john5746

My main concern is does this stall invention? My understanding of universal-anything is that everyone gets a stone wheel, instead of the wealthy getting a radial-tire and the poor getting nothing. But, no one ever gets a radial, just keep living with stone wheels. I wonder if this is true. Does the US make the bulk of advancements in medicine or not? Also, much of the US health problems are the people themselves(myself included) We eat fast food, drive everywhere, watch TV for exercise and work all the time. Factor in the cost of living etc and we should have to spend much more to live like that. Also, wages in medicine are not getting pressured by outsourcing like everything else. No wal-mart hospitals around.

Yeah, I don't think you are being taken seriously. Unfortunately, there are a great many people who have the same level of critical thinking skills as you. Some may even be in positions of authority. A country with enough firepower to destroy humanity, filled with people with irrational beliefs. Very scarry!

You want other countries on our behind?

Seems like it would be much easier to beam someone from point A to point B instead of trying to keep them intact during the "beaming" process.

You could replace this with interracial couples and would have the same conclusion. I agree that exposure of sex to a young child in this manner might be a problem, but that holds true for all sex, not just homosexual sex. So, the question is: if it becomes acceptable, like being left-handed, would it bother you if your child becomes left-handed? Or if he tries to be left-handed for awhile and figures out that he is right-handed? Would there be any perceived "damage" if society is tolerant?

Yes, I agree. But when we were supporting dictators everywhere to fight communism, we wouldn't have listened to anyone else. We also didn't want to wait on the Iraq invasion because of France or Germany. Why should we expect China to listen to us? They all want you to think that.

Speaking from experience, many do not realize how easy it is to hit the legal limit. I think the problem is much, much larger than we realize. Driving is a privaledge that should be revoked as soon as you drink alcohol. The bar should take your keys and return them only if you pass a breathalizer or you have a designated driver. As far as education, etc, well we see how abstinence education worked. There will still be drunk driving if we do the above, but at least it is a serious attempt at the problem.

They are just protecting their interests, we have done the same in the past.

Since it is politically motivated from the religious right, it will ebb and flow with their political fortunes. If the science education level of the public improves then it may influence the religious beliefs and stop the nonsense.

Sorry I missed you, wanted to respond to your response earlier... I think all people need to look internally when something angers them to really find out why they feel that way. The anger felt from a racial slur is not instinctive, but learned. Once we understand that our feelings are generated internally, not externally, we can better control them. Does this mean we do not get upset? No. Does this mean we don't resort to violence or feel pain for a weeks? Yes. I can dismiss the poorly educated of any race to a degree, but I cannot understand why a successful person would allow even the lowest person of another group to personally hurt them with words. Of course you get upset that such low-life exists, but personal hurt? They haven't changed you or either race by saying it, just lowered themselves. I realize this all is easier said then done and I still let people get the best of my emotions, but I work at it.

ELVIS LIVES!

http://www.amren.com/color.pdf From this report: Major Findings l There is more black-on-white than black-on-black violent crime. l Of the approximately 1,700,000 interracial crimes of violence involving blacks and whites, 90 percent are committed by blacks against whites. Blacks are therefore up to 250 times more likely to do criminal violence to whites than the reverse. l Blacks commit violent crimes at four to eight times the white rate. Hispanics commit violent crimes at approximately three times the white rate, and Asians at one half to three quarters the white rate. l Blacks are twice as likely as whites to commit hate crimes. l Hispanics are a hate crime victim category but not a perpetrator category. Hispanic offenders are classified as whites, which inflates the white offense rate and gives the impression that Hispanics commit no hate crimes. l Blacks are as much more dangerous than whites as men are more dangerous than women. I didn't know it was that bad.

1) Surrounding countries get involved and the whole middle east goes up in flames. OR 2) After the infidels leave, Al-Queda "follows them home" and the sunnis and shia throw a party, blaming all their problems on the Americans. We assume to know what is going to happen, but I think we have less of an idea than we did about WMD. We gave them freedom and made sure they didn't have WMD's. We got them on the way to an elected government and trained some military, police, etc. I don't think we have a moral imperitive to make sure Iraq is a great country. It is in our interests that they become a stable country and hopefully a friend. They must resolve their problems as a country. We can stay on the borders and keep them secure from invasion, but we cannot resolve their family feud. Could it be that our staying there is making the unacceptance of the government? Is that possible? You see how Americans are pissed about illegal mexicans coming into the US and some of them commiting crimes. Could you imagine if their military were here, helping our government? Would we accept them or pull out our guns?

