tar

Strange, You are avoiding the meat of the question. You say I have a warped idea of how time works, yet I have merely stated two actual, accepted views, that of what we see, and that of what we imagine, and asked, under which view there are to be many more Earths. There is a time lag, between there being an Earth, somewhere else in the universe a billion lys from here, and us seeing that Earth, or having any knowledge of that Earthlike planet. In a sense, our seeing of that planet, or our progeny's seeing of that planet IS something that would happen in the future. So the question is, are we counting that Earthlike planet, which exists now a billion yrs from here, as currently existent or are we counting that as a future Earth? Regards, TAR Strange, So answer me this. If a star 5 lys from here, goes super nova today, and we see it go super nova in 2020. Is that something happening now, or something happening in our future, in your view of time? Regards, TAR

Strange, I don't think we differ in understanding the reality of the situation. I think I am trying to point out, that there are two vantage points from which one can conceive of the universe, model the universe, if you will. One is how it looks from here, with far away stuff, very young and local stuff about our age. The other is to model it as if everything is currently present. My point concerning the OP article is that it is difficult to discern which view one is to take, when reading an announcement that this is among the first of many many Earth. Regards, TAR And in either view, you suffer from a lack. In the case of studying the universe as it happens, one is confronted with the fact that the events being witnessed already ​ happened and there is physically no way to get to the event and be there or affect it in anyway. And in the case of considering the place currently happening, we suffer the opposite isolation. Its happening out there, and we will not see it for a year or a hundred...million...billion...trillion years. So if you go by the data its old news. And if you go by the interpolation, its speculative imagination. So under which view is the Earth among the first of many many Earths?

Sensei, I agree that the generations of stars, need to be the case for the heavier elements required for iron core planet building to be present. I was talking about looking at a galaxy 100 million lys away, that reflects what the universe was doing when it was 13.7 billion years old. I was not talking about what the universe was doing 13.7 billion years ago. Strange, "Why do you need to see them?" Well you don't, but the same thinking can be used for considering stuff outside the hubble sphere. Why does light from an event ever need to reach the Earth, in order for us to consider it existent? What I am suggesting here is that the timing is important and how long it takes light to get around is exactly the reality of the situation. If one is to conceive of the universe as happening now, all at the age of 13.8 billion years old, then the hubble sphere is not a limit of what we can consider within our universe. The term "observable" is not useful in my opinion, because, as you say "so what" if we can't see it. It is still there. Regards, TAR

Strange, I have nothing against the use of data. My main question has to do with challenging the data, as to what is actual data, and what is interpolated, and questioning whether the universe is being modeled as all being the same age, or whether it is being modeled as we see it, with far away stuff younger, the further out you go. When you make a calculation, based on the data, and you are interested in finding out how much energy there is or how much matter there is in a certain volume, its something you can do, when light and the energy its packing gets from one end of your volume to the other within a couple of seconds. You can take a measurement, write it down, take another measurement and see if its the same or has changed. The actual energy and matter you are measuring is within your view, and you can build an analog model of it in you brain, and in you formulae. However, when the area or volume is very huge, and you have no place to call a focal point, and relate everything to, but are conceiving of the place none the less, as happening all at the same time, it is not true. Your formula is not containing the whole operation properly, because the operation is connected to itself by the constraint speed of light, whereas you brain sees the whole thing at once. The energy calculations you would make, considering the whole thing at once, would not be actually true. The photon emitted at one corner has had no effect on the other corner yet, In terms of the idea of the Earth being among the first of many many Earths, lets say that there are currently 1000 Earthlike planets, at different stages of the evolution of life on them...but they are all a billion light years away. We can't see any of them. Not if we stared into the Hubble screen for a year, and sifted through the data. Regards, TAR

Strange, Well I don't see how the paper has told us anything we could not have already guessed at. And I don't see how it can nail down what the universe is going to do next. We don't have any examples for instance of what the next generation of stars is going to look like, what the iron hydrogen ratio is going to be, and what size planets, with what characteristics the next generation of stars is going to spawn. Plus we do not know what flavor soup the material currently in our solar system will turn into after self destruction of our sun. There might be some complex carbon chains that survive, that will influence the genesis of the next round of intelligent life. If the Earth in all its complexity and beauty formed in 5 or 10 billion years, there is nothing to suggest that the next generation of stars might not spawn something even more spectacular, and conscious to boot. So we could just as easily be among the last of Earth like planets as among the first. And there might be a different size planet with a different iron to hydrogen ratio that will provide the stage for future civilizations, that could very easily be completely unlike ours. So what does the study let us know that we did not already guess? And philosophically, what does it matter what is currently going on across the Milky Way? We can hardly consider it our business or our neighborhood. To make some grand prediction about the number of Earth like planets that exist within the hubble sphere is even further fetched. Regards, TAR For instance, as I have noted before there could be a life destroying cosmic burst headed toward the Earth, right now, but it hardly will effect us in the least, prior its arrival. And if there are growing black holes at the center of galaxies like ours, at some point the entire galaxy could be consumed by it, but the material and energy it contained would not be gone from the universe. There might be some ejection of the material that happens, and material and energy that have been in a black hole, and then have been ejected from a black hole might have some characteristics associated with it, that we do not know about. That might not have yet happened. We will have to wait and see what that might be like. The universe has not done that yet. It could easily provide material for star building and planet building of a "new" kind.

