Phi for All

My pomegranates are partially poisoned with permanganate. Perchance a preponderance, or perhaps a plethora of pleasantly perfumed persimmons would politely pacify your provincially pagan principles?

This didn't sound like you were a HE. Maybe you're the one trying to cause confusion.

When replying to individual sentences separately from the same poster, I like to highlight the sentence and use the Insert Quotation button up on the Post Toolbar (third button from the right). That automatically puts the quote tags around what you've highlighted. Her ideas are being attacked. Big difference. Not to single you out, Trip, but I'm starting to believe we're really harming ourselves with the whole liberal/conservative tag when we apply it to ourselves like a blanket. I'm really liberal about drug laws (even though ibuprofen is the only drug I use), but I'm pretty conservative when it comes to the clothes we let our kids wear. I'm liberal about education but I'm conservative about free markets (really conservative; I think we shouldn't be subsidizing oil, sugar and coal). I hate the fact that US prisons house 1 out of 4 prisoners on the planet (are we really that awful?), but I do want to take violent criminals off the street, yet I still think rehabilitation should be the goal. I think most people are a blend of stances, many overlapping on common ground, and the stereotypical labels just make the ground hard to see. Well, you think she's a he, and she thinks you're a mod. How confused are you now?

No, the confusing pact is between the Republicans.

Probably, though perhaps not proportionately promulgated.

I think there's a lot of frustration coming from the left (or what we call the left here in the US, which is more centrist/right of center from the rest of the world's perspective). For my part, it's very difficult to think that half the country identifies with the party that's talking about women closing their fallopian tubes to prevent rape pregnancies, or that planes should have windows that open, or that gay people are denying the civil rights of the religious, or that opening public lands to logging and mining is good conservation, or that there are secret race-based governments being formed in the US, or that contraception is evil, or that wanting every child to be able to go to college is snobbery, or that the internet must remain free from censorship unless they don't like what's being said, or that any scientific endeavors be approved by councils where religious leaders hold sway, or that abstinence education is effective despite not a single piece of evidence that supports it. I can easily see why objections to those who feel represented by such a stance may seem like "hate". Sorry to spew. I know, and we keep asking you why you think it won't work and you can't say specifically. I'm going through this with my daughter right now. Now that she wants to wear nicer clothes, we want to start putting them on hangers in her closet instead of folding them in drawers. It would save time for everyone (we share laundry duties in my house), be easier to see what's there, and keep her clothes from wrinkling. But she says she prefers them folded, but has no reason other than that, and it frustrates me. She can't tell me why she prefers her clothes folded, it's just her preference, no matter how illogical it is. OK, I'll bite. Are you saying we're too far down the road to the dark side, or what? What approach are you talking about, exactly? What is it specifically that would've worked 200 years ago but won't now? I don't get your point. Are you saying that the times we had a Democrat-controlled Congress were bad times, and when it was Republican-controlled things were great? How does this shed light on your belief in democracy? Personally, I think it's horrible that a nation of this size only has two representative parties that matter.

! Moderator Note Please note that criticizing someone's idea is not a personal attack.

! Moderator Note To clarify, if you're talking about your propensity to bring Nazi Germany, Greek enlightenment and historical education standards into every discussion, this does violate our rule against thread hijacking. It's been pointed out to us that since these are not generally accepted mainstream concepts that have a great deal of support, they amount to your pet theories that end up derailing many discussions that aren't about them. That's why you've been asked to stop making everything about the Nazis, the Greeks and education. It's not taboo, it's just generally not on-topic. No offense intended, please.