Well, truth is there is a double standard. Many blacks have an inferiority complex. If a black guy called a white team "redneck trash", I doubt he would lose his job or be called racist. To me, "redneck" is equivalent to "nappy". But there are no words that are off limits to blacks. There are no words they can utter that will reduce a white person to nothing. Why is that? Because we will not allow it to happen. To me, Imus was just calling them low class. He was comparing two primarily black teams. One looked attractive, the other trashy, in his opinion. So, there is a double standard, but that isn't the only one. All people have to deal with double standards and we are pretty well aware of this one. But it really hurts blacks more than anyone else and people like Sharpton keep this inferiority complex going. I really think someone like MLK would try to rise above stuff like this and tell people not to empower such people. So you can cry about the media, etc. But the truth is that whites, orientals, mormons, etc just aren't phased as much by certain words. Probably because they don't feel as oppressed as a group.

The problem is that it isn't just insurgents or terrorists. It is a civil war. We are trying to contain the violence, by keeping both the shia and the sunnis from killing each other. We want the shia to be strong, but not do a sherman on the sunni or the kurds. It is also easy to see how having the infidels helping the shia majority government would flame the fires for the sunnis. In my opinion, they should try and pullout of Baghdad and move towards the borders. Let the trained troops handle the capital on their own for awhile and see how it goes.

That would be nice. Then people wouldn't think they were so cool to put them in songs and games.

I would love to see Sharpton fried, but I have to admit there is more gray area here than with Imus. I take the "really" to be against Romney as well, but I could see Sharpton saying that about Bush. It might have been more political than religious, ie the religious right will smack him down. He should still apologize, since that is what everyone seems to do, but maybe no rehab required? Could you imagine Romney saying, you know those voters in South Carolina, they are authentic blacks. They will get rid of Obama in short order.

Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney all have said that the IRAQUIS will have to win the war. The military can build things, kill people and train soldiers, but they cannot make a country. You cannot say we will only leave when the job is done, if success is not in our control. To me, dissent of intentions is worse than dissent of actions. For example, I think the invasion of Iraq was rushed and possibly unnecessary. I think Katrina was a screwup by all levels of government. But, I don't assume the intent was malicious in any way. Sure, we are interested in the Middle East because of oil, but we didn't invade to get their oil. We didn't allow New Orleans to flood to kill black people, etc. I think it unpatriotic to assume or believe stuff like this with little or no evidence. I think that our government usually has good intentions, but can be incompetent at times. Of course, it may have bad intentions at times, but as a rule, we should give them the benefit of the doubt.

1) We have too many addicts, so we make concessions to allow people to destroy themselves. Trying to make it illegal would not get enough support and just drive it underground. Similar to alcohol. 2) Yes, making it legal doesn't make it desirable. Smoking costs money in healthcare, lost time working, environment, etc. Extra taxes should be levied to offset the costs(even though they are not used that way). Higher costs also keep some younger people from getting hooked in the first place. 3) That is a good point, but if you have signs everywhere warning people, they do not have to enter. To me the main argument is the employees. Maybe you have to pay 100% of the employee healthcare costs related to smoking damage? That in itself will probably get rid of smoking.

LOL! Have a Ronald McDonald with his hands out, saying "If you are wider than this, eat a salad"

It would be nice if people would consider it just good manners to not smoke while eating. There are no laws against farting in restaurants and I guess you have the right to walk near someone and fart over their plate, but that would be very rude. As far as the short term exposure, well that sounds ridiculous to me. I know some people with asthma, it bothers them quite a bit, but they don't die.

In this case, the candidates that raised their hands also were the most stringent pro-lifers, against stem cell research, supporting Schiavo ordeal, etc. I agree. A democrat who indicated he did not believe in evolution or global warming would be laughed out of the race. Given that even a minority in the Republican side said they did not believe, it is safe to assume the most candidates believe in evolution. I think Dawkins said in regards to atheism that many intelligent, educated people were atheist, yet you can find none in politics. This means finding an honest, intelligent politician is almost nil.

Sorry, I edited the OP to reflect that McCain answer that he believes in evolution. Sen. Sam Brownback, Gov. Mike Huckabee, and Rep. Tom Tancredo These guys raised their hand indicating they did not believe in evolution.

Three of the 10 Republican candidates raised their hand to show they did not believe in evolution. They apparently did not feel the need to expand on their answer, although it was a Yes/No request, everyone expanded on requests like that before. McCain, who said "yes" that he does believe in evolution, felt the need to expand his answer, by saying the Hand of God is present in a sunset. Assuming they are not just pandering to a group, does it matter if a President has so little grasp on science? Edited: clarify McCain's answer

Clinton vs Giuliani would be fun to watch, but I hope we see Obama vs McCain. These two are my favs, although with Obama it is a case of not knowing much.