The Ministry of Truth sure got a lot busier re-writing history to match what these new idiot Republicans are spewing from their mouths

mod3072: The All-Powerful Atheismo: If he said 30 or 25, he still would have been quite demonstrably incorrect. And the fact is that Obama clearly misspoke, meaning to say 47 and not 57. The context of Santorum's comments clearly indicate that he has no farking clue what he's talking about. They aren't even remotely similar.

How would he be "quite demonstrably incorrect"? I don't believe that 25 or 30 years ago the average person imagined a world where every person walked around with his or her very own handheld telephone, much less one that was also a computer vastly more powerful than anything even conceived of at the time. Yes, I realize that mobile phones existed at the time, but they were still quite exotic and rare. If you took even a fairly basic cell phone back to the 80's (and it somehow worked), it would blow peoples' minds.

//what a stupid thing to argue about. Fine, you win. 20 years ago every single human on earth was anxiously awaiting the release of the iPhone and cursing progress for being so damn slow.

I was 20, 20 years ago. Yes they were just becoming common and the word in the streets was that in the future everyone would have one and that we would never have to change our phone numbers.

It was more than concievabe. It was happening at a very fast rate.

"In the previous 2,000 years, life did not change," he said. "And then America came around and said, 'No, no more dictators, no more kings, no more classes, no more nobility.' We believe in limited government, not an all-powerful state. We believe that if we liberate people, we recognize the rights that God has given every person then the world will change."

Super Stupid went and bought that bag
Thought it was coke but it was skag
Super Stupid did the one and one
And his eyes began to bulge and his nose began to run

Oh Stupid with your ups and downs
Your maggot brain, your grins and frowns
Super stupid you're here today
You've lost the fight and the winner is fear

Well, at least he didn't do the "wide range guessing" crap I've seen some do. You know, the ones that say things like,

"But if you're making like fifty, sixty, seventy thousand a year..."
"If you're in your twenties, thirties, forties..."
"Hundred, two hundred years ago..."

Those piss me right off for some reason.

scanman61: mathmatix:

That's not a phone, it's a prick.

PRC-77 to be specific.

And thus began the great hazing joke of telling the rookie to go to that big mean farker that has three up and two down rockers on his sleeve and say you're looking for the PRC-E7.

"What I meant was, um, People 20 years ago couldn't have help conceiving from an ap on their cell phone."
-If Santorum were more Romney.

GoodyearPimp: To be fair, 20 years is a long time ago and it's hard to remember what did or didn't exist.

Wasn't Jesus riding a dinosaur 20 years ago?

Today's smart phone is the Christmas present I asked for in 1986. I wanted a device that made phone calls, had calculator, a flash light, had a proton pack.

Muta: FTA: they are commonplace because Americans "recognize the rights God has given every person."

That is right people, cell phones are a gift from God.

Landover Baptist church was giving out free iPads with every conversion.

I am really getting sick and tired of this damn nonsense pouring out of these people.

Simple, basic logic, truth and history have become utterly alien and even hateful to them.

Stuff that is elementary and simple enough to be understood by 10 year old kids.

These are educated adults with high-end degrees in professional positions spouting this stultifying garbage!

What is going on here?

Are there any solutions to this?

Tad_Waxpole: [dmn.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com image 350x500]
1941

Thank you. This is why I like this place.

Dangerously dogmatic AND stupid.

He'll fit in well at the White House.

heap: mathmatix: [img39.imageshack.us image 400x272]

[www.iwatchstuff.com image 640x345]

watch out, or i'll point my walkie talkie at you.

that's right. god turns weapons into communications devices, praise Aqua Buddha

Rand Paul had nothing to do with Spielberg sucking.

Santorum: "People 20 years ago couldn't conceive ... a cell phone."

See - it's what gay rights gets you - now you have people fornicating trying to conceive a phone! What's the world coming to.....

Jon Stewart must be hoping against hope that this douche-bag gets the nomination. What a wonderful summer and fall it will be!

And here I was getting all ready to say it was just an insignificant mental lapse, but then I went ahead and read the rest of the paragraph. Apparently subby chose the LEAST idiotic thing Santorum said in that speech.

indylaw: Realistically, approximately half are below the adjusted mean.

Realistically, 50 to 80% are less than one standard deviation from the arithmetic mean, and for most purposes can be considered "average".

I has an unhappy.

Kittypie070: I am really getting sick and tired of this damn nonsense pouring out of these people.

Simple, basic logic, truth and history have become utterly alien and even hateful to them.

Stuff that is elementary and simple enough to be understood by 10 year old kids.

These are educated adults with high-end degrees in professional positions spouting this stultifying garbage!

What is going on here?

Are there any solutions to this?

People are bugs, man. Just big, pink bugs.

This asshole is deliberately trampling on the entire goddamn reason our government was formed: to escape prosecution from ultra-religious zealots forcing everyone to conform to their silly superstitions.

