maybe you could have a look for Beagle2 while you're up there
U2K, you are either a troll or a moron, presumably both.
Satans little helper
JoinedPosts by Satans little helper
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28
Spirit sending pictures to earth from mars
by JH inhttp://www.cnn.com/2004/tech/space/01/04/mars.rovers/index.html
it took 7 months to reach mars.
they will try to find signs of life on mars.
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60
Political Discussions
by Heatmiser ini have been reading the previous posts today and have noticed some pretty heated depates on politcs with, rightfully so, locked threads.. all of us on this board come from many different countries with different forms of goverments and benifits.
everybody thinks that they have the best and are willing to defend that view.
i would hate to see any of us lose "friendships" on this forum over debates that have no winners.. i enjoy posts from everybody that is involved in these discussions and would hate to loose the insights they provide on every other issue besides politics.
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Satans little helper
very true, I noticed during your last presidential election that there was very little to differentiate the political parties other than the level of paranoia they were trying to instil into the electorate. At the end of the day the politicians will always act in a self serving way and be bound to big business, at the moment the Republicans seem a little more blatant about it.
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60
Political Discussions
by Heatmiser ini have been reading the previous posts today and have noticed some pretty heated depates on politcs with, rightfully so, locked threads.. all of us on this board come from many different countries with different forms of goverments and benifits.
everybody thinks that they have the best and are willing to defend that view.
i would hate to see any of us lose "friendships" on this forum over debates that have no winners.. i enjoy posts from everybody that is involved in these discussions and would hate to loose the insights they provide on every other issue besides politics.
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Satans little helper
I find it quite interesting to look at politics a little more dispassionately. I will first point out that I am a very liberal lefty pot smoker who dislikes Bush and his cronies and the undemocratic way he is ruling the USA and invading whoever he feels like.
Having said that I could reel out just as much left wing political dogma and propeganda as I could right wing. Personally I formed my political views the same way as I formed my religious views - by looking at the fruit each one bears and by looking at the people pushing each side of the agenda. If you look at the people who support liberalism you tend to find the educated middle class and you tend to see a semblance of socialism - everyone paying towards the good of all where you see things like universal access to health care free at the point of delivery, which is one of the things that Hilary Clinton pushed hard to move the USA towards. It has it's downside as it tends to mean higher taxes and more regulation, but then you get better services for everyone not just for the wealthy.
On the other hand when you look at those pushing a more conservative agenda you find the rich and upper classes in full support as they want to pay less tax along with the more poorly educated and lower classes as they can be more easily manipulated by the mass media using fear. You tend to see less provision of services by the central authorities and theoretically more money left in the pockets of the tax payers. The obvious down side of this is that it polarizes the wealth in the hands of the rich and those with access to capital, the upside is that it promotes entrepreneurs who have access to capital as they are subject to less regulation and can make more money and create more jobs.
We had a very right wing government in the 80's which lead to a more selfish society and a very 'me first' attitude. They destroyed the power of the unions and then went on to destroy all of our primary industries - mining went and we now import coal from south America, Steel production went and we now import most of our steel and the raw materials for the steel that we do make, ship building went to the far east, farming has been strangled by big business due to deregulation of the milk industry, fishing has been pretty much ended here due to the lax regulations of the 80's leading to over fishing and the reduction of fish stocks. We have what is regarded as the fourth strongest economy in the world, this is almost solely based on service industries. You cannot run a country where 2/3 of the population do not produce anything and work in Walmart or MacDonalds.
The economic realities of the world today have changed a great deal and we now see that many of our service jobs are moving to low wage economies such as China and India. I'm a software engineer and I have seen a great deal of the work I do in Telecoms moving out to Bangalore where engineers earn a third of my pay. I work for a company which has merged with a Dutch rival and we have had to make alot of people redundant over the last two years. Most of the burden of 'downsizing' has fallen on the UK staff as we are cheaper to fire and have less legal protection than the Dutch, on the downside the Dutch are less likely to recieve inward investment when economic times are good due to their higer levels of regulation.
There are pro's and cons to both side of the divide but I find it confusing that there should be so much support for conservatism in the states. I was under the impression that you were in favour of freedom rather than heavy handed government intrusion such as the 'patriot' act. America puzzles me, I met some people from Oregon recently when I was on holiday in Mexico and they were as cool as anything. They told me that they had voted to legalise pot use, allow euthanasia and had ensured that the Roe V Wade precedent could not be undermined, I also met some Americans who were proud to come from a state that executed a retarded kid for murder.
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What does property cost where you live?
by ball. ini just saw on tv that a 3 bedroom detached property with swimming pool in florida costs the exact same as my 2 bedroom apartment on the coast in england.
i was totally suprised by this.
as there are quite a few american posters here, i am curious as to housing costs in other areas.
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Satans little helper
It varies alot here in the UK. I live in Bristol, SW England where my 3 bed 1930's house - about 650 sq feet with a 90 foot garden and garage, is worth about £140k and I bought it for £90k 2 years ago. We live right beside the air field where concorde was built which isn't the nicest part of Bristol, new houses a mile away are worth about 20k more despite being a third of the size less with no garden. We looked at a new 2 bed apartment in a small town about 30 miles closer to London recently and it was priced at £145k with no garden at all and as Celtic said, houses in the more remote areas have gone through the roof. My family are from Cornwall and we couldn't afford to move back home now. The house prices are at least as high as where we live, if not higher in the nicer towns by the sea, but wages are half the rate they are in our city.
