Inspiring stuff. I love how they post processed the models best though. Looks like paintings.

@david. said:

@chango70 said:

3. ...The Kurds don't like Sunni who don't like Shea who don't like anybody else...

That's the only thing you've said that can be called accurate. Items 1 and 2 are so uninformed they are laughable. Do you sit around with other "hate the USA'ers" making this stuff up? You must get your information from the dailykos, the NY Times, Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Rashid Khalidi, Saul Alinsky, etc.

Again, try to calm down and get through the hate filled feelings. Then, do your research using unbiased sources, not the flaming "hate the USA" sources that you must be using.

Article 1 and 2 are from maintream news agencies such as the BBC, Times, and Guardian. Why don't you do a little search. The BBC hates the US, thats news to me. AND OMG didn't you get the WHOLE POINT of the article!??? He was saying the CURRENT ADMINISTRATION is crap! US had GREAT LEADERS which we all admire! HOW DOES THAT CONSTITUTE HATING THE US!???? Bush DOES NOT represent the US everybody knows that. Are you just reading lines to confirm what you want to hear?

I thought he was a pretty wacky thinker. Here is a link relating to Rudolf Steiner.

Rudolf Steiner: Racist Esoteric Cult or Credible Educational Alternative?

“An island like Great Britain swims in the sea and is held fast by the forces of the stars.” [Rudolf Steiner] Before I began my research in...

(canterburyatheists.blogspot.com)

@david. said:

Chango/Juan or whatever you call yourself from day to day,

You have a very naive and uninformed view of the U.S. This seems quite a common attribute of those in the rest of the world. Your arguments are based on your emotional hatred of Bush, Cheney, McCain, Palin, etc. It's too bad you all can't get past this hate you feel. You say that all that Cheney wants to do is line his own pockets. The fact is that he has given millions of dollars to charities. Obama and Biden have given a pittance in comparison. And, Obama has only starting giving more since he started running for president. Look at more of Obama's hypocrisy. He speaks of "caring for your brother and your sister" in one of his speeches, but he has grandmothers, aunts, and uncles that he lets live near or in poverty (check the recent news of his aunt living in a Boston slum and his uncle living in a Kenyan hut). He's a wealthy individual. He can't help his own family, what makes anyone think he's going to help anyone else? Why don't you do a little independent research and find out the truth for yourself? My guess is that you won't because you hate certain people so much and you love Obama so much.

I don't agree with Bush's handling of the mortgage crash, but he has worked to prevent more terror attacks in the U.S. and turned around the situation in Iraq. I'll post a link to an argument with facts that debunk much of the false claims coming from the Bush derangement syndrome believers Exactly Wrong Again.

This is laughable that amount of excuse people give themselves.

1. Cheney is RICH ofcourse he would give more. Lining his pocket doesn't literally mean his own. It means the interest that he represents which is Haliburton in this particular case.

2. Bush almost got into trouble for IGNORING the repeated warning of CIA on an immenent attack on USA involving planes. And all international foreign relation bodies AND the US State Department thinks Iraq conflict means worse security for the US (and UK thanks Tony Blair).

3. Are you kidding me about the turning around the situation in Iraq!!! People are simply bidding their time because there is a concensus that the US will withdraw in the near future. The country is extremely fractous thanks to our good ol' British style colonial intrigue. The Kurds don't like Sunni who don't like Shea who don't like anybody else. It's a country made to contain the rebellious Kurds from rising against British Colonial interest (split between Turkey, a British Ally against Russian interest at the time, Mespotania, or Iraq today and Syria).

So I have done my research thank you and why don't you do yours?

@mr s said:

Hi,

Chango, if you had read through a few of the previous posts concerning the American election you will see that Ron is choosing to vote for a third alternative.
He knows that this will have little effect on the final outcome, but has been let down time and again by the Republican party and is unimpressed by the Democratic poster boy Obama, he feels that he has little choice left available to him.

I completely understand his dilemma.

The modern day Republican Party is dominated and controlled by Neo-cons who have little, if anything, in common with the traditional grass roots supporters of that party. The Bush administration has been an unmitigated disaster. I can't think of one positive achievement they have made.

Unfortunately, just like here in the UK, the people are faced with voting for either Tweedledee or Tweedledum. It is a never-ending cycle. And the outcome is always the same. The masses convince themselves that after being let down by Tweedledee they will let Tweedledum have another go. After another 5 years or so, they reverse this process. It is quite pathetic really.

Whilst Obama is the current poster boy in the US, we had the same charade played out here in the UK. The poster boy at that time was Tony Blair, leader of New Labour. He was portrayed as a young, fresh, leader "with vision" who was going to shake the establishment from top to bottom. He had pop stars, actors and all the leading liberal/left establishment figures drooling over the prospect of him winning the election. After a long and miserable period of government by the Conservatives he was voted in with a landslide.

