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Thread, The figure built out in half sized little balls, to the 4th level, yields the cube octahedron. This could be divided into the 12 segments, using each of the corners of the cube octahedron as the center of each segment. Best way to translate this to the globe setup is put a corner on the equator, go diagonally across a square side, and put that corner on the equator as well. Each diamond shaped segment would be composed of a third of one triangular side, a quarter of the square side CCW around the corner, a third of the next CCW triangle and a quarter of the next CCW square side. In the picture here, I show the 9 hexagon layers, and the 9 square layers, evident when you build the figure out, to the 4th shell. Where only 5 square layers are shown, 4 repeat in flipped orientation in the stack of 9. Same for the 9 hexagonal layers, 4 repeat in a flipped fashion. This stack of 9 square layers happens three different times, as you could set the figure on six different sides. The stack of 9 hex planes happens 4 different times, as you could set the figure on 8 different triangular sides. Regards, TAR or 63 uniquely membered plane sections 3x9 square layers and 4x9 hexagonal layers 27 and 36

iNow, No thank you. I am sitting out the political threads for a while. Regards, TAR

total sphere population per segment counting all levels at each level (appox.) 1st 1.08 2nd 4.583 3rd 12.25 4th 25.75

Overtone, I just watch the news. I am not asking you to accept my view of the world. That is unlikely. I have had different insights and thoughts that remove me from completely agreeing with just about everybody. March to the beat of my own drummer, so to speak. But there are situations, where it is required that one leave their ego at the door. In business, I learned, after years of trying to fix my company after we bought a powerful, world class organization, that took the purse strings and ran with them, and completely took over our organization, that it was not my job to fix the company, it was my job to understand what the president of the company was trying to accomplish, and to make his initiatives work. As such, I give my countrymen and woman the benefit of the doubt. I will lean against the pendulum when I think the place is going wacko left or whacko right, but I will pledge my allegiance to whoever we elect, and try to make his or her initiatives work. In this cycle, I want a republican candidate that can beat the democrat candidate, because I think we are losing our respect for authority and law and order, and workable principles, and the basic idea of Kennedy, that it is not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. I am still sure that ISIS is my mortal enemy and I need to see it destroyed. You can frame that anyway you want, ascribe to me any awful ideas your want, associate me to imperialists, and Zionists, and terrorists and KKK or whatever it is that floats your boat. I am looking at the real world, and seeing real danger to my way of life and the way of life of my allies. Who I vote for for president is my business, and will be the vote that puts the reigns of the powerful U.S. in the hands of someone who I think will do my bidding. Someone who I trust and respect, and who I find capable and good. How you feel about the guy or gal, has absolutely nothing to do with reality. You have already proven to me that you have no idea of what is importantto me. I don't listen to you. And don't have to. Regards, TAR Ten Oz, I said you didn't say it. But had I insinuated that women moving into the workplace was a bad idea, it would have proven me sexist. You were saying that the two income family was not a workable situation. If I would suggest that having little girls in combat was a bad idea, I might be called sexist. If a future war is lost, because we capitulate rather than see our female prisoners raped and tortured, then the argument for not letting women in combat would take on a different spin. There were republicans, and democrats that wanted their wives to be home to raise the children. This was part and parcel of the woman's movement. To erase this stereotype and expect woman in the workplace. In New Hampshire, the young women went with Sanders, because they already know they can work and lead, as women. They don't have to go with Hillary to fight for them, they already have the reigns of power. Interesting that Hilary and Sanders tied in Iowa and Sanders beat her 60 40 in New Hampshire and Hilary has the most delegates because of the super delegates that are there to protect the party. If the republican party had such a mechanism, we would have cancelled Trump out already. So which party is more structured to be controlled by the elite, and which to be guided by the people? Regards, TAR OK, I guess I can't talk on this thread either. I will stay off the politics thread. You guys are already closed to reason. And I hate neg reps.

