Rooker › Comments

"I do this, mainly because I don't need the stress. I don't like becoming afflicted with what I call SIWOTI Syndrome - Someone Is Wrong On The Internet (named after an xkcd cartoon). Unless they just seem to be genuinely confused on a fact, I'm not going to argue with people who say something I disagree with, because neither of us is likely to change the others mind and who needs the stress? I don't mind reading the thoughts of someone with a different opinion, as long as their opinion isn't based on something I think is unrealistic or just blatantly false. I got fed up one day and unfollowed practically all the non-liberals I followed on Twitter at the height of the Birther / Tenther / Death Panel / Indoctrination / Town Hall bullshit last year. I even lost one really good friend who got swept up in the indoctrination hysteria. I just can't deal with people with that sort of mindset. I stay away from right wing blogs for the same reason, Hot Air, Malkin, Red State, etc. It's not so..." - Rooker

"This is exactly how I feel about it. The only real choice for most things here is between Wal-mart and Target and I bet that's true in most rural areas populated enough to have either of them. I'm hoping Target will either ask for the money back or make a much larger donation to a progressive cause to try to make up for it. Or both preferably, but I'll be happy with either. I grew to like Target when I lived in Florida." - Rooker

"Brave SOB. Iran doesn't treat bloggers very well at all. See here: http://whyanon.tumblr.com/post......" - Rooker

"Atheists *can't* do all the work... Could have sworn I fixed that typo and now it won't let me edit." - Rooker

"Dear Christians, When the inevitable happens and we outnumber you in 20 - 30 years, it will be people like this asshole that we remember. Speak up and drown out these morons or everyone will think that this is the face of Christianity. Atheists can don't all the work of condemning your fanatics for you. Step up and denounce them or we'll just assume you silently agree with them." - Rooker

"I stayed out of it last year because I thought it was just a day to mock and deliberately offend as many people as possible. A lot of people on Twitter evidently thought the same thing because that's just what they did all day. I'll do something this year now that I realize that's not what it's for. Probably just a blog post nobody will ever read, but I'll do my bit anyway." - Rooker

"Agreed. More Al Franken and Anthony Weiner, less Max Baucus and Harry Reid. And we REALLY need to get a rid of the more extreme "Blue Dogs". Lincoln, Nelson, several representatives (including my own). The only time these particular people aren't whoring for attention by pretending they'll vote against the rest of the party is when they are actually voting against the rest of the party. And Joe Lieberman... We're probably going to lose the supermajority in the Senate this year. I say it's a good thing. Less worrying about getting 60 votes and less attention whoring by the Blue Dogs. And even better, we can kick Traitor Joe's sorry ass right out of the caucus for destroying the Public Option AND the Medicare buy-in." - Rooker

"I think, if the nut jobs of the right wing can prevent this building being constructed, it will be a disaster. 1) It reduces our country to the level of those countries that restrict freedom of religion and speech. Newt Gingrich, in particular, is a fool for not seeing that when he wrote his idiotic statement. 2) It's a defeat for the 1st Amendment by Christian extremists who, I think, really would like to change it to read "The freedom to worship Jesus shall not be abridged," shortly before passing laws restricting everyone who doesn't." - Rooker

"Why do you make an assumption that she is "taking a swipe at atheists"? Is there something more that you didn't quote here that makes it clear that she was referring to other atheists? It looks to me like she is simply describing herself and her own personal experience going from one end of the belief spectrum to the other. As for her seemingly contradictory statements, there's no reason a person can't believe in Christ while rejecting the church that sprang up in his name long after he died. The two are separate things. It's little different from being a deist, where you believe in a god but without following a religion associated with it." - Rooker

"It's like these people are backsliding to the '50s. WASP vs everyone else all over again." - Rooker

"Then I suppose they realize they'll also be stripping citizenship from fellow Republicans Henry Kissinger and Theodore Roosevelt? But maybe that doesn't matter to people like this. After all, Kissinger has a funny accent from Foreignistan and Roosevelt was a Republican back when Republicans were more liberal and progressive than today's Democrats. They weren't REAL Republicans or REAL Americans anyway." - Rooker

"It's tragic what's going on in Texas. Thomas Jefferson, main author of our Declaration of Independence, famously rewrote the Christian Bible to keep the moral lessons of Jesus while removing all the supernatural tales. Some quotes that are very critical of Christianity and religion in general are attributed to him. Because of that, Texas has banished him from the Texan version of American history. I feel sorry for those kids in Texas. They are probably the best demonstration of what happens when religion becomes too prominent in government." - Rooker

"I don't buy from Apple either, but because I can't stand their control freak behavior. I think they're collectively having an aneurysm over the Copyright Office ruling cellphone jailbreaking to be Fair Use. I imagine this was Steve Jobs' reaction: "What? People can legally control their own private property!? Without our permission!?! FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU!!"" - Rooker

"What I hate almost as much as unwanted invasions of privacy is the attitude of some people who don't understand the concern. I got into an argument with Jeff Jarvis on Twitter about this just a few days ago. He had blogged about the hysteria over Wal-Mart starting to put RFID tags in underwear. Mostly he was right, because a lot of it is unwarranted panic. However, he made a very bad argument at one point. On the subject of people being able to scan garbage on a curb with an RFID reader to see what purchases he's made, he said he didn't care. He said he didn't care if someone found out what was in his trash because nothing there would embarrass or harm him. In other words, Jeff Jarvis thinks nobody should worry about strangers knowing what they have purchased because it doesn't personally affect Jeff Jarvis. Many people who comment on privacy issues use exactly the same ignorant reasoning. They can't see how it could possibly affect them, so they're baffled why anyone worries about..." - Rooker

