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forget the fact that the democrats have 40 job creation bills [majorityleader.gov]they haven't acted on.

Check out some of these "Job Creation Bills"

H.J. Resolution 37, where, "“Congress disapproves the rule submitted by the Federal Communications Commission relating to the matter of preserving the open Internet and broadband industry practices" Yup, real job builder there.

House Resolution 2018, which seeks "to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to preserve the authority of each State to make determinations relating to the State's water quality standards, and for other purposes." Wow, that'll create a bunch of jobs right there!

Here is a quote from the GOP itself, rather than a Daily Kos Obamista screed:

It is clear America needs a comprehensive national energy plan, not a debilitating energy tax under the guise of ‘cap-and-trade.’ An ‘all-of-the-above’ approach to our energy policy – one which includes offshore oil and gas production as well as the advancement of technologies to develop alternative sources of energy such as biofuels – needs to be on the table.

(Quote from Rep. Adrian Smith downloaded 8-Apr-11 from http://www.gop.gov/blog/09/07/07/rep-adrian-smith-the)

Yes, let's talk about politicizing science:

Supporting your views I found:

http://rightwingnuthouse.com/archives/2007/03/21/politicizing-science/

Indeed, your entire argument appears to presented there.

The left does it even more egregiously:

http://blog.heritage.org/2011/03/08/is-there-no-limit-to-obama-epas-politicization-of-science/

My definition of tangible science is this: Testing a hypothesis using valid methodologies, under stated assumptions, to draw valid conclusions about the world we live in. The testing should be repeatable, the experiment design should minimize confounding variable, and cause/effect correlation should be determinate. Further, the assumption made in the experiment design should be stated and defensible, and the conclusions reached should be supported by the data.

An example of this would be an aluminum fatigue study designed to figure out why an airplane fuselage cracked in flight. Another example would be a study to determine the DNA 'address' related to a particular protein production, or the exact folding sequence involved in a protein production.

One of the things I have noticed is that in order to get published in Scientific American an author has to place an homage to evolution into the piece, regardless of the topic. Once you get past that, you can get to the actual science.

"Since we can't explain every last detail of evolution, it must be false and all the scientific disciplines that support it, including anthropology, paleontology, genetics, geology, chemistry and physics, are wrong too." Please refer to my statement about improving science literacy and critical thinking skills.

That is not what I said, or even implied. Anthropology, paleontology, genetics, geology, chemistry and physics all have plenty of research that has nothing to do with evolution, and which meets every criteria of scientific thinking. Where your reasoning falls down is when you conclude that evolution is the only explanation for what is observed. That is a leap that I will not make with you. The Genesis record also may explains what is observed. The original article points out that folks accept science on the same basis that they accept religious tenants, because someone told them.

This has some very practical results: In Genesis we are shown a creation that is 'Good'(Gen 1:4) or 'Very Good' (Gen 1:20) If we see things that are not good, such as disease, we might interpret that as a descent from a previous better state, and look for the means to restore that better state.

Evolution ultimately stultifies investigation, because the core assumption is random process, so the researcher is also ultimately random as well.

Evolution also encourages a destructive world view as well, since survival of the fittest is the ultimate virtue in evolution, it encourages thinking like Hitler's to destroy the 'lesser races' to make room for the 'master race'

Contrast that with Genesis, where man is declared at creation to be 'very good', and where God makes a way for every person to approach him by God's own means.

I see no way we benefit in the short term from supporting Libya.

Me either. Why are we there, then?!

The long term benefit being that they become a democratic country.

You're joking, right? We've seen how well that's worked in the past. You're a liberal, right? Well, Iraq and Afghanistan. Democracy hasn't exactly helped. (Keeping in mind that we didn't invade either nation to "spread democracy" - we did it because they were (or at least appeared to be) a clear and present threat. In hindsight, there may have been issues with the intelligence on Iraq, but at the time, it appeared to be a simple case of protecting America from foreign attackers.)

The healthcare bill is terrible.

So you support repealing it, then? Because the Republicans are your only hope on that front. The Democrats have completely ignored the clear will of the people when it comes to the healthcare bill.

I supported it because it is better than what we had

Uh... no, it isn't. It's far worse than what we had. In fact, repealing it will greatly improve the situation.

Look at Massachusetts. They passed a similar bill, and guess what happened? Costs skyrocketed, and the number of people able to see their doctors plummeted. Emergency room visits have skyrocketed, though. It's been a complete disaster.