Strange, I am not confused by the rest of the universe being present well before we get the card. I am confused as to how people use the present tense. Like saying the universe is currently expanding at an accelerated pace. You said yourself that we go by what we see. This is not what the universe is currently doing. My question is, when a count is made, of existing planets, is that count made from a god's eye view, where every location in the universe is 13.8 billion years old? So when it is supposed that we are among the first of a total of 10 existing and it is supposed that we are 8th out of the 10, then the two suppositions do not jive. To suppose we are among the first to evolve to intelligence in a universe that is 13.8 billion years old, and is scheduled to go on for another 600 billion at least, is quite simple to do, without any calculations at all. Regards, TAR

Strange, Thank you for the link to the study. I still am reading it though as if the extrapolation is done as if the current universe, within the hubble volume is all 13.8 billion years old, currently. This because the considerations include a formula that is a function of mass and cosmic time. So if we are to be considered the first of 1 or 10 or 1000 intelligent civilizations, and at the same time to allow that 80 percent of the Earth like planets that are currently, in cosmic time, out there now formed prior the formation of the Earth, then any other planet within the 100% of Earthlike planets currently out there has an 8 out of 10 chance of being more advanced than us, in terms of the evolution of life, and possible intelligent life. Which does not jive with the claim that we are likely to be the first. Out of 10 we are likely to be the 8th. Out of 1000 we are likely to be the 800th. Regards, TAR But my main consideration is that the place is so big and long lived, that even if there was a place on the other side of the Milky Way that was evolving in very similar fashion to the Earth and some civilization over there sent us a shout out, we would not hear the shout for 100,000 years, at which point their civilization would be 100,000 years more advanced then the shout we received as a 100,000 years more advanced civilization here. So my problem is the use of the present tense, as if here is now and the rest of the universe is past, while at the same time sizing up the universe, as if the rest of the universe is currently present.

Strange, Well I suppose I took the 80 percent figure wrong. It would have been inconsistent with the title of the article to consider that 80 percent of Earth like planets had formed prior the Earth's formation. That would hardly make us the first Earth, more like the trillionth Earth or something. Besides the sentence with the 80 percent figure suggested that the new data contradicted the 80 percent idea. But my question comes from the unreachable nature of the data we are using to make our probability curves in the first place. Are we talking about extrapolating from what we see, or are we talking about extrapolating from what we imagine is out there? I am always somewhat taken aback by statements that make no logical sense, when they are stated as fact, as things "we know" to be true, when they are built on conjecture and guesswork and imagination, and completely unknown and unseen things. Like in the article where they state a number billions of trillions big, and follow it with the statement of fact that the universe is infinite. Like talking about how many angels can fit on the head of pin. Regards, TAR And why stop at 10 times the number of planet already created. If the last star will not burn out for another trillion years that allows for a good number of generations of stars to be yet to inhabit the place, and any number of things to happen with dust and meteors and suns and dark matter and dark energy. And why a trillion years? We only have 13.8 billion years of universe behavior to go on. If we are so early on in the process, it is very difficult to model the evolution of the place, which has not happened yet. And the most important thing is that whatever happens does not happen everywhere at once. If the galaxy collapsed into a black hole, for instance, it would never be announced to places which had expanded "outside" the range to where the light from an event would ever reach it. That sort of assures that there can not be a date set at which the last star will burn out, because the light from that star will still be on its way out, and the light from every other star an infinite distance away will still be on its way in.

Saw this article on the web today. http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/our-planet-is-among-the-first-of-many-many-earths/ar-BBmzHNh?ocid=spartandhp From what vantage point are statements like this made? ​ For instance, if the en​tire universe is currently 13.8 billion years old, then Earths that developed at the 13.8 billion year mark are already "present". Which would make another Earth like planet, that is sitting on the other side of the Milky Way hundreds of thousands of years older than it looks, and would make the status of halos of dark matter around a distant galaxy 100 million lys from here, rather old news. The "Earths" that are about to develop there and now as far as we can see, developed when the universe was 13.7 billion years old. Which would make that Earth first, not this o ne. So​ when ordering events in the universe, do we go by what we see, or by what we know has to be the case? From what vantage point are statements like "Our planet is among the first of many, many Earths​" made? Wh​at are we considering first and later, and who is going to be around to verify that the ordering was correctly characterized? TAR​ ​

iNow, I was not "smart enough" to be born in Allentown PA of my parents. But I was. It is not useful to consider that I could have been born a cripple in India, because I could not have been. I have my parent's genes. I have been gifted the things handed down to me from Western Civilization. And the place was built by my forefathers and mothers. I do not reject my past. I quite embrace it. And where I was in error, I try and rise above it, and where I was successful I wear with pride. I can not be someone other than me and you suggest there is an objective personhood toward which I should aspire, that Is not me. Working hand in hand with your neighbor is a two way street. On 9/11 for instance, I realized that there were people against me, and my way of life. I am who and what I am. I am not some unidentified soul that landed by accident in a womb in Allentown PA in 1953. I could not have been anybody else. On what principle do you pretend I won a lottery? Regards, TAR I did not exist prior my conception. for instance, if my father had not fought and been wounded in the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler may have won WWII, my mother and father might never have met and the particular combination of nature and nurture that created TAR would not have been if I associate with America it is because I a m a citizen, and seek to hold up my end of the sociial contract​ lets talk about the rural poor of West Virginia, that are of European descent from now on, when we talk about drug addiction, lack of education, and dependency on welfare Then we can talk cases where the parents and the behavior of people matters, as to ones accomplishments and status in life, without calling me a bigot.

