peter grimes

Congrats on the Modship - Just saw there were a couple new mods (You and Leoreth), when did that happen?

I am just worried that the mods will sour you on me. I know I am intensely disliked by some of them and I'm sure that comes out in staff discussions.

I am very pleased that they picked you and Leoreth though.

I hope we can still be friends...

Congratulations on your modship! It's well deserved in my opinion.

As far as I recall, setting aside the dubious authenticity of St. John being John of Patmos, Revelation is a clear allegory of the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70 or so. Early Christians quite believed that Jesus would return within their lifetimes.

Not familiar with Walking Dead... I hope his character is better than the Britten opera I share a name with!

Ah I somehow sent the response to the wrong person, so never know if you saw it or not. But I meant Rick Grimes from the Walking Dead

I knew that it was hundreds of thousands. And fair enough on the other stuff, I guess. I personally couldn't vote for people who I perceive to be murderers no matter what other stuff they did that I liked. Foreign Policy is my top issue for this reason. And yes, it does cause things like 9/11 as well.

Admittedly, I wouldn't really vote for Dennis Kucinich either, even though his foreign policy is great, because I think his domestic policy sucks. So I guess I can understand that. I wouldn't vote for an opponent of his who was good on everything except sucked on foreign policy either, however.

I'm going to be watching how Rand Paul votes on the upcoming Iranian bill, he absolutely does have the ability to lose my support here if he does the wrong thing.

So I have a question...

You seem pretty darn focused on foreign policy compared to most of the posters on here (It seems like most of them just care about the economy) and you actually framed GWB's Presidency as "Having the blood of millions on his hands." I did question the number because I was curious, bt for a second I wondered if it was actually you making the post, since that seems more like libertarian rhetoric than liberal rhetoric

But with that said... didn't you still vote for Obama? I mean, his drone program has killed thousands. If you were serious about saving lives, why didn't you support Ron Paul back when he was running? I mean, I know you don't like his economic policy but isn't the foreign policy more important?

I don't know why, but when I look at your posts I keep reading your posts in Rick Grime's voice .

I don't actually use the word "Corporatist" very often, but that's exactly what Ron Paul called Obama and that's exactly what he is. Technically he would be a fascist, although people don't like that term because it makes Hitler appear in their heads.

I'm occasionally disappointed on RPF when someone who I agree with philosophically like 95% of the time calls Obama a socialist. Its completely inaccurate, and it makes us look like Palin clones (Even though Palin would be, admittedly, less bad than what we currently have). Libertarians are not conservatives, and the use of stupid rhetoric doesn't help fix the false perception.

I wouldn't call socialists and corporatists opposites, although that's only because I look at the political spectrum as more "Total government on one extreme and no government on the other" more so than "left vs right." Both support government intervention, and lots of it, it just depends on for what. Free-marketers are opposite of both.

I more meant the left on CFC, but I do get your point. "Left" and "Right" don't mean anything anyway. And yeah, I'll freely admit Obama is not really a socialist. As to being right of center, that depends where the center is, but if Obama is "Right of center" on economic issues and gun control, I'm very, VERY proud to be WAY right of center on those issues.

I was just curious how much you actually trust Obama. While I don't agree with you on all that many issues, you are usually consistent with yourself. You don't usually fall for the whole "If a Democrat does it, its OK" trap. I've encountered that with some others. For instance, when Cutlass was (Rightfully) criticizing Bush on Iraq, he wouldn't answer me when I asked why the heck Obama took three years to pull out.

I feel like a lot of people are pretending like we aren't doing it now. I'm pretty confident that we are but its the elephant in the room that nobody on the left seems to want to address.

Question: Would it really surprise you if we were still torturing people?

Check the Comings and Goings. It's Internet seppuku bro.

That's an impressive setup, no joke. I don't think I would have thought to rig up binoculars like that. I really hope that one day I can go out to the desert or high mountains just so I can see the milky way. It's too faint to see anywhere where I've lived unfortunately.

Did you see Halle-Bopp back in the 90's? It was a pretty bright one IIRC.

Oh and for ISON, to see it in it's full glory, I would suggest getting as far from NYC as you can, the light pollution makes an enormous difference.

I have binoculars, but given it's low visibility and the fact that I would have to travel far just have a decent line of sight on it meant that I skipped it. (Oh and the fact that ISON is coming in a few months helped with that decision as well). If ISON does turn out to be the comet of the century then I will travel far and wide to see it.

I recognized it because I went to the observatory on campus and saw it myself. That is a really cool picture and I am glad you have a record of that once-in-a-lifetime event.

I feel the same about ISON given all the hype it's receiving. I didn't get to see the one that came through last week due to the weather and the woods surrounding my home (it was low to the horizon). I also don't think it got bright enough to make out as a comet without binoculars.

Is that the transit of Venus across the sun from last year?