I did not mean to bring the "repubicans" are our problem arguments here. I meant to encourage people to look for the many ways in which republicans and status quo thinker, actually work to our advantage. Collect the garbage, and grease the wheels of industry and finance and such. If it is true, that the top 10 percent of people are among the most capable and trustworthy people we have, then it is crucial that we identify those top 10 percent and keep them on our side.

Ten Oz, No, I meant do you think there is such thing as a competent Republican? And if so, who is your best example of such? Regards, TAR iNow, I don't need to be taught what happened during the crash. I was on the phone with my broker often, I listened to Bloomberg news every morning on the way to work. I was taught what was going on, with swaps and packages of bad loans and all, as it happened. My refusal to accept the line that government loans to people that could not afford to pay them back, had nothing to do with the crash has nothing to do with my inability to learn. You and I, went around about quantitative easing as well. We still have not unwound, and the Fed is still holding a lot of paper...and much of the 85billion a month, has gone into the pockets of bankers around the world, and not into the accounts of middle class savers. Low interest rates hurt savers. We recovered on the backs of savers. You don't let me teach you this. So don't accuse me of being misinformed. Informed differently perhaps, with different judgments on the situation, but not "a global warming denier". Ten Oz was saying it worked out better in the 60s when mama was barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, and papa brought home the bacon. Well she did not say that, but if a republican would make that argument, she would be all over it. Often on this board I am very much against false equivalences. But that includes not allowing myself to be "taught" that Bernie Madoff means that wall street is corrupt. Regards, TAR I apologize. I thought I could come to another thread and get away from Overtone's blanket detraction of the Republican Party and everything Republican. I guess I was wrong. I am sorry if I am encouraging the derailment of this thread.

Overtone, You are not even allowed on this thread. The chances of you making a nomination for a capable republican are nil. Regards, TAR

iNow, Judgement is still allowed. We are 11 and more trillion in debt. We already allow ourselves to spend more in an emergency. Even during our few years under Clinton, where we had surpluses, our national debt was extraordinarily high and just running a surplus does not address debt, and future promises. Perhaps it would be wise to ask the president to pay off old debt and secure social promises already made, before launching programs that would add trillions more to our debt. These are decisions, like family decisions, that choose one course of action over another. To a certain extent, since we are a large and diverse and affluent country, we can do more than one thing at a time, and our credit is good. We never default on our promises. But we have made a lot of them already. My reference to McGovern, was to point out that what I wanted McGovern to do, that was rejected by the party, at the time, was later accomplished. In today's climate, against the rich, against wall street, against business, a basic fact of reality is being missed and missed badly. We accomplished these goals, 20 years ago, and now have different issues. Hillary, replaying her speeches from 8 years ago, against Bush, are no longer sound arguments against Obama. Sanders, using the same argument I used ringing doorbells in New Hampshire 40 years ago, does not have as valid an argument. The effort to reduce the tax burden of the poor and increase the tax burden of the rich has already been successful. Socialism was radical in my day. Now it is mainstream policy of the Democratic party. Sanders may play better up next to Canada. Perhaps he will play well in black areas, were the old lines are still drawn, and the blacks are disenfranchised, and locked out of the inner circles of power. But where the battle for equality is already won, and the KKK is already marginalized, and the political goals of the million man march and the black panthers is already won, in the hearts and minds of the populace, continuing the talk of revolution, is just stupid and scary. As in the call to kill police officers, and jail CEOs. Really? This is progress? Progress toward what? Regards, TAR

not trump by the way he is suited for reality TV, and can fire up a crowd, but I don't want him as my representative to the world Great Britain does not even want him in their country. That would be highly problematic for him to be in charge of the U.S. Embassy there. ten oz, Looking at the chart, I would say that single income families became two income families and then a combination of factors slowed the economy, took many of our jobs overseas and our workforce aged. I am thinking the proper numbers should be up near the top of the chart. We should develop industries that make renewable energy equipment, and use it, and sell it to the rest of the world. I think we should use our natural resources of shale oil and natural gas to fuel this industry, until it can sustain itself. Sell our corn and livestock and trees to the world. Mine our hills for the resources we and others need. I am not sure what you are asking. Do you think the chart somehow indicates something else? Regards, TAR ten oz, do you have any Republican candidates for nomination? Regards, TAR