MrP, If I had a factory, I might offer Alfonse a job, so that he could help his child through public school. Maybe give his kid a scholarship if he studied advanced manufacturing, was good at it and promised to come work in my factory, after graduation. I don't have a factory. If those that do, already give Alfonse a job, and already offer scholarships to his brilliant child, I am all for it. I don't call those factory owners elitists, or the 29% that are the nation's biggest problem. Regards, TAR

It is not Overtone's 29% that are the problem. DrP, The argument is basic, but there are a number of ways to look at it. There is the religious view that we are our brother's keepers. There is the pragmatic view that we should make the weakest of us strong, so that every link is strong and the chain will hold great weight. There is the authoritarian view that we should whip the weak into shape so that they can fight our wars and work in our factories and solve our technical problems and wipe our butts when we demand it. There is the tiger by the tail view, that we should placate the poor with drugs and keep them in ghetto prison on welfare and give them free stuff so that we don't have Helter Skelter, and a revolution that upsets the status quo. Then there is my view, that even the poorest among us is an American, and has an obligation to live up to the contract. To rise to the level of their own competence, to follow the laws, to believe in their own god, and to pursue happiness, with me as their neighbor. Ready to help, if they should need intervention. Regards, TAR And me, expecting help, should I stumble.

remember please when you call me elitist, that I do not have a job at the moment and am living off savings and my wife's salary my first debts to help pay off in regards, to college are the loans my daughters took to go They are both currently working and going to school. I am not an elitist. Just operating under the principle that a person's money is their money, and how they spend it, is their decision. You can sell your house and give all your money to charity and live a pure life in the street if you wish. However, you can not force me to do it. My money is not yours to spend. For the public good, sure. For public schools and roads and national defense and hospitals and assistance to colleges and research facilities, sure. But there is a point where Robin Hood is stealing from his own people. And there is a point where we just can not promise a chicken in every pot. Not if it means eating the breeding stock. Then there are no chickens tomorrow. Regards, TAR DrP, Lets say for instance I have a job making X and Joe has a job making X. I have decided to only have 2 kids, whereas Joe decides to have 5. I can afford to help my one daughter go to university and my other to vocational school, although they both have loans which I have cosigned. Joe cannot afford to send all his kids to University. Am I screwing over the poor, in an elitist fashion, or has Joe made a slightly irresponsible decision to have so many kids. You say perhaps the poor do not have a daddy, and therefore I should be that daddy. Fine, I do some of that, but I am not responsible for all of that, and you do not have any right what so ever, under any principle of law or religion or common sense to extract from me more than a tithe to help the poor. The poor are people too. They are not your wards. They are citizens, who should be doing their fair share to make the place work. Why I wonder, are the poor automatically democrats and the rich automatically republicans in your eyes. Why I wonder am I an elitist making the poor suffer in your eyes? What did I ever do or say, to bring you to that conclusion. Regards, TAR You guys are proving my point here, you do understand. The biggest problem in America is our partisan behavior. Our lack of recognition of the value inherent in the other person's humanness, judgement, responsibility and efforts.

two republicans and a democrat cheering on VT in the rain at Lane stadium, on the visitor side of the field, in amongst about a 60 40 split of VT and Pitt fans Please identify which of the crowd are the problems with America, according to the 29 percent Overtone rule. DrP, Screw the poor over? Elitist views? So what is this? The French Revolution in slow motion? Regards, TAR Are we picking sides? The rich against the poor? Black against White? Catholic against Protestant? Jew against KKK? What? What are you talking about? Are you arguing the rich are the problem with America??? Are the 29% that are "the problem" with America the same 29% upon whose backs we are going climb to solve our problems???? Who is talking foolishness around here?

DrP, On the other hand, how come I am helping pay off my daughter's college, AND am expected to pay more taxes so somebody else's daughter can go to the same school and compete with my daughter for a job? Merit is already considered, as many schools offer scholarships and fellowships. My daughter partook in a research fellowship last year. I took a course last year on an upSkill grant, offered by virtue of my service to the country and by the country's interest in giving the unemployed help in obtaining needed skills in the STEM field. We are already doing these things. Hilary is running on the principle that we should have free education on the backs of the wealthy. Its not the way the prospective leader of ALL the people, should be talking. Regards, TAR

Overtone, Did you watch Hilary talk about who her enemies were. The drug companies the insurance companies, the Iranians, the republicans. And then in the same speech talked about "making" the wealthy pay for college for everyone. That is "adult"? Get a life. Regards, TAR

