Pangloss

This is a non-starter. Without government you can't even have commerce. Even Ayn Rand believed in the enforcement of legal contracts entered into willingly by both parties. I'm not interested in being on top because I'm ahead of the pack if it means living in a cave.

Which is stupid, but no worse than other talking heads "arguing" that an unusually warm summer, or a spate of brush fires, etc, are caused by global warming.

I would think that the damage would be from the lying itself, not from the result of the policy. You don't lie about immigration in a democracy. That's a whole order of political magnitude beyond a "third rail", at least on the domestic scale. (International politics are a whole other level, of course, with such classic hits as Never Chain Berlin, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, and of course the all-time classic, Iraqi WMDs.)

Okay, then it's a valid point, I agree.

Just to be clear, I'm 100% in accord with the president about supporting private space ventures. I just think the flight of SpaceShipOne has given people an unfortunate misconception about how long it's going to be before SpaceShipTwelve flies past the dead ISS on its way to the The Great People's Orbital Free Trade Zone.

Well IMO the goal was to promote green industry in the United States. But I can't fault you for being skeptical about the motives of Chuck "I Killed Indymac" Schumer.

The first link shows the US 33rd out of 195 on infant mortality. This does not support the statement "the worst health care". The second link shows the US 18th out of 135 on maternal mortality. This does not support the statement "the worst health care". The third link shows the US 38th out of 135 on life expectancy. This does not support the statement "the worst health care". The fifth link shows the US at 24th out of 191. This does not support the statement "the worst health care". The sixth link was a PDF that my computer seemed to have trouble with. Perhaps someone can fill me in. I don't know what it is that the fourth or seventh links are supposed to show. They aren't data, they're articles that were not quoted by the poster. If I have to link my factual statements, so do you. Being politically correct or stating a popular opinion does not excuse you from this responsibility. Make the extra effort, or state it as an opinion. Thanks.

So build it up. If we accept the premise that the point of this spending was to create jobs in the US and stimulate green companies in the US, what difference does it make how many windmills actually appear on the landscape? If at the end of the day you're 50% closer to being able to build windmills, and you've employed 50 people in the process, then you've accomplished the goal of the project. The fact that you can't do the pretty windmill photo op is irrelevant.

I mentioned an example of that earlier, but it was just a committee to study the deficit problem. I'm not familiar with any major piece of legislation, existing in the exact same detail as when Republicans were in power, that Republicans "did, in fact, change their opinion on" after Democrats came to power. Can you cite any examples? You haven't won over moderate Democrats, so why do you think it logical to believe that you can find 5-10 Republicans who will be "easier"? How does that follow? You can't just pick a number and say "that's what we need, so that's what they should give us". You guys talk about vote numbers as if they're some sort of commodity with no meaning behind them. Those votes represent the preferences of real people. If you want them to vote on an issue you have to provide them with a reason to do so. You can do that with moderate Democrats who ask for a SMALL number of things you won't like, or you can do that with Republicans who will ask for a LARGE number of things you won't like. Pick your poison. Again, if you want me to agree you'll have to provide examples. It doesn't seem to me that that has been the case, but if you have evidence then you could well win me over. (shrug)

You didn't mention these new qualifications of "the industrialized world" or any specific diseases in your statement before, so that's a different statement now. With that amendment, can you provide a link showing the US to be "at or near the bottom of the industrialized world in the following; infant mortality, childhood mortality, maternal mortality, longevity, healthy life expectancy, mortality from preventable diseases"? If I have to link my factual statements, so do you. Make the extra effort, or state it as an opinion. Thanks.

The administration is coming under fire from fellow Democrats over this one, not just Republicans, but Congress may be as much to blame as the administration. Apparently nobody thought to put in language that ensures that the stimulus money that was slated for "green jobs" be spent on American workers (which was, of course, the whole point). Here are some articles on this: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/wind-power-equal-job-power/story?id=9759949 http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/feb/09/foreign-energy-firms-getting-windfall-of-us/ It's not just a matter of big projects needing parts that are only made overseas -- I think people could understand that you might need a few laptops to get a job done, but that's not what's at issue here. The West Texas project mentioned in both articles will employ 300 Texans for construction of wind turbines, sure, but it's going to employ 2000 Chinese to actually build the turbines. American companies make wind turbines too, but apparently those turbines are more expensive. But is that actually relevant here? Isn't the point of the bill to stimulate jobs and American green companies? An administration official acknowledged the criticism today but rejected making changes to the legislation, apparently because it will cause too much of a delay. But in the case of wind energy one analyst says that 80% of the stimulus money spent on wind energy is going overseas! What do you all think?

Your opinion is certainly acceptable; factual statements have to be supported. I'm taking this as an acknowledgement that your statement that "Palin is absolutely corrupt" was an opinion. Thanks for clarifying this.

I agree. I've never quite understood why politicians never quite seem to grasp the fact that people remember the things that they say.

You're right, it has been a while since we talked about the death penalty. Thanks for the thread. I don't know that I have much to add here, but just to be supportive I'll say that I'm opposed to the death penalty. Mainly this is because I have an almost physical opposition to two-wrongs reasoning, and because I don't believe that it reduces crime. I have little interest in moral reasoning, and find most of it to be hypocritical, particularly amongst special interest groups (e.g. saying that abortion is okay but the death penalty is wrong, when in fact both are moral compromises).