We are planning to move to Australia soon, prices are similar to cheaper places in the USA, we found a 1000 sq ft house with 4 bedrooms and 2 1/2 baths for less than £70k in Perth in Western Australia where we want to live.
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Step One
by Peppermint injust registered today after many months of being a silent spectator, hope to tell you a bit about myself in the days/weeks to come, but not just yet.
one step at a time as they say.
i have been helped so much by what i have read here, at first i expected to find bitter and twisted rantings, not so, you all seem very normal.
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Satans little helper
Welcome Peppermint. I'm pretty new here although I have lurked for a couple of years.
Where in England are you? I'm in Bristol.
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My New Years resolutions....
by logansrun inbradley's new years resolutions:
1) have a small part in kicking bush out of office and making the world a safer place.
2) fulfill my lifelong fantasy of being interviewed by playboy magazine.. 3) abraham lincoln, andrew jackson, benjamin franklin.... 4) sororiety girls.
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7
The Meaning of Life
by darkuncle29 in.
are there any monty python fans around here?.
i just rented the dvd, the meaning of life, interesting movie.
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Satans little helper
No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!
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I flipped out on my JW mum - (Vent)
by Sirona ini feel ashamed of how i spoke to her - here is what happened:.
leading up to christmas she emphasised more than once how i shouldn't be celebrating.
she knows i'm part of a pagan religion now and she made comments about me being a "pagan celebrator" and she wasn't being nice about it.
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Satans little helper
Sirona, I feel for you.
I had a similar conversation with my father 12 months ago when he told me that it 'troubled his conscience' to come to my wedding. I was getting married FFS which should have made him happy as I was no longer living in sin, but it wouldn't have looked too good in the congregation would it with him being an elder. My last words to him were to tell him I thought he was a sanctimonious cnut.
Thing is that now I'm married and I'm planning a family. My kids will never get to know their grandfather because he's too hard headed to bend even a little. Admittedly I'm just as stubborn and won't have anything to do with him, and wouldn't piss on him if he was on fire.
The only thing I would say is that if you can rebuild your relationship with your mum and not resort to conflict then in time she may see through the witnesses. If you cut yourself off from her then she will run into their arms even further as she will see the JW's as her only family she has left.
Good luck
Steve
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Choosing another religion?
by asleif_dufansdottir ina discussion on another thread made me wonder about what happens when we finally come to the conclusion that the society is full of sh*t.
did you take some time to 'get your religious bearings' before contemplating joining another religion?
or, was it a strong religious belief that brought you out of the jws?
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Satans little helper
s'ok, we all get a bit cranky at times
LT how do you define a Christian? I am fine with his teachings of acceptance but then there are the flip side teachings which are less accepting and put me off.
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Choosing another religion?
by asleif_dufansdottir ina discussion on another thread made me wonder about what happens when we finally come to the conclusion that the society is full of sh*t.
did you take some time to 'get your religious bearings' before contemplating joining another religion?
or, was it a strong religious belief that brought you out of the jws?
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Satans little helper
This is really interesting and perhaps get's more to the point of what I was trying to ask when I posed the question why.
To clarify my personal viewpoint and perhaps explain where I am coming from -
1) Was raised a 3rd generation JW with an elder as a father
2) Was very enthusiastic and committed as a teenager until the age of 14 when I discovered girls
3) Really started to become disillusioned when I saw how people treated each other even within the organisation and how they ignored the plight of others outside of the religion. When band aid happened I was sickened to hear some elders councilling others about donating to charity, they said the money would be better used to spread the world than feeding the starving.
4) Was baptised at 16 through family pressure. By this point I was smoking and not at all interested
5) Really began examining the JW teachings in response to my realisation that the beard issue was not only rediculous but merely the teaching of men with no scriptural basis
6) Was DF'd at 18 for immorality
7) Completely rejected the JW faith and also the bible based on the innacuracy of the creation account and scientific proof of the existance of man many thousands of years ago.
8) Considered reinstatement at 24 following a particularly bad experience but couldn't live with the hypocracy
9) Briefly investigated paganism, budhism and Islam and found that paganism sits quite well with my world view and feelings of oneness with the world
10) Questioned the existance of a christian/judaic god as it doesn't make any sense for 'god' to be so mean, vindictive, petty and egotistical. If god exists in a 'worship me or die' form then I'm not interested. This is why I don't get why people jump from the JW's and still hang on to Christianity. Being good to others and accepting people of all faiths, creeds and backgrounds as Christ did is exactly what I believe in, but to follow Christ you need to accept his divinity, which I don't, and also accept all the bad stuff in the NT
I'm now coming to a point where I am settled, married and trying to start a family so I am again thinking of the spiritual and wish to look back into paganism and druidic teachings. I'm also interested in learning more about shamanism, anyone got any pointers to good sources of information on paganism or shamanism?
Steve