Overtone, I have seen the bigotry expressed by some Obama haters and find it sickening. I have also seen Obama lead the country as if everybody that disagrees with his politics is a bigot. And feel he sometimes leads only half the country and degrades the other half. You also are guilty of this transferal of bigotry onto the Republican party. You see everything republican through that lens and if somebody voted for Bush he/she is automatically a bigot. Some people, including myself question unworkable programs and unfunded mandates because they are unworkable programs and unfunded mandates. For instance I heard some snips from the latest debate, and two of the democratic candidates were saying how they were listening to the American people, and what they wanted was loan free college? How do they figure colleges are going to run their campus and pay their professors and have fine equipment to work with, if nobody is paying tuition? How can we give such a thing as a college education away for free? We can not. Unless the quality of the education the student is getting is worth 0. So if a person thinks about the increase in taxes that would have to go along with such a promise, one might object to it, since it would also mean that all sorts of rules in terms of courses and professor's and so on would come into play, with the promise. Universities could not operate as they do now. The game would change. It would be objected to based on its unworkability and its lack of funding, yet if Republicans made the objection, you, Overtone would be sure its because they are bigots and want to keep black folk, uneducated, and in the ghetto. Or so I would guess, based on your general reluctance to consider Republican voters equal human beings with quality minds and good judgment and good hearts. Which is my point on this thread. Republicans are people too, and have reasons, to believe what they believe and be the way they are and support the candidates they support. Everybody does not think like me, everybody does not think like you. The less bigotry the better. The more we try and understand why the other feels the way they feel the better chance we have of attacking issues together, and the less chance there will be that the issue is the other person, or the other party, or the other race, or the other income level. You say the biggest problem is the republican party. I say the biggest problem is that you don't consider the republican party fellow Americans. Regards, TAR We had Pell grants, and many blacks got out of the ghetto because of it. But it did not end structural racism or poverty. And whatever program should not be structured to help the disadvantaged become advantaged if it takes the advantage away from people who have worked to gain it. I wondered again when listening to one of the candidates talk about increasing the percentage of income tax again on the wealthiest Americans. He said they are doing well, they can afford it. The rich guys money is not ours for the taking, any more than a poor guys money would be ours for the taking. Just for fun, I would wonder what percentage of the top 1 percent of income earners are republican. Just for fun I would wonder why those people would think they did not already pay more than their share of taxes and would vote for representatives who were for smaller, not larger government. Must be bigots, huh? Can't be incapable of earning big money, can't be stupid, can't be untrustworthy, must be heartless and cruel and bigots, otherwise there would be no poverty in this country, right? Was talking today about the caste system in India, where there is amazing poverty. I think we have managed to do a little better here in the states.

John, Well then lets talk Tory, or whatever the equivalent of the Republican Party is in England. I do not know if there is a equivalent to the Tea Party or the KKK in England, but if there is, I doubt that they would be associated with the entire Tory party for the last 40 years. For instance, if a group of people thought it was not a good idea to float 1000s of Syrian refugees into Manchester, it would not make everything the Tory party did for 40 years evil. I do not like much of what the tea party says and does, but I come to my judgments quite unimpressed by Fox news. My view of the Iraq war is not the same as Overtone's. I quite thought we were right to kick Sadam out of Kuwait and to push him back to Bagdad and remove him from power. He was not very nice to his southern Shite population, nor to his norther Kurdish population. We did not find weapons of mass destruction, but that does not mean he did not have them. We know he had them, because he used them. My own personal theory is that many were destroyed when he built the trench around Baghdad and filled it with oil and lit it on fire, "as a defense". I think he threw a few things he did not want the world to find in there as well. Also there is a chance that some large stocks of WMDs were buried in the sands of Syria, which is another theory of mine. Now possibly under the control of ISIL, if true. So I do not share Overtone's opinion, that Iraq was a silly mistake. So such can not be brought up to me as a problem with U.S. behavior in the last 40 years. I was all for it. I heard today that Hilary voted to go into Iraq, and I don't think she would be happy with Overtone's suggestion that she is part of the evil Republican conspiracy to destroy the country. When the towers came down, people all over the world, probably even John Cuthber, felt an evil was done to them. It was, after all the World Trade Center. You stood with us in Iraq and supported us in our fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Obama spoke often about our ally England and our shared values of human rights and rule of law. You cannot say that you had nothing to do with the coalition that defeated Saddam. Nor can you say that you had nothing to do with receiving cotton picked by slaves in Southern Plantations into your ports and textile industry in the distant past, nor reject your role as Imperialist Great Britain in slicing up the middle east into kingdoms. One of the things that I have realized about life, having been both young and democrat, and old and republican, is that we have many to thank for the position we are in. Technology and science and math and law and religion all are woven into the fabric of our existence and many that came before us laid the groundwork, built and maintained the institutions and the civilizations that make up our history and hence our present situation. None of it is "other" than us. We are responsible. For the good and the bad. We are offspring, as a country of Great Britain. We fought a war of independence. But the Tory never was purged from the system. We were still on the same side against Hitler and Saddam and likely will be on the same side against the Taliban and ISIL. House of Commons and House of Lords, both. Regards, TAR John Cuthber, That evil person that killed those 9 out in our NorthWest the other week, was a conservative republican. He also was impressed with the Nazi iron cross, and was enamored with the uniforms and weapons of the IRA. What was your personal role is creating the IRA? Do you support it, or are you a detractor? Do you take any personal responsibility for the role the IRA played in the mindset of the crazy white Nazi conservative republican that shot those students? I personally am not responsible for his actions nor his craziness. But it is my country and what goes on in it affects me dearly. I do not want such evil things occurring, but neither do I want the American population disarmed, nor the IRA disbanded nor the Republican Party painted as the devil. After 9/11 I read the Koran twice, once for the idea, and once for comprehension. I was looking for what in the book would make me the devil, and cause someone to fly airplanes full of people into beautiful buildings full of people. I found some questionable ideas. That the jews were in error because of their money lending, and the Christians were in error because they though Allah had associates (father son and holy ghost) and that the idol worshippers were in error, with their graven images. And that one should fight until all the world is for allah and believes in the prophet mohammed. I personally do not want to live under sharia law. I don't want my daughters subjected to it. I don't want to see great works of art and religious icons destroyed because of it. I think it is wrong to merge religion and the state and believe it to be very undemocratic, unsecular, ugly and unreasonable, and would not like my way of life, disturbed by such. It is against the values that I call my own, and against the values I was taught as a young child, and against the values and the judgment of a great majority of the U.S. population, and I would guess the great majority of your British population, being on the Christian side of the Crusades, might have similar feelings on the matter. If sharia law was enforced in American cities, I would find that a problem. I do not find it a problem for a Republican to say that sharia law and our constitution are incompatible. Regards, TAR

