Phi for All

I'm also happy to report that my county voted for a property tax increase to help fund our schools. Tea Party detractors strongly objected to the tax hike that would invest in our children at a cost of $47 per year on a $300,000 home, but enough sane people prevailed and the measure passed. Go Colorado! Go Smart!

My objection to our response to voter fraud is more practical. Even if you assume our real numbers are a whole order of magnitude greater, the Republican measures in the states that adopted the voter ID laws were vastly out of proportion with a problem that happens .000003% percent of the time. That's usually my first clue that there's a realer reason for those actions.

This is part of the problem, imo, thinking that it's always good to be fiscally conservative, or always good to be socially liberal. We need a different paradigm to use in analyzing every issue and every legislative response to it. I recommend we adopt "smart". And hang the representatives who vote against smart just because it didn't come from their party. Nixon got the southern states to switch parties by appealing to their fears of the civil rights movement. Maybe it's time for the Republicans to cast back to the Eisenhower days and be more progressive than the Democrats, using "smart" as their gauge instead of conservative. They might even get my vote if they start embracing the 21st century and vow to help America reassert itself in an increasingly scientific-minded global community. Truly, what they should do is flip the bird to the religious extremists and start working to fund American education around the globe. Investments in a smarter workforce will outlast any gains made from the arbitrage of cheap labor which will eventually run out.

In Denver, one of our main water sources, the South Platte River, has naturally occurring fluoride. It usually falls right in line with accepted amounts, but we sometimes supplement with a little more, and sometimes have to remove a bit. This is NATURALLY OCCURRING, so I know you'll be pleased that nature agrees with the practice, at least near the Rockies. Dental health affects the rest of the body too. Preventing cavities at the cost of an average of $1 per person per year (for those of you who don't have rivers like the South Platte) is considered to be extremely helpful in keeping overall healthcare costs lower. This should be enough of an answer to your question. And just in case you're still unclear about dosage levels, the same solubility that allows fluoride to enter streams and water systems naturally also means it doesn't build up in your system. So just like many things that are basically poisons, like alcohol and the other substances mentioned earlier, low doses aren't going to affect you adversely in the long run, and in this case may make you healthier. What a bunch of crap. Show me some studies that show communities that don't fluoridate their water are less docile (more aggressive?) or have other personality disorders manifested by the community as a whole.

Ask yourself this, please. Why would anyone want to cause health problems on that kind of scale, in a manner that would seem to affect every living thing on the planet? I have to say, it's easy to think in terms of organic = natural, but the fact is that organic farming isn't as sustainable as you seem to think. There's no way we could feed everyone on the planet if all farming were done organically. And while some types of chemicals may be more harmful than others when used in modern agriculture, to say that all chemicals are unnatural is ludicrous. It's also ludicrous to assume that all organic methods are non-harmful. Rotenone, nicotine, pyrethrum and neem are all considered OK for organic gardening, and they're worse than most other pesticides modern farmers use (rotenone is six times more toxic than carbaryl, a synthetic product used for the same things). The fact that they break down quickly (always considered a plus by organic supporters) means they are more of a danger to life in the immediate vicinity when and where they're used. I've bought lots of organic food in my time, but the more I learn, the more I realize that the assumption that it's always better is not true. Because chemicals make up everything.

And now we see the true danger of confirmation bias and conspiracy theories. When the investigation has been completed, even to the satisfaction of the entire Congress and all legal agencies, if the POTUS isn't found culpable rigney will always assume it was covered up. I, for one, am totally disgusted that this obvious aggrandizement of the death of Chris Stevens was used by the Republicans as an election ploy against the president when it's so obviously a series of small mistakes that combined to allow a larger tragedy to happen. The mid-level decision not to increase security, the slow response of the secret CIA team charged with emergency security for the compound, the Pentagon's inadequately reconfigured quick-reaction force, Ambassador Stevens own decision to stay despite his misgivings, the failed February 17 brigade response, the Libyan government's basic security failures, all these things taken together opened the doors for this attack to happen. But seeing as how embassy security is hardly a cabinet-level decision, I have to conclude that the Republican fingers pointing at the POTUS were doing so not only to diminish him in the eyes of the voters, but also to cover up their own culpability for budget cuts enacted by the Republican-led House that made beefing up security at the Benghazi Embassy impossible. Shifting blame away from themselves, historically, is a favored ploy of these dishonest, deceitful, untrustworthy and corrupt extremist conservative representatives of half the United States of America. I shudder to think how close we came to giving them more power yesterday.

But there are far more things in the past that were thought to be true that have turned out to be false. There is no evidence to support a gap in our spatial comprehension where activity takes place that create meaningful phenomena. Everything some people attribute to the supernatural can be explained in real world, natural terms. Possibility doesn't trump probability, and most probably there are no ghosts, spirits, demons, angels or gods hiding from our observation in a similarly hidden and conveniently inaccessible space.

Congratulations, Mr President. Sorry we couldn't give you the House. I sincerely hope you can get more cooperation from Congress so we can progress. And please, don't send any Feds to Colorado for a while. Just give us time to work this out and show the rest of the country that schedules should change.