Unless you want that to spread throughout the US, you have one choice: repeal the healthcare bill IMMEDIATELY.

Republicans had all whole year of dragging out the healthcare bill debate to figure out what they wanted to do. So, where are their ideas.

Really?

Wow, that was hard.

The President only signed the bill. It was Congress that passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

You make it sound like Congress spontaneously came up the idea instead of Obama fighting tooth and nail to get it passed before the November elections.

It's the same kind of healthcare reform the Republicans have been proposing for years

I knew it, it's those damn Republicans again.

Seriously, it's nothing like the healthcare reforms the Republicans were proposing.

Reagan ran up enormous deficits during his two terms in the Oval Office,

It's funny, you say Congress was responsible for passing national health care (Obama only signed it), but Reagan was responsible for the budget (I presume the Congress wasn't responsible because they only passed it).

Ditto Bush and his kid.

Okay, I'll give you that one. Nevertheless, Obama makes Bush Sr. and Jr. look like skinflints.

Uh, what higher taxes? Obama has signed into law the largest annual tax cuts in history, $282 billion over two years.

You mean Obama extended the Bush tax cuts, under protest. I'm not surprised he takes credit for them though.

GOP: 210/67 (y/n) -> 75.812% yes DEM: 26/122 (y/n) -> 17.568% yes

http://www.gop.gov/votes/112/1/26

I'm pretty sure you're getting your rows and columns confused in reading that chart.

GOP: 210/67 (y/n) -> 75.812% yes
DEM: 26/122 (y/n) -> 17.568% yes

http://www.gop.gov/votes/112/1/26

As many problems as Republicans have had also being addicted to spending, they had an alternative health care plan (read the house summary PDF) that actually tried to address costs within the system instead of forcing you to buy into a broken system. Just the ability to buy insurance across state lines alone would improve things.

So the best case scenario is the bill gets repealed and in three years or so we get a bill written that actually lowers costs across the system.

are very rarely, if any, removed once implemented.

That brings up one of the few things I liked in the Republicans' Pledge to America. It included this: "We will adhere to the Constitution and require every bill to cite its specific Constitutional Authority". I thought it also included a sunset clause for new laws, new laws would only be for a certain amount of tyme before they expired or were approved again, but I didn't find it this tyme.

Falcon

Since you've proven [...] that you never read the alternative bills [...] The Democrats' bill was

Which one? Oh right, you didn't bother to read them.

Most of the republican initiatives were never made public, but they've summarized what they did at:

http://www.gop.gov/solutions/healthcare

And what I said holds true with respect to what they've made public.

Your ball, sir.

Not at all. Consumers can allocate their dollars in many different ways, and "passing through to the consumer" means that the energy sector is going to be demanding a greater chunk of the consumer's income stream. Thus, any consumer that can reduce usage will actually be saving money. Similarly, any corporation that can reduce their costs (e.g., by improving efficiency, say) will be more competitive than their less efficient competitors. And away we go.

So the only thing different then what is already true without the cap and trade is that consumers will be pinched by energy prices and someone hopes that causes them to do less. Sounds like a solid plan to me, making things unfordable is a good way to keep usage of materials down. However, I think it is completely wrong.

Anyway, I linked to the CBO report. To make a long story short, costs will go up, but they will go up slightly less for the poorer members of society than for the extremely wealthy. In some cases the costs will remain neutral.

The CBO report sugar coats it as well as ignores certain factors that we are talking about like the costs of non-energy items being raised because of the cost of energy going up. There are several other reports, one by the heritage foundation, that examine that in more detail but still don't address it to my satisfaction.

I apologize. I've read quite a bit about the subject it and haven't seen any Republican-offered proposal that's likely to be effective and likely to draw real support from the Republicans in Congress. But I'm willing to be educated if you really think I've missed something.

You mean you haven't heard of the Michael Jackson' Cap & Trade Alternative?

That Michael Jackson' Cap & Trade Alternative was a joke but seriously, here is a summery of the republican alternatives. You can find out more about the specifics Here and here.

One of the reasons you haven't seen a republican response is because the democrats are largely skipping them in this process and forcing votes on bills without enough time to even read them. They know that under a close examination, their cap and trade bill just doesn't make sense. Now, the Republican alternative isn't bullet proof either, but there is an alternative on the table along with others like mandates uses of technology for future power needs. The problem is that no one is willing to take the best of either world and make something that works without screwing everyone over.