Overtone, I associate myself with Republicans. I associate myself with Democrats. I don't hate Republicans like you do. I don't think they are a problem like you do. You can't point to things that the republican party, or America or the democratic party, or the press or Hollywood or the media has done in the last forty years, and say that is the doing of the Republican Party. It simply is not true. We all did what the nation has done in the last 40 years. We are all responsible. For voting, or not voting, for voicing our opinions or not voicing them, for standing against evil or for letting it stand. Get off your high horse and take responsibility for being an American. I stand with you against evil. I am not evil. Regards, TAR Overtone, I was not an early white flighter. I hung in there until staying seemed stupid. It is amazing, the infrastructure, the buildings and factories, houses and apartment buildings, trains and roads and highways that were in Newark and East Orange in the middle of the 20th century. And it hurt me to see it fall into disrepair and neglect. I did not make it up. I did not burn half of Newark down during the 68 riots. I did miss a few days of 10th grade at Orange High because of the boycotts and walkouts, but I never had any problems or fights or anything with any black people. My best friend was a young black woman in my class, and the only time I remember getting near being in a fight was when I wore orange on St. Patrick's day, and that was with a white Irish guy. It is my opinion, that social services are a disservice to black people. Makes them dependent and subservient. A view no different than a black buddy of mine in the Army in Germany had. He did not call be bro but called me cuz. I am not so sure you have racism and "southern strategy" properly linked in your mind. In my experience, blacks in Virginia are "more equal" to whites than blacks in Newark are. Treated with more respect and give more respect. I believe life to be a two way street. As you mentioned about women having a "right" to their own life and the disposition of their sexual organs, so does a black person have a right to make their own life, the way they want it to be. There are blacks that call other blacks that have good grammar and speak well and do well at school and work, "uncle Toms". I would tend to call them good students and workers. I will repeat, that I do not judge a man or woman based on the color of their skin, I judge them based on the content of their character, and on their behavior, as I do Republicans, and Democrats, women and men, Christians and Muslims. 9/11, at Port Imperial, as I watched the plume of black smoke rise from the other side of the river, after both towers had fallen, I knew there was evil in the world. A world that was being brought together by the internet, people talking with people across borders, still had a great evil in it, that sought to tear it apart. I did not know that day who had brought the towers down, and the plane into the Pentagon, and who had hijacked flight 83, but I knew we had an enemy. I knew I had an enemy. That my way of life was being threatened. In the aftermath I had to be screened to enter buildings in NYC and wait in long lines at the security in airports. My way of life was changed. I had to start not trusting my fellow man, keeping my eyes out for someone that was going to hurt us. Put chemicals in our water (we live near the water supply of half the population of the state), derail our trains, blow up events. I reserve the right to be glad we got bin laden and to seek to cut the head off of any other similar snake that raises its ugly head. I do not apologize for being American, nor for being registered Republican, not for looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and removing Sadam from power, nor for protecting the rights of women to be schooled in Afghanistan. America did those things on my behalf. And at my bequest. Perhaps we would be doing Syria a favor by staying out of the mix. Perhaps if we were out of it Russia would take over, or Iran, or the Saudis, or Assad would regain control of the country he is president of. Maybe we should just let ISIL take over the middle East and North Africa and reestablish a Caliphate run by sharia law. That would sure help (sarcastic) your (with your permission, our) human rights and women's right agenda. You speak as if some media trickster has stirred up hatred and fear. You ignore the reality of the situation. These problems are real. Regards, TAR