We only have 120,000,000 people in this country of 316,000,000 that are employed. Some of the rest are old, some are young, some are disabled, but the rest of us, have to pull our weight, and make the place work. If a person is not in one of the categories of people that deserve our help, then they are in the category of people that are providing help for others. Doing something of value, that someone else will pay them for. Being there. Having a skill. Knowing something. Having talent. Taking responsibility. Taking risk. Do something that someone else finds valuable and you help three times. You help them. You get paid, so you can eat. You pay taxes, so we can do, as a nation, everything we want to do. Around the world, and to support our neighbors in trouble, here at home. Capable and trustworthy is a requirement for a CEO. Corporate boards vet the leaders of their firms, very carefully. Ethics and social responsibility is a must for a corporate leader in this country. Many of these individuals, vetted by the boards, are excellent material for leadership of this country.

I second the Kasich nomination. He worked with Clinton to get the only budget surpluses we have seen. And I nominate either of the Koch brothers. They are capable and trustworthy, socially responsible, build great stuff that improves our quality of life, and employ 60,000 tax payers. And I do this, to make a point. Their names have come up as examples of income inequality, and a pact with congress to block carbon emission laws that do not come with tax credits to pay the cost of the required changes. This has engendered a half truth, that they are global warming deniers. They can see the graph as well as anybody. They can see the storms and the polar vortex and ice cap melting same as anyone. What we are going to do about it, though, is a public responsibility. Unfunded mandates are unconstitutional. You cannot in time of war billet troops in a citizen's farmhouse, without paying for the food and lodging. Regards, TAR

enrich, But made with intention, requires an intender. And then the question of who or what, intentionally made the intender. If an infinite god is logical, then also one can just drop the intention of being God, and require there only be the conditions and situation, always, in which something will emerge. But this would negate the premise that the universe was created at all. It is just a thing that constantly emerges from whatever conditions existed, just before the current conditions emerged. And alone is a precondition, and within the definition of universe. If we are to imagine a greater cosmos, in which there are other universes, then still we would have the question, of whether the cosmos was created alone, unless we posited that there is just one cosmos, or just one "existence", that we are of and in. So yes, I would say the universe is created alone. This is the one that matters to us. The only one. And we can never see the beginning of existence, and will never see the end. Insulated from both, by immense time and space, in both the scales larger than our human scales, and smaller. And nowhere is there that is not within the cosmos, and nobody else is there or here, that comes from somewhere else. Regards, TAR

Built out to 4th level first level 12, one sphere per segment total 13 second level 42, 3.5per segment total 55 third level 92, 7.67per segment total 147 fourth level 162, 13.5per segment total 309

Joatmon, Interesting, but earlier in the thread I thought we were working on the definition of universe, as including everything that is. If, a couple hundred thousand years after the big bang, we bumped into something, then that something, has effected our reality for 13.8 billion years, and is thus already a part of this universe. We can't for instance say our great grand father, was a person, other than us. If we are thinking of us, as the human race. Regards, TAR so a parallel universe, might not be on the map you get at the gas station, but if it somehow is pertinent to us, it already is, and will not "just" become so, when we put it on the map North America was part of the universe, before it appeared on European Globes. Mt. St. Helen could have erupted and put up an ash cloud that drifted over Europe and affected its weather, while everybody thought the world was flat, and going too far West, would drop you off the edge of the Earth. If "other" universes, ever did, or ever will effect us in any way, then they are part of this one, and therefore not others. Dark Matter and Dark Energy were not part of the Universe, according to the wisest and most perceptive scientists 200 years ago. Are we living in a "different" universe than we lived in prior the discovery? If however, the evidence of the link suggests that something other than all time/matter/space/energy that there is, bumped into all time/matter/space/energy when it was young, then the big bang is falsified, as being the event with the characteristic of being a point, at which a singular thing, became the universe.

