came to be here, once they see the light, they can't go back to the biblical version-- they can try, but the seed of doubt that will have been planted is impossible to uproot.

Go ahead and pounce on this all you like; in the battle of ideas creationism will ultimately lose out to evolution, no matter what you do. You can't control everything your children see and hear, and their little minds are hungry for truth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urlTBBKTO68

"""I trounce your rear end...""""

Dude, I whupped your behind with a clip from an episode of South Park!

Beaten by South Park clips, that's bad!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsPlFTOX1OY

Creationists often state that Evolution can't be true because there are no transitional forms. That, it must be assumed, are species between Genera, Families, Orders, Classes or whatever passes for a taxonomic system in Creationist thought. The only classification Creationists have admitted to is the "Basic Kind." Variations are permitted, they say, within "Basic Kinds", but not outside of them. No Creationist has ever defined where "Basic Kind" fits into the Linnaean taxonomy that most of the Biologists of the world use today. Creationists have their own definition of what needs to be true if Evolution really is a fact. That is: there must be a continuous set of fossils between each "kind" of animal in the fossil record and the animals existing today, exhibiting an almost insensible gradation from one fossil to the next. The fact that fossilization is a very capricious event and happens very rarely doesn't stop them from making this demand, knowing that it can never be met. What Creationists don't seem to realize is that the fossil record is not required to justify Evolution, it is Evolution that explains the fossil record.

As for the transitional forms that the Creationists say don't exist, the fossil record is bulging with them. As far as there being any alive today, in all likelihood, today's animals (including us) are in actuality transitional forms to some future species. But let's look at the record. There are a great number of fossils that are intermediate between reptiles and mammals and most Biologists think the bridge there is fairly complete, but here we encounter another favorite trick of the Creationists. Every time they look at a particular intermediate fossil species, they refuse to admit it's an intermediate. In the case of the mammal/reptile transitionals, they will say it's either a "fully formed" mammal, or a "fully formed"reptile. (I'd like to see what a half-formed animal looked like.) By dissembling and obfuscation the Creationists can keep reality from impinging on their thought processes.

The case of the horse is one that the average person can probably verify for himself. The prototype of the horse (Hyracotherium) lived 55 million years ago. It was about the size of a terrier and had four hoofed toes on its front legs and three on its back legs. This and similarities in its skeleton identified it as a precursor to the horse. The fossil record of the horse is extremely, and uncharacteristically, rich in documenting the evolution of the Hyracotherium into the modern horse. Do the Creationists feel this is just variation within a "Basic Kind?" If that is so, then apes and humans are the same Basic Kind, for there is much less morphological difference between an ape and a human than there is between the Hyracotherium and the modern horse . Anyway, most natural history museums can give you a fairly good grounding on horse Evolution (as well as human evolution.)

The classic transitional though is the Archeopterix. This is one that gives Creationists fits and prompts their most imaginative prevaricating. The Archeopterix is a fossil that clearly exhibits characteristics of both dinosaurs and birds. Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research (isn't that an oxymoron) says unequivocally that its a bird (using the old Creationist trick of denying transitionals.) Gish says, it had feathers, it flew, ergo it's a bird, case closed (and it died out in the flood.)

But wait a minute, how did he know it flew? The Archeopterix had a breast bone, but paleontologists can't be sure if the muscles attachments were large enough to support powered flight, and Archeopterix bones aren't hollow like modern birds, so how does Gish know it flew. If it did fly it was more like the flight of a road runner than the flight of an eagle. Archeopterix does have feathers, their impressions are clearly visible on most of the fossil specimens of Archeopterix, so score one for the bird side. Archeopterix also has a wish bone, score two. The Archeopterix also may have an opposable big toe (it's hard to tell on the fossils) which would be another Avian feature. Finally the Archeopterix has an elongated and backward facing pubic bone, another characteristic of birds. Well that seems petty convincing, doesn't it, its a bird.