Overtone, Well I am glad four times is enough. I certainly have listened to your delusions enough. Your take is not realistic. It does not allow for the wills and desires and judgment of the people I interact with every day. I have walked down the street, I have gone to college, I have gone to football games, I have served in the military, I have worked in corporate America for a Japanese firm. I have been to Japan, I have been to Germany, I have been to the Yucatan. I see wealth, I see poverty, I see things that work and things that do not. You seem to be operating from an objective viewpoint that does not take into consideration the humans that surround you, that live next door and down the street and in the next town and in the next state. The people that go to church and serve their communities, the business owners that keep their businesses alive and support many families with their efforts. I have repeatedly asked you who you are for, who you are with, who you support, who you align yourself with, and you answer by saying that Clinton is a Republican. Your "side" is non existent. There is nobody but you on it. So you are magnificently intelligent, and think you see the real truth behind everybody's thoughts and actions. Does not matter if you have nobody at your back. Does not matter if you do not have the voices and the votes and the money and the power to have things go your way. There are very good democrats and there are very good Republicans. I know this, because the place works, and I can walk outside and enjoy the place and people smile and nod at me. We are in this together. I am not against anybody but the criminals and the people of bad will. I certainly do no go by your divisions of good and evil. Your divisions put me on the bad side. And I am one of the good guys. Regards, TAR Thread, Take a complicated situation like Syria. We want the people to not live under the thumb of a dictator king. We want people to not live under the Russian empire. We want people to no not live under the thumb of the IS. We support certain rebel factions in Syria that then get attacked by ISIL and now bombed by Russia. Do we leave the people we supported hanging? It is not a democratic decision or a republican decision. It is an American decision. We want our president to do the right thing. Because he is our president, and the commander of our armed forces. What is America's will? What should we do? The president is not the leader of a portion of our country, he is the leader of all of it. What he does, is what we do. Regards, TAR

Overtone, There are however people like me, that were against the war in Viet Nam, against the military industrial complex, and for John Lennon's Imagine view of the world being better without borders and religion and any Nationalist feelings separating people from people. People like me, who were counter culture, but retained the Protestant work ethic, and the moral code to help ones neighbor, whatever their color and who realized as I grew up and was no longer 18 that other people are as good willed and possess as good judgment as I do, and are Americans or come to America to be free from oppression and to be safe and looked after by their neighbors. As I told you, I was democrat in Essex county when I lived there. My house was broken into twice. I lived next door to a black woman who locked her bedroom door to keep her children from stealing her drugs. My cousin had her pocketbook taken from her on a corner, around the block, on a busy intersection in front of the empty administration building of my college, which later went bankrupt because Connecticut white families would no longer send their daughters into an area were rape and crime were rising along with the increase of blacks in the area. As she yelled at the thief, running down a street with other pedestrians on it, a black man, who could have confronted the thief, instead raised his fist in the black power position and said "right on brother". My father moved out of the area, and later I moved out of the area, in a time period that had a phrase for the moving. "White flight." I was not racist, but I had a young daughter and a pregnant wife and the area was not safe for them, and the school systems were not strong, and had drugs and crime and teen pregnancies and such as a matter of course and I wanted a safer and less crowded and ugly place to raise them. When I moved out here to the Highlands, I have trees and woods, deer and bear and hornets to worry about, and our schools were not without drugs and teen pregnancies and the like, but very little rape and theft and no gun violence. The first election I looked at, I was registered independent and in the primaries you had to vote your party. The democratic slate had no contests, whereas the republican slate had contests. I registered Republican figuring I could partake in the primaries and still vote however I wanted in the elections. I was (earlier) in the Army in Germany during the Iranian crisis when Carter failed to get our people back and Reagan was elected. I remember the night he was elected and I had a panic attack in my sleeping bag when the zipper got stuck and I broke it open. Afraid, like you, of the authoritarian rule, the links to the military industrial complex, the "establishment" that tended to repress free ideas and other than mainstream behavior. But he had the hostages back in no time. Before he was even in office, as I remember, just the fact that Carter was no longer the one Iran would be dealing with, was enough to get them released. I took a train, by myself to Lanstuhl and greeted the hostages upon their return to "freedom". And Reagan helped bring down the Berlin wall. The last 40 years have seen changes that do not sit comfortably with everybody. Some of us, me included did not like to watch our military get reduced and bases closed, that reduced our ability to stand against actors we find are acting contrary to human rights, peace and rule of law. Its odd to me that a Democrat could lob cruise missiles into the Balkans for instance and not be linked to the military industrial complex that built the things. America does not operate from the left or from the right, we operate from the center. We keep each other honest. I can not throw the whole republican party under the bus, as the problem with America, when republicans stand for things I believe in and that I support wholeheartedly. I don't mean the KKK and wife beating, and killing children with Tomahawk missiles, by the way. Its all the good things, you might find on a farm in Virginia, or a house in the suburbs. A father and mother coming home, eating supper with the family and helping the kids with the homework type of scene. The American Dream type of scene that actually exists all over the country. If there are some people who feel that there are challenges to that dream, like drugs in the school, or illegal workers taking their jobs, or ISIL killing Christians on a beach in front of cameras, and they vote for someone who says they want to do something about those threats, it is real protection of our way of life that those people are after. You characterize the situation as the media causing fear and hatred. I for instance came upon some of those same desires without the media's help. My own judgment of how to protect my way of life brought me to hold the values and take the actions, and vote for the people that I do. And for you to say I have been going in the wrong direction for 40 years, because of being a Republican and living in the suburbs, is completely untrue. I wholeheartedly disagree with you. And I would like to know, if you are against the republicans and against the Clintons, and against me, whose side do you figure you are on? Which part of America do you figure supports your way of life? Regards, TAR Bill Angel, Yeah, but I don't want to be "done" yet. My grandfather worked into his late eighties and worked up until the week that he died. I still have something to contribute and I think for instance that my tendency to rely on human judgment over the decisions of the computerized "system", is a philosophy that should not yet be discarded. In the sixties we didn't trust anybody over 30. Now that I am way past 30 I like to tell the Mark Twain story, how when he was 18 he thought his father was the stupidest wrong minded person in the world, and when Mark Twain was 21 he could not believe how much his father had learned in 3 years. In terms of this thread, I think that men should listen to women and vice-a-versa, democrats to republicans, young to old, rich to poor and so on. The problem with America is not that the other is wrong minded. The problem is that you are wrong minded in the other's eye, and neither party is listening to, or caring about, or realizing how important the other's welfare and happiness is, to their own welfare and happiness. Regards, TAR Overtone, I was talking to a young man, in the rain, at a tailgate party before the VT vs Pitt game the other week. My daughter is at VT in her fourth of five years toward a PhD working with nano particles toward some advances in diagnostics and drug delivery. She is registered democrat. We had just watched the VT Regimental Band the Highty-Tighties http://www.band.vtcc.vt.edu/ marching in the rain and the ROTC cadets, march by. He, the young man, was Republican, but we agreed that we did not want to see either Trump or Hilary as president. The republican field is weak, but the democratic choice worse. The quote in the link has a president, reviewing the band, in 1902 saying "there goes the Nation's strength". Would you, seeing the band go by, figure now, that they were the Nation's biggest problem? Just wondering. Regards, TAR Overtone, I am interested, as a thought experiment, to imagine the people, the actual individuals that were marching by Teddy in 1902, and trace their lives imaginarily though. How they registered, how they voted, how they conducted their lives, the sacrifices they made, the things they built, the role they played in making America the place it is. This, to exchange their places with the current cadets marching by. I do not know how those young men and women are registered. I know they are black and white, male and female and care about protecting the American way of life however. And IF some are republicans, I do not consider them as a problem for the country because of their party affiliation. I would instead consider you as being short sighted if you railed against the same folk that are liable to be laying down their lives in the coming years in a foreign desert, to protect our way of life, and their family's way of life,here at home. The business owners and leaders of our future. Democrats of course are vital. My dad is one, my sister, my daughter, but vital too are the republicans. They have been maintaining the place as surely as they have been blocking "progress" in unworkable directions. Regards, TAR