Well sure, that's the great thing about living in a democracy -- you can call your spending preferences "moral" and declare your opponents' spending preferences "immoral". And any politician in our purple-state country who find it desirable to be re-elected will, to some degree, have to agree with both sides, and so it's off to the races year after year with no end in sight. Absolutely, and when you become a super-majority by appealing to moderates, you can hardly act all surprised when those moderates calmly inform you that the ideological mandate that you greedily proclaimed the day after election day does not, in fact, exist. So now we have to give them a 70 vote majority? Oy vey! But hey, okay, I tell you what, you get 70 senators from the Democratic party elected in this country and sure, you bet, you can go right ahead and move the country as far to the left as you can, because that will be on the electorate who failed to balance the government. I'd support that government 100%, because that's life in a democracy. That's how it's supposed to be. But don't complain (I don't mean you personally) that the reason they couldn't get anything done is because some senators wouldn't cooperate. If the people in those states didn't like what those Senators believed then the people in those states would not have elected them. So they're not being uncooperative, they're doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. (Just to be clear, I'm talking about the moderate Democrats who were reluctant to come on board with some bills over certain, specific concerns, not the unilateral, ideological opposition of the GOP over the last year -- I think some of those GOP senators have failed to accurately represent their constituencies. But that's another discussion.) If you want cooperation, you have to respect the concerns of the constituents of the elected representative. If you want something passed that those constituents are generally opposed to, you have to offer them something that will win them over. That's how democracy works. Pelosi and Reid were unwilling to do that, and Obama was unwilling to push them into more compromising positions, and that's why they got so little done. Not because they lacked "ten votes of breathing room". If you really think that's a good idea, I would just remind you that, in politics, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If you like the idea of 70 progressives in the Senate, consider for a moment what 70 religious fundamentalists would be like. (Here's a towel for the milk that just came out of your nose.)

Absolutely? That means definitive proof that cannot be refuted or explained away. Please provide this proof. This kind of appeal to ridicule is not an acceptable argument here at SFN. It's not your place to read between the lines of someone's post and then ridicule them for it. I'm asking you to desist from such comments in the future. Thanks.

I agree with that, as a general statement. But I'm still curious if you can authenticate the bold section of this statement:

I agree with the comparison. But the value of this point appears to have been discarded to make a partisan attack. IMO it's not "loss of revenue" that causes deficits to skyrocket, it's profligate spending unbalanced by appropriate income. That includes tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts. This country is really good at reacting by throwing money at stuff. But carefully weighing benefits and making sure there's enough money to cover the expense? Not so much. Of course, since Republicans are so wasteful, we can surely just fix this problem by giving Democrats a super-majority. Oh wait, we already tried that. Never mind. It's interesting how the left agree about cutting spending when it comes to defense, but conveniently forget its virtues when it comes to welfare. Why was it they don't like to be called "socialists", again? I forget.

I would give some credence to that, jackson, if I thought she had an iota of political or policy savvy in her repertoire. I just don't see it. She's a figurehead at best, and rabble-rouser at worst.

And events proved me wrong about Franken, at least on the surface; he's turned out to be at least making the effort of listening to conservatives and their concerns and being respectful about it. Palin on the other hand, not so much.

Some of the worst care?

Are you saying that your present Masters program is in biology? That's interesting, I didn't know that there were post-graduate programs on bioinformatics that were not part of IT/CS programs. Makes sense, though -- what do us computer nerds know about saliva, other than the fact that it comes out of our mouths when we stare a pictures of Jessica Alba? (grin) In answer to your question, Computer Science would be the most rigorous choice and if you can handle the math and you have some experience with programming then I think most people would call that your best option. Information Technology is considered less demanding, but is certainly an important field and becoming more so each year. As computer technology has matured, CS seems to be becoming more of a research and theory degree with IT (and related degree programs) taking up the engineering side of things. But I think it's still generally the case that the CS degree-holders have the widest career path, and typically take up the most challenging programming tasks. Put another way, at a lower level, IT degree holders are managers, consultants, server admins, and "routine" programmers writing client-server systems using well-understood methods. CS degree holders write the big games and software titles, writing code that tests new ideas and theories, and they still have the option of management, consulting, etc. It's a bit of a pyramid with the CS folks on top. In terms of schools I've no idea where you live so I wouldn't even begin to know what to suggest. We have folks in this forum from all over the world.

"Own up?" You're asking me to join you in an extreme interpretation of what I said? Yeah, that's gonna happen. (rofl) Sorry bud, I'm not fighting your battles for you. But hey, thanks for graphically demonstrating my point. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedHere's a great quote from John McCain that I think illustrates the long-term benefit of Clinton's policy very well: http://www.voanews.com/specialenglish/2010-02-05-voa1.cfm According to that article an estimated 13,500 men and women have been dismissed from the services due to violating the policy. That's unfortunate, but how many would have been unable to serve had Clinton not come up with that compromise in 1993? Had that middle ground not been found, the alternative was complete rejection. But now the political firmament has changed. According to the article above, 58% of those evil gay-hating conservatives actually favor letting them serve: I'm not saying the middle ground or compromise are always ideal. But it seems to have worked out well here. You want people to change? Give them a chance to.

No, why don't you tell me, Mokele.