Not so fast, don't birds have bills? You bet. Does Archeopterix have a bill? No indeed, it has very dinosaurian jaws. Bird's trunk vertebrae are always fused but Archeopterix trunk vertebrae are not. Birds do not have bony tails, Archeopterix does, as do dinosaurs and reptiles. Apart from the pubic bone pointing backwards, the entire structure of the Archeopterix pelvis is mostly dinosaurian, including the pelvic peduncle which is a very prominent feature in such dinosaurs as the Tyrannosaurus. There are more reptilian/dinosaurian features on Archeopterix than there are Avian features, and to me the most interesting is the fact that the Archeopterix had teeth! When was the last time you saw a bird with teeth? But then, when was the last time you saw a reptile with feathers? It was obviously a transitional. It appears that Archeopterix may have been an evolutionary dead end, because paleontologists believe that birds descended from dinosaurs by another route. But that does not diminish Archeopterix's status as an intermediate species.

While Archeopterix is the most spectacular transitional form, it is far from the only one. An extremely interesting set of fossils links the modern whale with a terrestrial forebear. Finding the land going ancestors of the whale was anticipated by scientists using the precepts of evolution, which shows that the theory has predictive value. The same is true of the Hyracotherium. T.H. Huxley predicted in the 1800's that a small ancestor to the horse lineage would be discovered in the early Eocene Epoch. He called it Eohippus, or " Dawn Horse" The Dawn Horse had actually already been discovered prior to Huxley's visit to Yale University and O.C. Marsh, the Director of the Peabody Museum, in 1877. But it was in a basement at the Peabody, and hadn't been identified for what it was until after Huxley returned to England. Its discoverer had already named it Hyracotherium and the earlier name took precedence over the more poetic Eohippus. This is something that "Creation Science" could never do. Since it is not a valid scientific theory no predictions could be made from it. The next time a Creationist says to you there are no transitional forms, ask him or her how they explain the Archeopterix.

"""""The burden of proof rests on the AFFIRMATIVE. Chuck Darwin posited that fish became horses and that your great-grandmother was a spider monkey. Fine; there should be transitional species all over the fossil record. There are ZERO such. This is no longer even a debate in paleontology; transitional forms do NOT exist, but there should be countless tens of thousands of them in all strata through the geologic column.""""

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_fossil

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

They lie to their children. Why not lie to everyone?

At least get somebody's name spelled right, please!

But, I don't see it as outrageous. You can't argue with numbers and facts.

I think the article was not meant to be criticism or smear, but rather awareness and realism

TRUE, why haven't we had $60,000 if we have 60,000 on our e-mail list?

Look again, CFL only has 70,000 right now.

Money bombs have their limit, and we've reached it (it's been demonstrated over and over than no 3rd bomb made more than a million, correct me if I'm wrong).

This is niether to say Ron Paul has faded nor to say the liberty movement is over, ON THE CONTRARY, it is warning us that we've gotten this far, and need to find more ways to preach to people, reach into their pockets and inspire more work.

YOU CANNOT RELY ON ANOTHER MONEY BOMB, IT JUST WON'T HAPPEN.

To put my money where my mouth is, the next money bomb that raises $500,000 will get my $50. I know what you're going to say "OH YOU HYPOCRITE & PUSSY, NOT JUMPING IN UNTIL OTHERS DO?"
This is my first criticism in the past, and illustrates the whole point, that not only are we running out of money, but the whole concept of a money bomb was absurd from the beginning. WHY WAIT for others to donate? If you can afford to donate, DO IT ASAP. Sure, a bomb day makes the news, but MOVE ON, in the long run, people don't care what you raised, in how long, only what you bought with your money. So if we can get the campaign effort for less money spent (which we HAVE DONE), who cares if we raised less money?

MONEY IS IMPORTANT, but it is NOT everything, AND CERTAINLY, a money bomb has demonstrated to be no longer effective, unless there's an existing external excitement (which is always needed anyway).

"The government should be afraid of its people, not the other way around".

Ummmm, nobody rational would proclaim that Christianity and its fractionalized adherants weren't a big thing in early American history.

That was the 17th and 18th centuries, after all. People were ignorant back then, and still held tightly to magic and superstition to help them weather the world they were part of.