I quit my job back in February, without a plan. I thought my intelligence and problem solving skill and my character and bearing that had served employers well since I was eighteen would continue to be evident. I did not consider that I was over 40 and not a prime hiring candidate because of it. I am still looking for a position, and being 61 does not make employers jump at me as a candidate. Perhaps I have lost a few steps, perhaps I am not up on the latest languages and programs, perhaps I am too close to retirement for people to invest in me. What ever, it does not matter that discrimination is illegal, if based on age, it matters that I am not a prime candidate and its up to me to remove the objections. To become a prime candidate. To have the skills and desire and commitment to fill a particular job, with enough confidence that the employer will know I can do the job, that I will be a pleasure to work with, and that I will be sticking around for a good amount of time. A young black man has a leg up on me, because they are young. If a young intelligent black man, who knows their stuff and is a reliable worker, comes out of college with skills and abilities equal to or greater than mine, and goes for the same job I am going for, his youth over my age, will win out. The whiteness of my skin and the blackness of his will not be a factor.

Overtone, Well that is a good nomination, but it is overdone in terms of who is at fault. You are blaming an elite for having ill will and a stupid populace for following them. While there are elements of truth to what you say, you do not give us all enough credit to judge the situation and make the right call, on our own, without your opinion thrown in. Structural racism is not created by any one group, it is created by everybody. The federal housing projects, designed to give uneducated, poor black folk a decent place to live, created at the same time pockets and camps and zip codes of blacks. Segregation. And the cycle of poverty continued because only the poor and uneducated lived in the projects. Crime and drugs and pregnancies prevailed. There are for instance more black abortions, because there are more black pregnancies. Schools in the area are mostly black, the students mostly hungry, without fathers at home, and without books on the family room shelf. The cycle continues. But more because of the dependency created by the project and the welfare than because white people are racist against black people. If the projects are bad, then the people who voted for the projects and welfare and the structural racism in the first place, are to blame for their creation. And the black families are people too. Voting citizens, with the freedom to go to school, educate themselves, walk into a library and get a library card, work and raise a family. I am sure that if structural racism was supported by only 29 percent of the population, we would not have it. White people need to trust and hire and work with black people. Black people need to trust and hire and work with white people. It is a two way street. When I was out of work a few years ago, looking at the job prospects, I realized that I could take the risk, make the investment and start a company on my own. I created a LLC so I can do business in NJ but I did not come up with a good offering. Something that would be desired or needed by someone, that they would pay me to provide for them. A good or service that they could rely on me to provide, better than the next guy. I finally got hired back into the company that let me go, in another department. They already had the offerings. If a young black man or woman would have the ideas and the drive to create an offering, they can promote it. Down in Newark as you can buy water from a guy in the intersection getting off the highway on a hot day. Someone needs to invest more in poor areas. Someone in poor areas needs to take the initiative to make the place and their neighbors better. It is not 29 percent of us, causing the problem. Regards, TAR