Overtone, I am not interested in your characterizations of reality. I am against the KKK and Sarah Palin and bigotry. It does not matter to you that I say this. You demand that I protect things I don't believe in, and I won't even try and defend things I am against myself. At the superbowl Beonce did a black power thing. I did not even get it. I thought it was just an inappropriate day time display of women in nightclub garb. I just saw it was a black power thing and they were dressed with Berets, as black panthers. Is it OK for me to dislike this kind of in your face stuff, as much as I dislike racist remarks and KKK bravado. I have not ignored any facts. I look at things differently than you do. Check your own fact denials. I am finished here. I am getting neg reps, and I hate neg reps. I am tired of the ad hominem attacks when you guys run out of arguments. Hate the KKK, we don't need them. But don't hate Republicans, we need them. You know exactly how I feel. You know it is not how you feel. I am sad, that I can not converse with you guys, and point out where your arguments are weak and faulty. But you are certain that I am wrong. And that makes you feel good, for some reason, so I will concede you the thread. The republican party is the biggest problem we have in America. Regards, TAR

Ten Oz, I am probably more a bigot, than you. I was raised by a very unbigoted father, but have some distrust of blacks, due to things like Ferguson, where black lives matter, but white police officers lives don't. I know the "he had his hands up" thing was probably a lie. Same as I know "he had his hands up" thing was probably a lie concerning Finicum, in Oregon. When things like reparations are discussed, I think it unworkable and unfair. Not because I am republican, not because I am bigoted, not because I listen to a particular argument. I make my own judgement. Not fair to tax me, to pay the great grandchild of a slave. Not workable to decide who gets how much. Not workable to think that such a punitive measure would all of a sudden make everything OK between whites and blacks. The big problems in poor communities are based on economics and drugs. The cycle would not be broken by giving every black person in America 1000 dollars. That would be gone on food and rent in a couple weeks. So what is fair, a million a man? Everybody white, sitting around trying to make the paycheck stretch and the EQUAL guy next door gets a 100,000 dollar check? It is hard to defend myself against charges of racism if they are based on my opposition to an unworkable situation, or my insistence that someone take care of their own children, or to not steal and kill to get high, or to not try to get over on the man. If Detroit was a nice place to live and work, people would live and work there. I lived for years in a mixed neighborhood, where middle class blacks owned homes, same as middle class whites. As more blacks moved in, more whites moved out. White flight. So the neighborhoods, got more and more run down. The apartment buildings got bars on the first floor windows. Vacant buildings were used as crack houses and all the windows broken out. The grass lawns were turned to dirt, the place went down hill. Crime and drug use rose and merchants, tired of getting robbed, moved out. Jobs left. The place went from middle class to low class. All the jobs were there. All the infrastructure was there. The public schools were there. The trains and buses were there. The opportunities were there. In the 68 riots, 1/4 of Newark was burned. Actually burned. Why would you burn your own house? Even if you were renting from the man. My school was about half and half black and white. We were right outside of Newark, on the other side of East Orange, in Orange. There were walk outs, where I just went home on many a day that year. Fellow Americans, burning buildings, for nothing. To prove what? To prove to a businessman that they should move in to the city and create jobs? Flint is used my Moore to prove that America is bigoted. That had they been white, the response would have been quicker. People that say that, are the same people that say Bush did not respond correctly to New Orleans, because they were black. You can't say that Obama did not respond quickly enough because he is a bigot. I saw a thing the other day that VT chemical engineering students had tested the Flint water and found it unsafe despite the dismissals of Federal safety personnel. It is not a black and white issue. If New Orleans was hard to respond to, it was because the populace was looting and shooting at responders. I don't understand how people can just ignore this facet of the situation. And in terms of Flint, I heard the city was under a state issued manager. This would not have been required if the city management was competent on their own, and electing competent government is the responsibility of the population. If this population is majority black, then the responsibility for the governance of the town is rightly placed squarely on the shoulders of the population of the town. The businesses, the workers, the neighborhoods, the police, fire, health department, everything, belongs to and serves the people of the city. If the city is mostly poor blacks, then the city is mostly poor blacks. How is their being poor, my responsibility as in, the Federal government must now replace the plumbing in Flint? Regards, TAR Ten Oz, Where the money comes from, is the creation of value. Doing something, making an effort to create a good or service that someone else finds valuable. You may reject the theory of trickle down economics, where the theory is that you will create greater tax receipts if you lower taxes. This is arguable both ways. But you can not reject the idea of economics in the first place. Money is a store of value. Pure and simple. It is not a god given right. You have to earn it. An owner might own the means of production, or own the tree where the apple grows, or own the building where the workers sit, but the workers have to do something that creates value. If anybody can create value any time they want, then you have a capitalist system. You set it up, so that there are fair rules of business and trade. Basically barter, but through an agreed upon system. No employer prints money directly. They make something, and sell it, for a profit. They don't make it and give it away. The people that help in this endeavor are the partners or employees, or contractors. If you work for the government, you don't have to create value. You can just spend tax dollars. Here is where I object to Bernie, taxing the wealthy, like it belongs to the citizens of a rich nation. It does, in the sense that when the rich guy builds a port, we get the jobs to build and run the place and the benefits of being able to bring in raw materials for manufacture and such, and we therefore benefit. But it is of no benefit, for us to steal the rich guys funds, take over his factory and port, and stop the production of the wealth he was in the business of producing. Regards, TAR MigL, I think we listen to Canada, but we like to have the best. Years ago, I argued against socialized medicine with this analogy. It is crucial to a city, to have city water. Cheap and clean. However, I have a well. Providing the absolute best, to the people that can pay for it, is one thing. Providing the absolute best to everybody, is by definition, impossible. Regards,