Hey rick: don't want an abortion? Don't get one. (Oops...too late.) You wanna force every pregnancy -- including rapes -- to birth? Are you prepared to spend all the money it takes to raise each and every one of them? Pay for their schooling* and 3 meals a day, clothing, some modest toys?

/*get the state of PA to pay for your ugly, retarded crotchfruits' educations and then tell the state and fed to get out of the education racket... as if they were providing much anyway
//♫ bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran ♫

machodonkeywrestler: Maybe 30 years ago, but 20 you could get a prepaid cell phone pretty cheap.

If by "pretty cheap" you mean $2/minute airtime charges, and by "prepaid" you mean "leased from the phone company"...

I bet people in the 50s assumed that we would have something like cell phones in the 21st century, it's probably one of the few inventions they got right when they predicted future tech. To say that people in the 90s (when the internet and cell phones really started gaining traction) didn't know about cell phones is asinine. I guess a backwards religious extremist and simple minded guy like Rick never paid much attention to innovation and technology. I wouldn't elect a guy like him to the city council so I'm not sure how his crazy ass is a mainstream Republican candidate (and somehow Paul isn't).

poot_rootbeer: machodonkeywrestler: Maybe 30 years ago, but 20 you could get a prepaid cell phone pretty cheap.

If by "pretty cheap" you mean $2/minute airtime charges, and by "prepaid" you mean "leased from the phone company"...

I can't tell if that was a troll or just someone who didn't shop for a cell phone 20 years ago. There was definitely no such thing as pre-paid.
Most of the outrage in this thread claiming the fact it existed seems to be ignorant of how much it actually cost, and that there was no such thing as text messaging to go along with it.

Santorum's speeches are this year's Charlie Sheen meltdown.

Joe Biden: "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"

LOL

Badfrog: poot_rootbeer: machodonkeywrestler: Maybe 30 years ago, but 20 you could get a prepaid cell phone pretty cheap.

If by "pretty cheap" you mean $2/minute airtime charges, and by "prepaid" you mean "leased from the phone company"...

I can't tell if that was a troll or just someone who didn't shop for a cell phone 20 years ago. There was definitely no such thing as pre-paid.
Most of the outrage in this thread claiming the fact it existed seems to be ignorant of how much it actually cost, and that there was no such thing as text messaging to go along with it.

Like all new technologies are expensive in the beginning. It has been acknowledged.

WaffleStomper: Joe Biden: "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"

LOL

Ah, yes, misdirection - "Look over here! Don't look at our guy making an ass of himself claiming that the world did squat for 2,000 years before 'Murika showed up! Look at this quote from four years ago by some other guy! Whew, that was close - now no one will know that our guy is as dumb as a box of rocks."

Genius, we know Joe Biden is a chucklehead. He's the Vice President, and he makes the occasional gaffe - like the quote you pulled from a 2008 interview. We don't defend those gaffes - Biden's a chucklehead, after all. We know that.

That's the fun part about simply being direct. You feel the need to somehow say that, because some other guy made a mistake about who the President was in 1929, or that television wasn't around at the time, it somehow invalidates the fact that your guy believes that the world spent two millenia locked into... something... before America came along, and that if it weren't for the private sector, the government would be unable to do something as simple as back a current technology. You know, the government that actually backed the current technology about which he's actually speaking. Biden didn't do that - he's not that inept. He made two mistakes on facts that were secondary to the rather salient point he made during that interview.

Unlike Biden, Santorum didn't just make a boo-boo on a fact ("gee, if he'd only said 30 years, none of this would have happened") while making a salient point - he made a series of nigh-insane claims in a series, specifically to back his nutty premise that our current government has become a group of degenerate socialists unable to pick its nose, much less ensure that cell phones became available. That's a wee bit different.

I mean, I know why you went with misdirection - how in the hell do you defend Santorum's entire spiel? That would be lunacy. The best you can do is point to a derpy opponent and go, "well, your guy says dumb things too." The thing is, we agree with you - Biden says dumb things, too.

Now what? Did Santorum's inept understanding of history, economics, politics, or science improve? Nope.

"In the previous 2,000 years, life did not change"

Things Republicans think don't exist:

1) female voters

2) functional government programs

3) history

My 1985 BMW parts car had a phone in it. Shut up, Dick Santorum.

CSB:
I called 911 from a cell phone (brick with a strap) in 1989. The operator asked what kind of phone I was calling from. "Uh... Ericsson?"

And people support this guy... why?!?!?

NeoCortex42: Just ignoring the cell phone part of his comment, he's saying there were no advances in technology at all in nearly 2000 years and it was only America that allowed technology to develop.

What. The. Fark.

How does anybody take this guy seriously.

People are actually this stupid in America. They want to believe that America is somehow the savior of all the universe, and has been blessed by God. No amount of evidence changes the fact that, for many Americans anyway, we are the savior of humanity.

Press 1 for the language of England.

"We believe that if we liberate people, we recognize the rights that God has given every person then the world will change"

And he is right. You just have to wipe out all the non-white non-christian people first.