Overtone, Just lost a post. Anyway, what I was trying to respond to was several fold. One, in terms of this thread, the particular argument between you and me is that you think the leadership of the republican party is and has been the problem with the U.S. for the last 40 years, whereas I give the role that Republicans play in this society a more necessary and required position. . Granted there are many republicans that own businesses, but it is also true that many people, republican and democrat benefit from the existences of these businesses. They work in them, get paid by them, buy their food and clothing and transportation from them, rent space from them, and buy raw materials from them. "They" being the republicans, are not separate from the system, they are integral parts of the system. It is our system, not the republican system, not the democratic system, not the system of the Lourdes or the system of the peasants, not the system of intelligentsia or the system of the ignoramus. It is America, and we all have a hand in it. It is better to talk and concede and give each other the benefit of the doubt, than to split the place into we and they. Regards, TAR Overtone, My point about your "in our face" comment, was that the actions of an individual, that you might consider racist, I might not consider such. You have in the past on many occasions, considered things I say and do racist, where I do not consider myself racist. I for instance, can be conservative, without being a tea party member, and I can dislike the way a black man in Newark treats women and the lack of responsibility he shows and the burden he puts on me when he has children with three different women on welfare, without you having to worry that I am hanging blacks in the woods, with a torch in my hand and a sheet over my head. The guy I am talking about, and I were on excellent terms, and talked every day, shared personal details about our lives (obviously) and spent more time with each other per day than we probably spent with our girlfriends. I have friends and people I spend time with, for one reason of another that think differently than I do. People that do drugs, people that cheat, people that take advantage of others, people that break the rules on purpose, people that do stupid stuff with their money, and watch dumb reality tv shows and talk about things I don't care a lick about. People that have same sex partners, and people that go with people that have children and other baggage. Not many people ask my permission before they make life decisions. Not many people care what I think nor know what I think about life. I do however have a decent opinion of myself. I am halfway educated, follow the rules, and think about the effect of my actions on others, before I do the thing. I consider my behavior consistent with the rules my father and mother and church and school and tv and Hollywood and the press and the people I have met in my life and talked to on boards, like this have indicated to me, are the proper rules to follow. My post about the nanny state, in response to your "in the face" racism of the republican party, was an attempt to show that what you think is improper, in your face racism, might be thought of as a different thing, by the person saying the thing, or doing the thing, you are interpreting as racism. Like the waterfall rule saves broken heads, and simultaneously restricts the freedom and enjoyment of the individual. Regards, TAR Point being, that if I see citified drug dealers at a street fair in my town, and would rather they were not there, it is racist of me, because they were black. But it was the drugs and criminality I did not like. The color of their skin was not the thing that disgusted me, it was their behavior. Similarly we can both seek to stand between a black man and a mob with sheets over their heads, without having to check the registration of the participants in the event. If however the woman saying loudly "keep your crack and heroin away from my children" had come to blows with those citified two. I would have been on the side of the mother.

Overtone, When public policy is created, it is by definition in everybody's face. You have to live by the rules I impose, I have to live by the rules you impose. We have to live by the rules we impose on ourselves. So that we can live together. We don't burn witches any longer in the U.S. We made rules against it. When I was a child, it was the standard understanding that a father took care of the outside of the house and the mother took care of the inside, and together the family was protected and cared for. These roles are not as standard as they used to be, but the outside of the house and the inside of the house still need to be cared for and protected by someone. It is not the role of government, in my opinion, to be both the mother and the father, in terms of the old roles. We need to take care of each other, in the sense that we together provide the framework of laws under which we operate, but there is a reasonable limit of how far of a reach we have, into each other's lives. A balance between conflicting ideas of what is the proper way to proceed is what politics is about. For instance, I live in a nanny state, where as soon as somebody is hurt, doing something, the thing is outlawed. Like for instance, in NJ, it is illegal to jump off waterfalls. I don't want people crippled and killed, jumping into rocks in some drugged up, or alcohol induced, lack of judgment state, any more than the next guy, but taking the judgment out of people's hands, also takes the joy and excitement and pleasure of jumping into a deep pool of cool water, off a cliff, on a hot summer day. In the particular case of abortion, the state, we, have decided to have it legal to abort a fetus if the woman carrying it, does not want it. It is better to give a woman the choice to abort (a difficult judgment call) than to insist she carry the fetus to birth, regardless of the cost to her, her family and society. If she is not ready, emotionally, and financially, if she does not have a partner to help take care of the inside and outside of the home and raise and educated and take care of the child, then we give her the choice to abort. The right to lifer's act as advocates for the fetus, saying that they are alive, and soon to be persons, with beating hearts and developing brains, and feelings. Just asking that the fetus be thought of as more than a malignant growth in a woman's body, does not make me a bigot, or a religious fanatic, or an unreasonable Conservative Republican, fooled by the press into believing being a "problem" for the U.S. Regards, TAR