This is the 21st century.

We no longer believe in talking snakes and alchemy and awkward astronomy.

We have the Hubble telescope, and modern biology and earth sciences and nueroscience and an evolved and more accurate view of the nature of the world. The mystery of human existence is now centered around the actual eruption of life, something we know happened about 3.5 Billion years ago.
Much of the other stuff has been solved already. The non-existence of a soul, for example. The mind is a projection of the brain, and cannot survive the demise of the projector, for example. We know this. These are wht we refer to as "facts".

If you want to hold on to the last vestiges of old world beliefs and remedies and rituals, completely disregarding the science that shows you the fallacies in those old world views...

well, you are welcome to.

There is a word for those that do, however.

Nutjobberdoodooheads.

"I mentioned the burden of proof being on the one making the positive claim - - however, the reason I say "all the more reason not to bother" is more directly related to the negative influence the topic of religion is having on all of us here."

The problem is, religion is like the big smelly uncle who makes rude boobie jokes and farts at the family reunion. The agreement to "just leave him be" just made him act up all the more.

The media is chockerblock with "religious" commentators-- fatheads who use the podium the media gives them to condemn "lifestyles" they don't approve of while on national tv.

The candidates are all catering to religious coalitions. Everybody knows the "inbedness" of the Falwell types with the Bush administration.

Bush was elected on his "born again" proclamations, and the media sold it over and over.

The megachurches are using their tax free status to collect capital and try and influence (with obvious great success) elections.

Even the anti-government crowd like ol' zinger here wants to inculcate his movement with the words of christ. Why can't he just be against government intrusion and leave all the god nonsense at home?

As a laid back west coaster, I really live and let live as much as possible, but the encroachment of religiousity in America is too extreme to ignore any more.

Pardon the reference, but it has reached plague proportions and needs to be beat back the way one might swat at locusts...

"For the record, I am not. I suppose the closest label, if labels are preferred, would be agnostic. However, to be more precise, I reject all metaphysical questions of the sort relating to religion. Neither the athiest nor the believer can ever win the argument with the other- the exercise is one of futility - as the various threads on the topic here have demonstrated repeatedly. I do think the athiests have the edge - only so much as the burden of proof is properly on the believer to submit evidence for the positive statement about the existence of something that is alleged to have direct consequences for us in the here and now. Proving a negative is, of course, impossible - so the athiest is in quite a quandary. All the more reason to not even bother. "

Very true but THE CLAIMS of the religious are not negative, and can be easily refuted, using logic, common sense and reason.

The INFLUENCE of the religous in politics cannot be denied, so the inspiration for the opposition to religionism is not without a logical impetus.

Ahhh, yes... America-again... you start out well and good, and then the real deal shines forth like a lit fart for all to see. Never mind that America was formed with a mindful policy to KEEP religion OUT of the public square of politics. Here we have a group of nutjobs who want to live under a theocracy, declaring the book that we shall all abide by openly and without even a hint of humility.

"America was a nation under God -- not under Mohammed or Buddha, but under Jesus Christ specifically and exclusively -- for the first three centuries since colonization. Despite increasing political correctness (i.e., secularism and multiculturalism) history proves that our forefathers were right. God blesses righteous, courageous minorities in all lands and eras, but not all religious beliefs yield equivalent forms of law, economics, government, or liberty. For 2000 years, many who claim to be Christian were (and are) unfaithful to the ethics of Christ, using His name to achieve their own religious or secular ends. This does not negate the gospel of Christ or the efficacy of Christianity compared with any other religion. America defends freedom of religion for all its citizens, but Christianity has shaped our culture, our law, and our national ethos and we will never stand for any foreign religion being foisted on us by government at any level -- including the government schools. "

Once again, if you want to know why we sane and rational people are crying "enough is enough!" it is because the nutjobs are trying to gather political clout. Why would any sane and rational person join ranks with a bunch of deluded nutjobs who think slave keeping is cool, the subjugation of women dandy, and the stoning of adulterers normal?

Why?