Not at all. Consumers can allocate their dollars in many different ways, and "passing through to the consumer" means that the energy sector is going to be demanding a greater chunk of the consumer's income stream. Thus, any consumer that can reduce usage will actually be saving money. Similarly, any corporation that can reduce their costs (e.g., by improving efficiency, say) will be more competitive than their less efficient competitors. And away we go.

So the only thing different then what is already true without the cap and trade is that consumers will be pinched by energy prices and someone hopes that causes them to do less. Sounds like a solid plan to me, making things unfordable is a good way to keep usage of materials down. However, I think it is completely wrong.

Anyway, I linked to the CBO report. To make a long story short, costs will go up, but they will go up slightly less for the poorer members of society than for the extremely wealthy. In some cases the costs will remain neutral.

The CBO report sugar coats it as well as ignores certain factors that we are talking about like the costs of non-energy items being raised because of the cost of energy going up. There are several other reports, one by the heritage foundation, that examine that in more detail but still don't address it to my satisfaction.

I apologize. I've read quite a bit about the subject it and haven't seen any Republican-offered proposal that's likely to be effective and likely to draw real support from the Republicans in Congress. But I'm willing to be educated if you really think I've missed something.

You mean you haven't heard of the Michael Jackson' Cap & Trade Alternative?

That Michael Jackson' Cap & Trade Alternative was a joke but seriously, here is a summery of the republican alternatives. You can find out more about the specifics Here and here.

One of the reasons you haven't seen a republican response is because the democrats are largely skipping them in this process and forcing votes on bills without enough time to even read them. They know that under a close examination, their cap and trade bill just doesn't make sense. Now, the Republican alternative isn't bullet proof either, but there is an alternative on the table along with others like mandates uses of technology for future power needs. The problem is that no one is willing to take the best of either world and make something that works without screwing everyone over.

Both the Senate and House Democratic and Republican caucuses have .gov domains, and they are frankly partisan. There's nothing strange about it in the general case.

This is not an uncommon use of a .gov domain. Just look at the Dem and GOP House Caucus sites. The GOP caucus has a nice set of articles on "THE COST OF THE DEMOCRAT CONGRESS" and the Dem site, while not containing any hit pieces, has a lot of advocacy.

Not saying it's appropriate, just there's a precedent for it and it's not beyond any pale of anything.

Which is why one of the political parties has gop.gov

Rep. Pence offered an amendment on Thursday, March 27, 2003; it was agreed to by voice vote. The amendment makes it a criminal act to knowingly use a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a person into viewing obscenity on the Internet. Also makes it a criminal act to knowingly use a misleading domain name with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material on the Internet that is harmful to minors. A domain name that includes a word or words to indicate the sexual content of the site is not considered misleading.

Lately, kind sir, I have been quite perturbed by certain events that have been proliferating in our society. Was it not so long ago, that in more civilized times, children respected and obeyed their parents, under the threat of a firm thrashing if their impudence and audacity got out of hand? But oh, kind father, the trials that parents today must suffer! Not just the other day, whist I was dining upon a fresh garden salad, my daughter, of not even 6 years old, insisted upon uprooting most unrest in requesting I purchase for her a milky-way bar! I quickly remarked to the impudent creature that one of our many servants would be more than willing to carriage her to the local general store; but no! she insisted that I -personally- drive the buggy to make the purchase! Oh wise man of God, what is a poor woman to do in these hard times! Before you can open your Moses-lovin' mouth Pastor, I have proposed a final solution to the problem of "youthful indiscretion"- Prison Labor!

Before you bring up cries of protest from your liberalism-saturated mind, hear me out! Our disrespectful children will learn the true meaning of honor and sacrifice while they're hard at work pounding license plates and assembling adding machines! Honestly, what better way is there to whip our children into shape? Scare them with threats of the boogey-man? Psh-haw! Just look at the wondrous effects prison labor had on the Dell kid! Not only will prison labor harden our children into obedient automatons, it will show them the reality they will have to face if they follow their current paths and become criminals!

Thank you for your attention kind Minister, and God-Bless!

The Republican banner that Lincoln was elected under doesn't stand for the same values as it does today. Actually, the Republican party was much more "left" when Lincoln was elected, though you won't find anything saying that on theGOP's website...

Yes, gop."gov" is more of an organization, not a government body, such as noaa.gov, nasa.gov, or nist.gov.

There should be a line drawn between special interests bodies and official government services.