http://www.theonion.com/articles/your-horoscopes-week-of-january-18-2011,18855/

My favorite might be Capricorn: Faith is the evidence of things not seen, which any well-rounded human being must admit is better than only trusting good hard provable evidence.

I subscribe to The Onion’s Twitter feed and when I saw this one pop up, I LOL’d. And then sighed.

I’d find it rather neglectful if you DIDN’T post your thoughts about current politics. What would be the point of knowledge and understanding if it becomes ignored because of the whims of politicians?

Well stated, sir. Hear hear.

. . . the Asteroid Destruction and American Preservation Act . . .

The ADAPA.
A-da-pa . . .
Ah-dah-pah . . .
Addlepated!

It’s hilarious to me how sensitive true believers are. Make one little joke about their irrational, faith-based political philosophies, or their tribalistic demonization of anything that doesn’t tow their party line or comes from an opponent, and out come the complaints and tantrums. I guess the truth does hurt, if you’re a crybaby.

Republican voters and other conservatives: You and your leaders have earned this treatment a million times over. It’s funny, and it’s funny because it’s true. Either grow up and get over it, or even better, REALLY grow up, and change.

To make this perfectly clear: I do not favor communism. That is to say, I like the idea of communism (which never actually was at work in the world), but I know that it can’t work. Germany used to have a great system that we called “social capitalism” (no, NOT socialism!!) and workers benefited a lot from this system (like 30 days off, or parity of representatives of management and works council in the board of directors).

Sadly, we are unleashing capitalism as well. And this kind of system placed the world on the brink of disaster (again). And then the funny situation occurred again: Companies normally favor “weak” governments, but suddenly everyone was crying for help: “Governments save us!”. Thank you very much! Sadly, nobody learned. And everything is again running into chaos as it did before the crisis.

Sometimes I wonder if the best worker for a (capitalistic) company is, indeed, a slave.

——–
To stress this once more: This is not written in favor of communism. This is written in favor of capitalism kept on a (tight) leash.

We can all it “The Mao Corollary”

Nice try, but you know I’m right.

Well, at least you didn’t compare them to Nazi Germany.

Do we need an extension to Godwin’s Law that covers China?

[citation needed]

The weird thing is how people commented that some folks take an Onion story as reality, and there you go- taking it as a reality. Yes, Republicans really really would let the Earth be destroyed. (eyeroll) (facepalm) (another facepalm)

Or, as Harry Nilsson once observed: “Everything is the opposite of what it is.”

LOLZ

@29 Dr. Flimmer:
I’m an American and I’m just as perplexed as you. I think that Onion article really hit the nail on the head in some ways – “Freedom” is the magic word in the American mind. If you’re a lobbyist and you can attach your interests to “freedom” or “liberty” in some way, you’re always going to have support. People will line up to vote against their own best interest if you can convince them that they’ll be more free… somehow.

The big WTF talking point for me is the argument against government involvement in healthcare. You hear stuff like “Do you want some bureaucrat in some cube farm somewhere deciding what treatment you can or can’t have?!?”
What they somehow fail to answer is how this is any different then the situation we have now. Or how exactly insurance company bureaucrats are any better then government bureaucrats

Who is anyone but Phil to say what he considers an “astronomy related” issue?”

Exactly!
Anything goes. Like boxing.
If punchend hard enough I can see a topic in that.
So, what´s your stand on boxing Dr.Phil?

Maybe I am too “Old-European-ish” (being German…), but c’mon America: WTF?
I don’t get why a government IMPROVING the situation of (almost) all is such a bad thing (speaking of health care, etc.)?
Do you know, where a weak government leads to? Well, take a look around, already forgot the last crisis, right?
As I said: I don’t get it. And btw: Obama is not even close of being a Socialist or something like that. I guess, most Americans have absolutely no idea what that means at all. They just heard “it could be bad — hate it, for God’s sake!”. Awesome.

Sorry for the rumbling. But I had to speak my mind. Politics in Europe tends to be no better than in America, of course.

This is why the article of TheOnion is so sad….

The real problem is that the prognostications of climate models are exactly as credible as the one predicting the destruction of the Earth by Planet X – only the true believers can see and understand the evidence – the rest are too corrupt to comprehend…like Republicans for example.

* an asteroid hitting Earth, the effects of an impact and how to stop it (which Phil wrote a whole chapter about in a book),
* goverment funding of Big Science/Engineering

That’s what makes it astronomy.
If a satire of a topic that Phil wrote a book about doesn’t qualify for ‘on-topic’, I can’t imagine what does.

“Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With new ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory”
“Iranian Science Teacher May Be Enriching Students”
“Developmentally Disabled Burger King Employee Only Competent Worker”

Who can argue with headlines like those?