It has been repeatedly said that the Great Depression was caused by "no rules" laissez-faire capitalism. This is a completely absurd claim as the Great Depression occurred after several decades of laws that were revolutionary at the time and completely changed the nature of our economy from one that was heavily influenced at the state level, to one that was heavily influenced by the federal government.

I don't care to argue about whether or not the changes were positive at this time. Anyone who has read my posts knows what my opinions are. I simply want to deal with the facts of what laws were passed. My contention is that while the economy at the time of the 1929 crash was free by today's standards, it occurred in an economy that was in the process of becoming more regulated. Hardly the free, no rules, anarchic economy that some on this site, and the vast majority of teachers suggest there was.

I don't know about you, but my middle school economics discussion regarding this era consisted of talking about the expansion of the railroads in the 1800's then magically skipping to "the 20's boomed and then there was a crash, lets talk about Roosevelt"  while ignoring the period of 1890-1929. Any discussion of the era was of the new technologies while virtually ignoring the laws. So hopefully you might learn something you were not aware of before.

Cinematically, sure. But in real life? I don't know. So I ask you:

Have you ever hated something, or most especially someone?

I don't mean getting angry or disgusted or even furious, but real HATE. As in, if you could obliterate its existence with a thought, you would?

I personally have never experienced this emotion, so I must question its existence.

I have been and can be a total asshole. But if you're willing to change, so am I. It's how I can out troll a troll. It's also how I can later become best friends with said troll.

Am I fucked up or lucky?

I stumbled on to this and was annoyed from the very start...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9BfsHsVGNg&feature=g-all-lik&context=G27edf2aFAAAAAAAABAA

If an alien came down from the skies and said, "I am god" would christians know the difference?

What if the alien had done their homework and knew of the prophecies and could recreate them?

Would christians know the difference?

If the alien could perform miracles or provide answers to all the questions, would christians know?

I'll preface this as regarding North America. I can't speak for anywhere else, as I have too little experience with the rest of the world.
For the last 10-20+ years, at an accelerating pace, children are being taught to have healthy egos and self confidence. Often lamented by myself and others is that rarely is it justified. All the confidence in the world won't help you when you can't back it up.
It started, as many things do, with concerned parents. They didn't want their kids committing suicide or giving up hope for a brighter future.
Now it would seem I'm about to rant on the spiralling stupidity of the education system and the consequences of too much of a good thing, but I'm about to switch gears on you all. Because a side effect just occurred to me.
This has also had the effect of reducing belief in gods and religions. While the youngest generations are, in general, the cockiest and least educated (through no fault of their own, they didn't dumb down the education system), they are also the

This post is inspired by the "official RRS defeats the way of the master" thread.

I started to think about how religion is faith based and what would happen if they didn't have their "documents" to prove the existence of their god.

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Here is the interesting thing about all people who believe in religion and the debate with Ray Comfort proves it.

They are all faith based, meaning that every thing they have is based on the bible, the qua ran or the torah (and I know the torah is only part of the jewish documents), but with out these documents, what do the have? Nothing.

Let's wipe the slate clean for a little experiment.

If there were no religious documents to give people of faith their foundation for the belief in a god how would they communicate to each other their belief? Let's say they all got together for the very first time at a conference for people of faith. What would they most likely do?

Most likely they would write every thing down so they could share it and store it. They would want to share their "experiences" with others. Some people would say "I saw god in a burning cat who spoke to me" and another would say "God came to me in a dream" or maybe "an angel came before me and told me I would get pregnant".

So I'm playing Transformers 2 online, and I'm playing a team DM (death match, for those unfamiliar with the acronym). I choose Starscream, as always, because he's fucking awesome. Join the game, and it's me and this guy Transformers-TF-1 vs 4 Autobots. Long story short, we owned the enemy so badly they couldn't even get a kill. 2 of them leave, a third switches teams, and my former teammate apparently decides it's time to see which of us is better, and he switches teams as well.
The next game is rather epic. The nub on my team quits halfway in, which is annoying. He sucked, but he was perfect for distracting the opponents so I could take them both down while he dies. Oh well, I know I'm better than Transformers-TF-1 by now, so it's just a matter of divide and conquer.
Unfortunately I couldn't kill them enough for the win, but I keep it tied up.
Game ends, I look at the stats:
Autobots 11
Decepticons 11
Kills Assists Deaths
Autobots:
Transformers-TF-1: 5 1 3
Nub: 0 1 9
Decepticons:
Vastet: 7 2 2