Phi, States opting out included elections held to elect the governors that would want to opt out. Same kind of thing might happen with BernieU. He wants two year community colleges to be free. This is on the tab of the states and the counties. If they opt out, then the plan won't work. He could avoid the situation where the counties are going to opt out, and choose not to receive federal money when it would mean spending more local and state money, and having to follow all sorts of rules on curriculum and quotas and such. He can avoid this, by not suggesting the program. Perhaps lower federal taxes so people can pay taxes directly to their states. This would make financial sense, because the closer the power and decision making is, to the point of expenditure, the less likely the money will be lost in the sauce. States will educate their youth according to the wishes of the local government.

Phi, For the purposes of the thread title, perhaps you can enumeratYe the "people like me". Count them up. If they are a majority of the nation, then perhaps I am OK in siding with them as fellow citizens. And if its just the rich and powerful fooling everybody into compliance, then, not being rich and powerful, I don't have any choice in the matter. Anybody more intelligent than I am could fool me, pretty much all the time, if they wanted to. I choose to live as if they do not want to fool me. And I give them the benefit of the doubt. You are the one afraid of America. I am the one arguing that we are 90% good people. Interesting to me, in this argument, that Overtone is basing her hatred on decisions made during the Gulf war and the Iraq invasion or whatever in the past, and you are basing your hatred on our inability to enter the shiny new social democratic Utopia of Phi for All, yet it is me that ignores reality. Regards, TAR