Since there is no evidence at all for paranormal activity that stands up to minimum standards for rigorous scientific scrutiny, it's much more likely that the supernatural things many people wish to believe in reside only in their minds. Plenty of ants, plenty of fish, but most likely no demons, ghosts or angels. Aliens are a different matter, but again the lack of evidence to support present and current involvement with them suggests we haven't actually encountered any. Yet.

Oh, I'm certainly not discounting what you say. It IS a huge error, so huge it does make it seem like it was intentional. It's certainly not the kind of thing that just suddenly goes wrong after being OK. That machine obviously passed inspection by someone.

Are you talking about the chemtrail conspiracy theory?

Machine glitches are one thing, I guess, but what's really telling to me is the reaction of the volunteer. "It's nothing to worry about, everything will be OK." She saw that it was a major flaw, that there was a major objection, and blew it off. You've GOT to be kidding me.

A lot of those people listed are producers of some sort, which are usually the people who pony up the dough for production costs. Why would they be willing to pay for fake names? Producers are notorious penny-pinchers. Didn't you notice the production accountant title? That person is there to make sure all the receipts total for the producers. People like the operators, editors, mixers are paid union scale wages, typically by the week. Your main series editors, if they're MPEG members, would make $2,899.17 per week on an independent shoot. And these days EVERYONE gets a credit (not necessarily on IMDB, but on the rolling credits at the end) as part of their compensation package (really helps verify the resume, and even caterers get a listing). Typically, a television show is produced and then sold to a network. The network only buys if they have advertisers or subscribers willing to buy slots on the show. These folks don't really care how much it costs to produce, they only care how much they'll have to pay and how much they can get paid. What you're suggesting would only work if you had a producer who didn't care about making money, which would definitely get you a ROFLMAO if you mentioned it at any industry party.

The approach you're implying would be seen as an act of war against a member of the United Nations and the Commonwealth of Nations. This is so insane that we should assume you don't really want to discuss this at all, that you've been misunderstood, especially since we have rules against discussing illegal activities on SFN. I think tons of great ideas on how to turn their economy around and make it a nice country again would be powerfully persuasive. Do you have any kind of business plan to approach them with? Have you crunched numbers on what it takes to bring materiel over from New Guinea or Australia?

Seriously, I know you channel aliens and all, but really try to think about this. The main argument for a cover up about the existence of extraterrestrials is because the public might panic. Wouldn't it have been MUCH better, easier and cheaper to let the story out and use the knowledge to justify pretty much whatever the military-industrial complex wants? Wouldn't people have allowed their governments to do whatever was necessary to protect us from alien invasion? Why go to the monumental expense and difficulty of maintaining a cover up when the truth would have been easier and more profitable in money and power? In the US, we've allowed our government to trample all over our constitutional rights just to protect us from a few thousand terrorist bombers. Can you imagine what we would have let them do to stop the alien horde? For a conspiracy minded guy, you are not looking at the big picture very well.

I have to say this is the first time I've seen someone who thought the first landing was faked but the next one four months later was real. This makes it so much easier to debunk, so props for that.

There are sites encouraging people to use their phone to record anything they think is fraudulent and upload it for posterity.

Holy crap. That's Pennsylvania, right? ^^^

Dye the whole pair of pants. Are they brown, tan, khaki or another variation? You should be able to use a fabric dye to color the pants any way you want. You can use a whole package of tan RIT dye with 2 teaspoons (10 ml) of pearl gray RIT to get a standard khaki color. You can try other formulas if this isn't quite right.

The point is, the word loses most of its meaning if you apply it the way you are. How we define things should be as specific as possible. Broadening the word "religion" to encompass everything you're very interested in not only robs meaning from religion, it robs meaning from words like passion, skill and pasttime.

Sorry to harp on this bit, but iNow is supported by an unlikely, though intellectually honest, source: http://www.politico....I3Y-pWo.twitter

I think the overall outlook for the global economy is looking pretty good, despite some bad spots that need special care. The EU is a good idea and I think that will be proven if they can weather the present crisis intact.

It should be mandatory that if a news outlet puts out a wild story about anything, they should give an equal placement when the story is debunked. Unfortunately, that's why most of the voter fraud claims go unchallenged. Most get debunked as garbage but the retraction is never prominent enough to undo the damage done (the Missouri SecState once said 79 voters were registered at the address of a vacant lot, which later proved to be a complete lie but the meme still exists).

If the Russians "were on the verge of being able to land on the moon", why have they still not done so? They're still planning to go, but not until at least 2030. And are you truly trying to sell the idea that Apollo 11 was faked, but Apollo 12 four months later was real? The Soviets had a catastrophic failure of their N1 rocket just two weeks before Apollo 11 landed, an explosion that took out their whole launch complex. Why on earth would we risk faking Apollo 11 when there was no longer any competition from the Soviets, especially since you concede that Apollo 12 four months later was real? Oh. < cricket, cricket > So, he went back to July 20, 1969 and saw bupkis?

Can I ask you what party affiliation you registered with? It shouldn't matter, but in every case I've heard so far where the local election commission has decided to jump with both feet on the slightest anomaly the voter has been registered Democrat. And Georgia is a pretty firm red state.