Moderator Musings: It Must be an Election Year.
In 2004 ATS experienced a drastic change that continues to affect the board. There was a fracturing of the membership along party lines. Dem's vs Rep's, liberals vs conservatives. It was not a fun time on ATS to see the petty bickering spoil the discussions on the Board. Things calmed down since then but there has been an upturn lately in party rhetoric. Slurs are being used in discussions, well "discussion" may not be the right word as Merriam Webster defines that as, "1 : consideration of a question in open and usually informal debate". These "discussions" are often NOT open or informal, they are adversarial where the only intent is to BEAT the opposing ideology into submission. One Look dictionary defines "discussion as, "noun: an exchange of views on some topic". There is NO "exchange" of views in certain political threads, an "exchange" would mean that there are a sharing of information, not battle lines.

News of the Weird
Classified programs appear to account for about $30.1 billion, or 19 percent, of the acquisition funds sought in the Defense Department budget for fiscal 2007, according to the report by the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment. Secret programs also have tended to spawn "fringe science" -- like antimatter weapons, psychics and telepathy -- because they were protected from outside scrutiny, said Sharon Weinberger, author of "Imaginary Weapons: A Journey through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld."

The Top 25 Threads of the Week

Subject	Author	Replies
Should English Be Our National Language?	ceci2006	181
Today is May 22nd 2006- 2:15 a.m.	googles bin hijacked	175
The Big FEMA Lie, The Towers Had A Concrete Core: PROOF	Christophera	171
Fett and Pickles ATS sandwhich club	optimus fett	122
Breaking: UFO or 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann	promomag	116
Tony Snow's "Tar Baby" Comment	ceci2006	112
What type of work do you do?	skippytjc	100
11 year old mother in Britain	Russian soldier	95
What would you do if...........	Russian soldier	90
Iranian Law May Require Non-Muslims to Wear Badges (Source Retracted)	Muaddib	80

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