"A perfect example would be the Death Panel bullshit from last year. While reporting on that hysteria, the corporate press felt it absolutely necessary to give equal time to loons spouting crazy garbage about government bureaucrats deciding whether to treat grandma or to just put her down like an old cat with a broken leg. Same with Obama's birth certificate. Same with the antivaccine, pro-disease movement. When one side is clearly true and has mountains of evidence to show that it is true and the other side has nothing but crazy with nothing credible to back it up, there is no reason to include the crazy. It's not unfair to report on the truth while ignoring nonsense conspiracy theories with no basis in reality. It's okay to be biased towards the truth. Really." - Rooker

"Even if their argument was true, I'd still have no sympathy. If preaching something from their religion violates a hate crime law, the problem is with their religion, not with the law." - Rooker

"The first reported miracle Jesus performed was to turn water into wine, so I don't know what their problem is tbh. I can't buy beer on Sundays. I don't know if that's all of Georgia or just where I live but you can't buy beer on Sunday here and nobody but transplanted yankees seems to think it's strange." - Rooker

"Every year it seems Intuit tries to be a much bigger dick than it was the year before. They usually succeed. And nevertheless, people still flock to every new product they put out." - Rooker

"I already did - last year, during yet another privacy scandal, when they decided they were just going make everything public and remove privacy options. I'm just one molecule of water dropped into the Pacific, but there are some people getting fed up and quitting. It's not going to kill Facebook by any means, because there are always going to be sheeple willing to bend over and take any abuse with barely a complaint. I've also seen many recent stories that teens and twenty-somethings - ie, the tech savvy - have started to quit Facebook in largish numbers, with many citing privacy and the fact that their employers and older relations are joining. The issue with relations and bosses joining should probably be counted under privacy as well." - Rooker

"My 8th Grade science teacher was discussing with us the science (or lack thereof) behind the movie The Abyss. She wanted to know which technologies from the movie we thought were possible at the time. When it was my turn, I mentioned the part where they were breathing a liquid to prevent trouble with air pressure. I even repeated the line from the movie "you breathe liquid for 9 months." It wasn't just wrong, it was foolish and she told me so with no hesitation. I googled it earlier and, sure enough, it's still not possible, although a few people are looking into it. I would just like to thank Ms. Hart belatedly for not letting me go on believing a foolish idea. Thank you for doing your job properly, Ms. Hart, unlike your colleague in that video." - Rooker

"It kills me that people like this can be elected in this country. The partisan divide is no longer between liberals and conservatives, it's between the sane and the insane." - Rooker

"Someone pulled this on me during an argument a few months ago. Started going on about "they're not really Christians, they're "Paulians"... Whatever the hell that means. I fired back with "you can't lump all the embarrassing people in your group together and claim they're not *really* part of your group because they make the rest of you look bad. That's nothing but a damn cop out." It brought their end of the argument to a sputtering flame-out." - Rooker

"Conservatives operate under the fiction that, if the gubmint would just stop leeching all the peoples' money, that it will miraculously lead to an economic boom, which miraculously leads to more tax revenue. Just how one would lead to the other is something none of them ever adequately explain. But it makes for a nice sound byte, so who cares that it simply isn't possible?" - Rooker

"It's worth noting that The Family heavily influenced Uganda when that country created the Homophobic Genocide Act (or whatever they named it) last year. These Family people aren't above getting involved with mass murder, when and if it suits their agenda." - Rooker

"There are three major problems with Kindle that prevent me from seriously considering buying one, none of which have anything to do with atheism. First is the fact that Amazon retains the technological capability to access each Kindle and tamper with them. They used that capability several months ago when they deleted several books due to a copyright licensing issue. That's a deal breaker for me. Second is that it has artificial and unnecessary limitations on using it, such as restricted file formats. This is all done for copy prevention reasons and limits its usefulness. Third and most importantly, Amazon does not sell e-books, it rents them. By spending money with Amazon for an e-book, you do not have ownership of a copy of that book. What you have done is to pay Amazon for permission to access the text of that book. Legally, Amazon can revoke access to that book and there is nothing you can do because you haven't purchased anything. This is not theoretical, they have done this to..." - Rooker

"A violation of the Establishment Clause was upheld earlier today. The US Ninth Circuit has decided that "under god" and "In God We Trust" are calls to patriotism and not at all religious. It disgusts me that the people responsible for keeping the law within the bounds of the Constitution are willing to ignore it to favor their religion." - Rooker

"I love how Rachel Maddow interviews somebody. I've watched her keep at people for nearly 10 minutes to get questions answered rather than letting them not answer and change the subject. When she wants a question answered, she keeps it clamped firmly between her teeth until it's answered or she makes it clear the person is refusing to answer it. I wish all the so-called journalists would do that." - Rooker

"If this is the only way they can think of to highlight the immoral and unethical activities promoted by various religions, these people aren't very imaginative. The scene in the principal's office in Porky's II does a far better job than this. All this does is reinforce the image some of the religious have of atheists. It won't do anything whatsoever to make them reexamine their beliefs." - Rooker

"Sorry, the post above (awaiting approval from vjack) by "Rooker" is from me. IntenseDebate stupidly logged me in with my Wordpress account instead of my ID account and I had no idea." - Rooker

"You can twirl your circular reasoning round and round until you get dizzy and fall down and it still won't make any of what you say approach the level of truth." - Rooker