Can you guess what happened next?
That’s right. New Labour turned out to be just as corrupt and rotten as the previous administration. In fact, in some ways we are worse off. We allowed the US to drag us in to what feels like never ending wars. We are bankrupt as a nation. Our standard of life, our moral standards have continued to decline etc etc.

All of these things would have happened if the Conservatives had continued to govern of course. My point is, people continually convince themselves that this "new" leader will somehow be different.

Here in the UK a new poster boy is currently being groomed for when Labours turn has ended. His name is David Cameron, leader of the Conservative party. He is, for all intents and purposes, a Tony Blair clone.

The fact is, all the establishment parties are just that. Part of the establishment.
It is in their self-interest to play this game. That way, they all get a turn to stick their noses in to the trough. Politics is simply a career choice for these people.

Most people continue to vote for the establishment parties because they are constantly told that the only other alternatives available are extremists. So the cycle continues.

Most of those banging on at the moment about how Obama will bring real change will be the same people in 5 years or so, scratching their heads and asking how it all went so horribly wrong.

Regards
Mr S

I absolutely agree on everything. Well said.

@bellwells said:

@chango70 said:

Because at the root of conservatism (the real deal) lies very strong and sound values such as self-reliance, work-ethic, belief in community and self-determination (usually against larger metropolitan politics) that really make part of US what it is and what people have come to admire, however, they are so easily manipulated. Give them abortion and gay marriage they fall in drove to some corporate elite smart-ass who have researched conservative value down to the T and parrot what they wanna hear (Bush owns a ranch! so what!?? he comes from a multi-million dollar oil tycoon background, he is NOT one of you!). The conservatives need to wakeup to behind the scenes manipulationif you stick to true conservative values.

Conservatives are easily manipulated. That's a laugher. Have you been paying any attention to the bullshit "the snake-oil salesman with the huge advertising budget" has been spewing? This nitwit appeals to the gullible voters who believe the big give-away is coming. Talk about manipulation!

At least I have the intellectual honesty to see that both parties are extremely flawed.

Me too, I agree on that one (not our political stance) and like Mr S says similar situation applies to the UK. I am thinking about David Cameron mind you.

I Seriously can't read website that can't afford a decent web designer. OMG it hurts my eyes.

@bellwells said:

@chango70 said:

...If you only make policy that is popular rather than what you think is good for the country then why bother having elections at all?...

This is precisely why I oppose Obama. His tax cut proposal is nothing more than a cheap and transparent technique to buy votes. For one thing, he is trying to buy the votes of the 40% of Americans who don't pay any taxes by offering them a rebate check. This is policy, while popular for the 40%, is not good for the country.

In that case are you still going for McCain Palin ticket just because you don't like one of Obama's policies? His other ones on reinvigorating the economy and promoting the middle class are sound centrist policies and don't you think the healthcare system needs improvement? (I realise centrist in Europe means leftwing in the US )

@plot-paris said:

a free program is VirtualDub, which you can download here.

simply import the images, change the framerate from 10 fps to something between 20 and 25.

a good thing to do is to export the images from SketchUp with a higher resolution than the final movie (two or three times higher) and then use a "resize" filter in VirtualDub to scale it down to the desired resolution. like that all the lines will be a lot crisper in your animation and textured faces look better.

Thanks! I've been looking to find a program like this. Sweeeet.

@unknownuser said:

Just like Cornel Tom? Come on, I did not add any scripture to my post but would be happy to if you like

Look, if you had simply started this thread by asking: "Who else is looking forward to Obama's speech tonight?" and left it at that you would most likely received the serious response you wanted.

I love how "just like Cornel" is used as a insult. I wonder what he has to say about that.

@bellwells said:

@chango70 said:

@bellwells said:

LOL...a better title to your thread would be "American politics according to a dopey liberal Brit"

Who said I was a Brit? hmm? What makes you think I am a liberal? Doesn't that just prove how dumbed down US politics is? (liberal vs conservative) . Anyway even you can't deny that Junior have done for US foreign relations what nobody could have conceived 8 years ago.

The dopey liberal Brit I referred to is the author of the article, not you. Junior has done more damage to this country and the Republican party than you can imagine. EDIT: I voted for Bush twice, so I am particularly pissed. He betrayed conservative principles.