@chilled_flourine You've gone back to embedding your red replies in the quotes of others after you seemed to have figured out the proper tagging sequence. Do you realize that when we hit the Reply button on posts like that, NOTHING shows up? You're causing a lot of extra work for anyone who wants to reply methodically to the points you're making. Regarding underpaid Chinese, I think you'll find they're paid just fine within the context of their own cost of living. They have a middle class that's as big as the entire US population. With regard to regulations, you're simultaneously arguing for relaxed regulation, smart regulation, and regulations that would allow for open-capable windows aboard commercial airliners. For a small government Republican, that's an awful lot of new laws you're going to have to pass and enforce on an already shaky industry just to keep Mitt from looking like he makes uninformed, emotion-based executive decisions. This is already a sore point with non-Republicans, this conflict of interest with a platform that wants small government, constitutional integrity and protection of personal rights, but also wants abortion denial, legislating morality through a combination of church and state, controlling women and increased federal spending for mega-corporate special interests. Exactly. I'm pretty sure the airline industry has run some tests and conducted a few studies into the optimum systems, and don't really need any armchair politicians second-guessing their capabilities. I have to admit that one of my biggest criticisms of Obama has been his insistence on appealing to all sides in his decisions, even when it became obvious that the Republicans simply wanted to stonewall anything that came from his desk, but I do see now that he was thinking more globally than I was. I really wanted him to focus on OUR problems, while the rest of the world was also feeling the repercussions of the tragedy that was Bush. I still feel that a stronger US would be more able to help the rest of the world get back on its feet, and I also feel that Romney will be just more Bush, focused on strengthening the already strong top while the middle and bottom fall apart underneath. I keep picturing the classic movie denouement where the villains have pushed the self-destruct button, and as the former fortress shakes itself apart, the bad guys take off from the roof in their luxury helicopter with their hoarded wealth aboard and head off to their private island for some R&R. I do hope you can realize the cyclical nature of things like bankruptcy, rigney. It takes a while for things to fall apart on a national scale the same as on a personal scale. People rarely lose their jobs and file immediately for bankruptcy. What were seeing here is the result of the Bush years (even though you may not want to hear it). Things ARE picking up now, what Obama has been able to do HAS been effective. Even with so much of Congress blocking his way just to make him look bad. The graphs are heading upwards, now is not the time to switch tactics by opening windows on the plane. Edit to add: It's easy to see why the Republicans so desperately want to oust Obama. Eight years of Bush ended in disaster, and if eight years of a Democrat ends in a prosperous comeback (even if it is partly due to cyclical trends), I think the ultra-conservative trend in the Republican party (or possibly the party as a whole) is in real danger of being labeled toxic to worldwide prosperity.

We already know many people have faith. We asked for scientifically valid supportive evidence for the existence of any god. This sounds like some sort of psychological phenomenon that may affect physiology in some and could just as easily be assigned to faith in any belief system.

Um, you were arguing that American workers expect to be paid much more than the man in hong kong. Don't you think this has a lot to do with the differences between our costs of living? How would our businesses survive selling products at US prices if our people make Chinese wages? You're pulling from only one side of the equation and then claiming we're overpaid. I'm guessing these are Chinese people who've moved to the US, correct? People who are earning US wages, have the wherewithal to move halfway around the world and start a new life here? Perhaps you should meet people who actually live in China before you make such comparisons. We relaxed banking regulations and look what happened. Regulation isn't always a bad thing. Business complains because that's what the model calls for, and they can make even more money for shareholders if they get to cut corners with our health and safety, especially when it's made legal through deregulation. This isn't as cut and dried as most Republicans think. It can be extremely dangerous in the long term to relax good regulations. This is why I'm proud to pay taxes that help Americans better themselves, rather than helping already successful businesses pay their executives and stockholders more. Free market capitalism already gets to use my roads, schools, airports, libraries and other public projects, plus I support them with my consumerism. If they can't succeed with that much, they don't deserve to succeed.

Now there's a great place for a window. I don't know why they don't do that. It's a real problem. So it's very dangerous. Can you give us a bit more from an above average EU citizen on why Romney makes you nervous?

Oh, THAT'S how it should be understood! How obvious! I'm so glad SOMEONE knows the real Truth! I've been told on different occasions that pleroma was heaven, that it was everything in the universe, that it was just everything spiritual, that it was an actual living expression of God, an entity that housed other entities like Archons, and that it was the vessel of holiness whose equilibrium I had upset with my sinful, horrible human sin of sinning. It's definition shifted like the eyes of the clergymen who were talking to me. Oh, um, but if pleroma is NOT the body of Christ made of human flesh, then why is the church the pleroma of God? Are you saying the church isn't human, or are you saying the church has divine powers? Can I see them?

I thought about them, but I would think they either wouldn't fly at all if the reasonably large space aboard an airplane bothered them, or they wouldn't really be that assured by looking out at all that space they can't flee to.

Littering. Spitting. Making it easier for a cohort on the ground crew to toss you up a gun once you're aboard. Just stuff.

As I said before, a vague and deceptive term that can be used to mean whatever the church needs it to mean. A simple, beautiful, understandable word like "fullness" masked in the Greek to make it the plaything of the clergy. Unquantifiable power that can be adapted to any situation, mystical omnipotence that can warp even the reality it supposedly creates, and an unequivocal statement that the church is in charge of this in this existence. Manipulative, deceitful and abusive. Pleroma, bleh.

I've always wondered why they put windows on planes. Kids are the only ones I see that are fascinated for more than a few minutes, and I would think there'd be more concerns about freaking out the acrophobes and the panic flyers. I'm sure they've done studies but I wonder if it isn't just an antique holdover from the early days of commercial flight. I want to fly on AirRigney. Perhaps you could arrange for several different views besides the outside cameras. Driving Route 66 in a convertible, sailboating off the coast of Maui, riverboat down the Mississippi....