iNow, We could have extended medicaid to people under 30,000 without any attempt at all, at universal healthcare. And why not 20,000 or 50,000? What about the guy making 29,500 that works overtime. Does he loose his healthcare benefits? th Laws need principles behind them. Sensible principles, where even if the letter of the law makes no sense, you can still follow it, because you know the principle behind it. Obamacare is what he proudly calls it himself, so let me use the word, without you incorrectly assuming I have some hatred for the man, based on the color of the skin of one of his parents. Obamacare has fines for not buying insurance. They go up every year you don't have insurance. This is so the base of premium payers is large enough to pay for everybody's claims. This is of course after paying a premium, paying a deductible and then a percentage of your health care costs, depending on whether you have paid for bronze or gold, up to a particular ceiling, after which you will not be bankrupted by long hospital stays or expensive drugs or procedures. Fines are up this year to maybe 2.5 percent of your salary. You might as well just pay for your doctors visits with this money, or buy your own insurance. The fine has one purpose. To make young people, that are not worried about being sick, pay, so the system has more money to cover the aged. We already have Medicaid, and medicare, so these concerns could be directly addressed in social programs already in place...if we can find the money and the will to pay for them. Making employers provide healthcare is just a shell game. Where are you going to get the money to buy insurance anyway? From your salary. Where does your salary come from? Your employer. They are already paying for your doctors visits, whether you pay the doctor out of pocket, or through the insurance company. Either you or your employer has to pay the premiums to the insurance companies. If I have any objections to the Affordable Care Act, it is because I have to figure out, who to pay what, and where to get my plan, and which doctors are in and out of network and such. It is a mess because it is a combination of "the government is going to pay" and "the insurance company is going to pay" and "you are going to pay (in taxes or premiums or out of pocket)" and the employer is going to pay (through increasing your salary, or minimum wage, or by being forced to cover you and pay premiums, or by increased taxes on corporations to pay the freight) My objections are purely sensible. What works, and what is fair. It has nothing to do with being a bigot. If you think voting against extending Medicaid to people under 30K means you are a bigot, then that likewise means that you think everybody under 30K is black. Regards, TAR Phi, Yes. I will hold on to my integrity. I have it. And I will keep it. You know yourself Obamacare is not working. Your answer is to go to a socialized medicine model. If that is going to work, then prove it to congress and we will vote it in. Regards, TAR

Overtone, So I concede the argument. You win. The republicans are problems to the people on this board. No argument. But I will retain the thought, my main point, that being problems to each other is the main problem in America today. I am not a problem to myself, or a problem with America, and in that sense, I won the thread argument, the moment you called me either an idiot or a dupe for voting republican. Regards, TAR