When you get a president that is arguably not so bright then you are effectively voting in this minders and entourage. This should be plainly obvious. The corporate elite (Dick n Co) is only interested in one thing (lining their own pockets and screwing the rest + lying through their teeth about it), that should be plainly obvioius too. They are doing worse than betraying conservative principle. They are exploiting conservative and patriotic sentiment for their own political brownie points. I actaully feel quite saddened by all this. Because at the root of conservatism (the real deal) lies very strong and sound values such as self-reliance, work-ethic, belief in community and self-determination (usually against larger metropolitan politics) that really make part of US what it is and what people have come to admire, however, they are so easily manipulated. Give them abortion and gay marriage they fall in drove to some corporate elite smart-ass who have researched conservative value down to the T and parrot what they wanna hear (Bush owns a ranch! so what!?? he comes from a multi-million dollar oil tycoon background, he is NOT one of you!). The conservatives need to wakeup to behind the scenes manipulation if you stick to true conservative values.

yeah, slam and dunk!

The Reagan administration was a disaster for Democracies world over. They un-leashed the religious right onto US-electoral map and they are the first people to use techniques in advertising such as focus groups to tailor popular policies that will win elections. This makes democracy impotent. If you only make policy that is popular rather than what you think is good for the country then why bother having elections at all? People are fickle. They will tell you they want something one day (bigger cars, more tax breaks) and if something goes wrong they will blame you (global warming, crap education) the next day. The UK have followed suite with New Labour, look at where that is getting us into? People don't care about the policy anymore. Choosing between Brown and Cameron is like a personality contest. What is it coming to? Forget elections, lets have beauty pagents why don't we.

@bellwells said:

LOL...a better title to your thread would be "American politics according to a dopey liberal Brit"

Who said I was a Brit? hmm? What makes you think I am a liberal? Doesn't that just prove how dumbed down US politics is? (liberal vs conservative) . Anyway even you can't deny that Junior have done for US foreign relations what nobody could have conceived 8 years ago.

@watkins said:

Dear Chango70,

I am sorry if my attempt at irony caused offence. The title of the post was meant to be ironic, and does not reflect how I feel about the incident. However, I am deeply concerned about all the new powers that the police have been given, both here and in the US.

Regards,
Bob

Ok the irony part didn't stick. Sorry for the over reaction. I think you'll find the fire-arm officer who took the shot broke down in tears, that says a lot about the difference between UK and US don't you think? I agree powers are a traversty however they haven't been given an easy time in the British parliament.

Benjamin Franklin said "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I am still feeling sick right now! I can't believe anyone can feel this way. Surely you don't mean to say that makes it justified in US? Cus thats what the title suggests.

George Monbiot says it better than me:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/28/us-education-election-obama-bush-mccain

@watkins said:

I would like to think that this couldn't happen in the UK

but after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes I am no longer sure.

Bob

What that makes it justified to be carried out on a much larger scale against a even more entranched ethnic minority does it? 'God bless America!'? I have never heard of a more nauseating non-sense.

@unknownuser said:

@chango70 said:

There is this wonderful talk by Dan Dennett on Dangerious Memes http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes.html which applies to all religions and ideologies. Religion is like a virus or parasite.

Chango, thank you for the link. It was really inspiring to listen to this man. Your problem is that you just hear what you want to hear, not what he said.

He was relating to ideas that are being misused or abused. This the reason why they can be dangerous and work like parasites. Listen to it once again. He is not talking about religions in general, but those misinterpretations that are toxic.

Tomasz

I am not sure where you get the misinterpretation of religion part from. The misinterpretation he was talking about was about MEMES and being responsible about what he says about MEMES and its potential misuses! He wasn't talking about misrepresntation of religion!??? He was talking about the spread of Memes as units of ideas (like genetic package of information) and it follows evolutionary rules. Memes that are dangerous include any one that goes against our biological imperitive. Like the Lancet Fluke (commandering ant to be eaten by sheeps so it can survive in a sheeps stomach) and Islam (meaning surrender) i.e. ideas that hijack our brain! I.e. most people have it! Including Freedom, Justice, Truth, Communism, Capitalism, Catholicsm, and Islam. Maybe you should watch it again. Hearing what you want to hear seems to be your problem too. I bet you $100 if you ask Dan Dennett or Richard Dawkins they will tell you religions are like viruses. Trust me, I met the man (Both Dan and Richard at different lectures).

In order to say we have so called 'free will' we have to conceive of the priori which is a choice making individual unhindered by external constraints. That is all fine and dandy until you realise that the choices avaible to you in the first place are created by the very constraints that are of historical, social, political, economic and genetic formation. Sure you can go against those constraints but the 'horizon' onto which you make your choices still takes precedence in shaping whatever choices people make. So NO we don't have 'free will' in an absolute sense, but we do have it in a limited sense.