I will flat out guarantee it's the same way in China. As I mentioned before, the Chinese cost of living is much less, so they need less money to live. Consumer prices in the US are over 42% higher than in China. Rent for comparable housing is over 52% higher in the US. Restaurant prices are over 85% higher in the US. Source: http://www.numbeo.co...2=United+States And it's a fairy tale that Chinese people all work hard. Lazy is a human trait, and you'll find it all over the world. Romney wants to give corporations even bigger tax breaks. And they're already sitting on record amounts of cash, and have the highest paid C-level executives of all time. Aren't they doing well enough that maybe they can pay the same rates they were back when the US was super prosperous? Businesses need consumers to be able to afford their products, after all. They already have a bunch of doors that will do that, and would be more efficient at ventilation, and provide better security than so many windows being openable. I was shooting for ironic. CaptainPanic is from Niederlande. It WAS meaningful to me. That IS the real problem, we aren't doing enough to learn where we're wrong, where we're being inefficient, where we could do better. And I like that you can recognize when public funds should go to the public welfare. I was born an Eisenhower Republican and I hate how the party has let itself be so degraded by extremist conservatives.

http://www.politico.com/multimedia/video/2012/09/romney-airplane-windows-not-opening-a-real-problem.html Well, if you'd respond to my points, that would be the beginning of the discussion you've been missing. Yeah, CaptainPanic, why can't we just drop the whole political discussion thing, pretend it makes no difference and respect each other as Americans? Why? Why?!

I know there's an awful lot of people out there quoting Mitt and cutting off the remark after "So it's very dangerous..." and adding the ellipses to imply he might be joking. Here's the full quote: It's very doubtful anyone would make a joke, and then go right into the bit about your wife choking and the pilot having enough oxygen to safely land the plane. But don't believe me, watch the actual video of him saying this. HE'S NOT JOKING. I think it's more evidence that Mitt can't really relate to the majority of the people he wants to represent and lead. Anyone who's flown commercially has listened to the cabin pressurization/oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling speech multiple times. If he doesn't realize how much more dangerous it would be to have opening windows on an aircraft, can I trust him to realize how devastating his tax plan will be for the country, or how tipping the scales even more in the favor of businesses that are already sitting on record amounts of cash will harm public confidence and fuel more unemployment?

The sad(der) part is, in order to mittigate the damage done to Romney's campaign, some Republican congressperson will probably tack a rider on a bill to call for a feasibility study on sliding windows aboard aircraft and screen doors on submarines.

And make sure it's a utility patent, not a design patent. Patent attorney's make a ton of money off design patents, which can then be used as an insanely expensive toilet paper substitute.

It's especially important to have a progressive tax rate in light of the corporate personhood movement. Corporations are extremely necessary as an instrument for building commerce, but we can't allow them to enjoy the benefits of the general citizenry while simultaneously having the privilege to do business as an artificial entity and the freedom from general partnership liability. We all have to take the good with the bad, but this current crop of Republicans wants just the good, and they don't care who they take the extra good from or who gets all their bad. This is simply a matter of businesspeople stacking the deck in their favor simply because they have the money to influence the way the laws get written. To say someone deserves to screw other people because they're wealthy is ludicrous. And to even think they got where they are without anyone's help is irresponsible and ungrateful in the extreme. To quote chilled_flourine, "This is a huge problem, admittedly, but we aren't doing anything to resolve it."

As long as more prisons are privatized, and the private prisons are allowed to give the prisoners subsidized drugs to keep them docile, and the US citizens pay per head for prisoners to be kept in these facilities, I think Mitt would approve.

Since you refuse to use the quote system correctly, this is the only part of your post I can respond to properly. I do want to say though that progressive taxation makes sure that those who profit most from our infrastructure pay the most for it. How many of the 47% do you think use airports? Does the guy who works three jobs to keep his family fed plan a lot of road trips, considering he gets around on the bus? American workers don't work hard? Wow, that's a fairly elitist, heavily biased and incredibly naive statement. We have an extremely robust cost of living, it costs us a lot to buy products here, as opposed to what they pay for the basics in Hong Kong. I understand the benefits of arbitrage when applied to labor costs, but I'm talking about demanding US tax breaks so corporations can create US jobs to help the US economy and then using that revenue held back from public funds to create foreign jobs. Do you thinks that's good business for the US? Do you see why our economy is in trouble due to this withholding tax revenue and profoundly unhelpful efforts to help themselves instead of the American workers that helped them build those businesses? Wow, that sounds just like it came from someone's dad. Have you been in the workforce long? I'm glad you said almost. I have no problem with employing foreign workers. Again, that's not what this is about. I'm talking about tax revenue that was supposed to go towards helping US employment that went overseas instead, to help US corporations make more than half their profits overseas while enjoying tax breaks and charter exemptions they could only get from the US government, which is paid for in the majority, last time I checked, by US citizens, all of them.