/USA USA USA

Keizer_Ghidorah: And people support this guy... why?!?!?

because they are every bit as stupid as him.... next question?

Don't Troll Me Bro!: Keizer_Ghidorah: And people support this guy... why?!?!?

because they are every bit as stupid as him.... next question?

Actually it's because he's not Romney. So we have Romney staying in the race by pretending to be someone else while Santorum goes down to defeat by being himself.

2016 will just be boring as hell.

If Romney does not take this guy I am not sure who to blame, Romney or the activated GOP base.

I have learned a new level of hate for this ignorant fark.

Don't Troll Me Bro!: Keizer_Ghidorah: And people support this guy... why?!?!?

because they are every bit as stupid as him.... next question?

That is the saddest, most frightening part. And they're PROUD to be this stupid. Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles in a clown car, this man and his supporters are DANGEROUS.

Keizer_Ghidorah: Don't Troll Me Bro!: Keizer_Ghidorah: And people support this guy... why?!?!?

because they are every bit as stupid as him.... next question?

That is the saddest, most frightening part. And they're PROUD to be this stupid. Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles in a clown car, this man and his supporters are DANGEROUS.

Anti-intelligence (as distinct from anti-intellectualism) is frightening when used as a political tool. We're not looking at praxis, or concrete thinking, or anything like that - we're actually looking at an attack on intelligence itself, that, somehow, intellect is seen as a negative quality and distrust of intelligence is cultivated to identify the faithful.

It's not just dangerous, it's destructive to a society over time. We're already feeling the results, as we slowly lose the economic & technological gains made over the last half century to countries happy to focus on intellect, education, and training as societal goals.

Jairzinho: ChaffedTitty: For a person who's religion has the world dated at 6000 years old

Catholics are not creationists. Oh, forgot, he claims to be Catholic but he still believes in stupid shiat Catholics stop believing decades and even centuries ago, or never did (rapture etc).

You might want to tell a good majority of Catholics that.

FormlessOne: Keizer_Ghidorah: Don't Troll Me Bro!: Keizer_Ghidorah: And people support this guy... why?!?!?

because they are every bit as stupid as him.... next question?

That is the saddest, most frightening part. And they're PROUD to be this stupid. Jesus Christ and the Twelve Apostles in a clown car, this man and his supporters are DANGEROUS.

Anti-intelligence (as distinct from anti-intellectualism) is frightening when used as a political tool. We're not looking at praxis, or concrete thinking, or anything like that - we're actually looking at an attack on intelligence itself, that, somehow, intellect is seen as a negative quality and distrust of intelligence is cultivated to identify the faithful.

It's not just dangerous, it's destructive to a society over time. We're already feeling the results, as we slowly lose the economic & technological gains made over the last half century to countries happy to focus on intellect, education, and training as societal goals.

In the Bible, it was humans gaining intelligence that led to expulsion from paradise and our (perceived) current state of sin and hell. It's also a common theme among most other mythologies, humans gaining intelligence leads directly to rejecting the gods and screwing up the universe. Religion in general is very anti-intellectual.

Which is one big reason why it needs to go, and why it should not be any part of government or educational system.

mod3072: he aeolipile, a simple steam engine of sorts, was around as early as the first century AD. They would have figured out how to harness it sooner or later.

No, not really. It isn't anything remotely like a Newcomen/Watt steam engine. The only thing the two have in common is that they create motion using steam, but are built on entirely different principles with a completely different theoretical background.

*mistakenly opens TFA and reads first paragraph*

I... wow, I don't even...

Is there anything frothy boy can talk about that doesn't result in everyone hearing it suffering a concussion from the facepalm?

I'll cut him some slack... He's of that age (as am I) where, while I know intellectually that the 90's were twenty years ago. They still feel as if they were ten years ago.

Of course, there were still mobile phones in the 80's, but it wouldn't sound quite so doofy.

As for his actual point about:

"Let me assure you if the government had taken over the technology sector of our economy 25 years ago, no one would ever have heard of a cell phone. Because what we would be doing is we would be making sure everybody had pagers and allocated them equivalently across everybody."

Well, that's just "shiat your pants"-stupid, and a typical conservative "liberal boogie-man" straw man that bears no actual relationship to anything that ACTUAL liberals (much less Democrats) ACTUALLY advocate.

"Hey, with the government's budget straining so much, and so much debt to pay off... maybe it's time we let those Bush temporary tax cuts expire... you know, three years beyond schedule. After all, most of this debt is from stuff like the two wars and Medicare Part D you conservatives fought so hard for. And, that truth be told, that money HAS been coming back to the wealthy hand over fist through their pharma company and defense contractor stocks which shot through the roof as a result of those plans and policies. And really,we're just talking about an additional 3% on the top marginal tax bracket."

"OH! MY! GOD! Did you people hear that?!?!?!? They want to seize ALL THE MONEY from EVERYBODY and put it in a big ol' pile and divide it up equally among everyone in the country!!! even among the Escalade drivers... with their expensive rims and flat-screen TV's.!!!! (if you know what I mean. wink-wink)"