Overtone, Someone else played the race card, I reversed my earlier request to talk about West Virginia dependency so we could talk about dependency without being bigots, when I mentioned that black people vote democrat 80 percent of the time. There must be a reason for this. I suggested it natural and normal for people to vote for the programs that would leave the most money in their pockets, and I characterized the democrats as running on progressive platforms, that would tax the rich and give transfer payments to the disenfranchised. I am way outvoted, and everybody loved your proof that I am either a bigot or dupe. Except I am neither and still republican. If this thread was entitled, who is a bigger problem in America, then Republicans would think Democrats and Democrats would think Republicans. If you were to ask me, whose policies do I normally side with, I would say it was a mix, but I tend to be more management, than union in my thinking, and would side with the boss, before I would side with the striker. I tend to side more with the policeman who gets shot in his patrol car, than with the shooter. I once was eliminated during jury selection because I answered I would take the word of a police officer over the defendant. These things, might make me conservative, or even republican, but do not make be a bigot. If the thread question was who would you vote for in a Cruz, Sanders election, I would tell you Sanders, even though I don't think his plan workable, because I would rather a reasonable person that was a socialist, than a reasonable person who was a fascist. But I do not call all democrats communists and you call the republican party dangerous. Because there are bigots and nationists, and rich people in it. Looking up the civil rights movement on Wiki, they mention that one of the detractors was a strong segregationist from Virginia, a Democrat. Must you automatically assume a segregationist position, if you are to pull the Democrat lever? No, the thread question is not should you be a bigot, or should you be tolerant, the thread question is what is the biggest problem in America. If the answer is intolerance. Then I win the argument. Because it is your intolerance of me, that is your constant drone. If the answer is rich people, then I would argue that rich people are not a problem, they have been, are and will be the main strength of a prosperous nation. If the answer is white people, then I would argue that 70 percent of the nation, can not be the problem with the nation. If the answer is males, then I would argue that 50 percent of the nation, can not be the biggest problem with the nation. If the answer is religious people that are proven to be ignorant of facts, then I would argue that the most of us are religious, or humanist, or otherwise guided by spirituality or an image of an unseen other that we do not wish to disappoint, and that having a belief, can therefore not be the biggest problem with the nation . If the answer is Bush and Reagan, I would remind you that that is the past, and at the time, they were my commanders in chief and the leaders of my country. Whatever they did, they did in my name. Same for now. Whatever Obama does, he does in my name. He is a pragmatic leader, one I am most often proud of, and always respectful of. It does not mean I can not disagree with his politics. I can disagree with him now, on Obamacare, as you disagreed with Bush on Iraq, and neither one of us is automatically a traitor. I agreed with trickle down economics. That makes me a republican. Not a bigot. I don't expect to prove to you, that the conservative stance is correct and the progressive stance, incorrect. How could I? You are a progressive. All I can prove, is that I can have a stance, and do it on some other basis than being a problem to America. A problem to a progressive, if I am not one, sure. A problem to a socialist, if I am not one, sure. A greedy capitalist to a staving peasant, sure. But not a problem to America. The problem in America is party line voting, like somehow every complex issue, instead of requiring debate and consensus and careful judgement and brilliant thinking and point by point consideration, is already decided by the label on the package, and everybody smart should vote the party line. I am talking about being considerate of trucks on the highway, and giving them a lane to accelerate before the hill, and you are telling me that driving a car is killing the planet.t But any argument I would make against a policy either republican or democrat, would not be against America. It would be against the policy and for America. You can feel good, that you put a bigot in his place, and now you have won. But I would argue that my being a bigot, was never the argument. My argument is that we spend too much time trying to prove the other wrong, so that we can feel right, rather than looking for the ways in which we can both be right. Regards, TAR

CharonY, Understood. It is not a major factor. But it is a relevant factor. Worth thinking about. "Do young military personnel have higher risks and vulnerabilities which are further exacerbated by military service or is it specifically connected with the changing military situation? Is it due to the fact that in recent mission persons are faced with longer stays in the war zone, growing number of service tours (i.e., 6-month periods of war conditions), increasing stressful exposures in war zones? Are we facing growing feelings of guilt, existential crises or other complex problems of transition to civilian life due to changing socio-economic situation?" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3407917/ Regards, TAR we don't have to account for all suicides or all male suicides or all white male suicides. We just have to account for an increase in white male suicides over the last 15 years, and those "extra suicides are absolutely coincident to the actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the extra suicides that would satisfy the numbers are just 200 more extra suicides a year. and in regards, to the mortality numbers in general, even a death by DUI of the other driver, could be related to deployment of the vet driver on drugs or alcohol and thus related to PTSD and deployment in our last two conflicts The overall vet numbers have not changed, in terms of suicide. Just vets of Afghanistan and Iraq are showing higher rates. Even first Gulf war vets do not show the higher rates that Afghanistan and Iraq show.

Phi, I have been in many arguments on this thread where it has been proven how ignorant and wrong a creationist is. This has been used to show how wrong it is to throw gays off of buildings, because the Koran told you so, or how wrong sodemy laws are that let the government into the bedroom of two consenting adults, on the basis of a bible verse. Several years ago I was on a thread where I expressed my displeasure at the attitude of a famous atheist, now departed, that spoke disrespectfully to an audience, that included religious people, and that was talk that was obviously hurting an older woman in the audience. I could see in her face, the pity she was feeling for this guy. Made me embarrassed to be an atheist. Not important to be right, if being right, makes you wrong. If 80 percent of America is perfectly content with their faith, and if the laws and morals of the land are based on the bible, and the teachings of Buddah, and the Koran it is not right to figure yourself right and the 80 percent wrong. You might be right about evolution, and relativity and global warming, but you are wrong about figuring that every good person is like you. Regards, TAR iNow, Let me ask you this. Do I have a point? That is what would you say, I have been trying to say, and have I said it, or not? Regards, TAR and iNow, are you insisting that the republican party has destroyed America? Is that not proof that you have lost? according to Danth's law

If half of Americans are not like you, they are still, by definition Americans. You gain nothing, as an American in hating them, and the feeling they are taking America from you is as valid as the feeling they might erroneously have that you are taking America from them.

Overtone, You keep playing the race card, as if republicans that want to repeal Obamacare are doing it because they can't stand that Obama put a black hand on the bible. There are people like that, I have no doubt. I am not one of them. There are good ole boys driving pickups with confederate flags, sure. But they have an equal vote as you do. An equal vote. If they elect a representative that will respect the life of an unborn fetus, or honor the institution of marriage between a man and a woman, or that will work to keep drugs from coming into the county through our border with Mexico, or ask that we not both allow people to work in this country that have overstayed their visas, and allow them to take advantage of our social programs, they must have been helped in the voting, by people who wanted to see those policy objectives, that did NOT even have a pick-up, much less a confederate flag on it. It is not, absolutely not your right to tell the guy he can not fly the confederate flag. Nor are you anywhere near correct to assume that because he is a bigot, that I must be, because I voted for Bush, years before the last 7 years were even envisioned. I have voted for both republicans and democrats for president, and over the last 7 years I have voted for both republicans and democrats for local office, state legislator positions, and for members of the U.S. house and senate. You don't know which of those choices of mine put a bigot into office or kept one out. Certain democrats ALWAYS vote against the rich, against business, against the military, against big oil. The black vote goes almost always to the democrats. The democrats almost always go for policies that would increase government transfer payments to black people and single moms of any color, and the poor, and children and the elderly, provided one does not have the means to provide the good or service to their own family. The taxes that would pay for the programs are paid for by the people that are NOT getting the transfer payments. Someone that works and saves and pays taxes can live next to someone in West Virginia who has better medical coverage, more food on the table, college paid for and be in a better position financially than the gal that is working. Are black people all dependent wards of the state, that only could possibly vote for someone that will take care of them, with white people's money? Maybe. as Maybe as it is that I vote the way I vote, because I am a bigot or a dupe. If a businessman votes to lower his taxes, and a person receiving transfer payments (welfare, foodstamps, free healthcare, disability, medicade, medicare,) votes to increase their transfer payments, then two sides have been chosen. The givers and the takers. If you are suggesting that in order to be a giver, you have to be a rich white bigot, then you are likewise saying that in order to be a democrat you must be a taker. Regards, TAR Ten Oz, For the purposes of this thread, ISIS can not both be a problem for America, and not a problem for America. It matters not, what will work best to defeat them, or what will swell their ranks or lessen their ranks, or whether Bush or Clinton or Bush or Obama pissed off the republican guard, or the Iran guard the most. The real fact is that ISIS is a problem and we don't want them on the planet with us. Or that ISIS is not a problem and we should let them establish a caliphate. They cannot though be both a big problem and not a problem. Regards, TAR I personally choose to think of Obama as half white, and I feel toward him as I did toward a half white, half black female gay soldier I befriended in the Army. She was gay because she did not want to have a child that would have to go through what she is going through, getting the hate from the whites for being half black, and the hate from the blacks for being half white. that is exactly my point in this thread give the other person the benefit of the doubt, and love the half of them that is you and do not hate the half of them that is not every time I mention this understanding of reality and request tolerance and understanding, someone comes up with a reason to hate republicans Really? And I have not won this argument 100 times already?