Scientists and doctors are worried about the younger-than-early-teens sexual maturity trend, looking for triggers and citing increased sexual problems and illnesses along the "early birds" including various genital cancers later in life.
Granted I am not a scientist or doctor, but that suggests to me that "this little thing called research" is uncovering an anomaly and not the optimal functioning of the human body...
When I and my "XO" decided to change the rating on our Star Trek RPbE sim, we used The Dark Knight as an example as to why we wanted to go from PG-13 to PG-15. We explained that we wanted more leeway over plot elements and implied violence/sexuality/etc. without resorting to lurid descriptions and such.
In a day and age where a simple drag on a cigarette, mention of drug use, or addressing of slavery can up a rating fast on an otherwise fairly innocuous movie, we wanted that buffer.
I'd like to add a recommendation that those who are homeschooling, especially if it is to avoid heavy-handedness like this in the local public schools, ought to consider joining the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).
After all, how much will it help to keep your child out of public school to avoid strip-searches if an over-zealous social worker decides to push her way into your home with police escort and strip-search your child anyways? It has happened.
"The patients don't decide the treatment they get, the doctors do."
Change doctors. Now.
My doctor always gives me the options and the pros/cons of each one. I have at times refused one treatment or demanded another. He won't give me a treatment if he thinks it'll actually HURT me, but otherwise he is quite aware that doctor/patient is a partnership towards better help, not a dictatorship.
"The free market is God B.S."
If we actually had a free market in the area of healthcare (or bank loans, if you're talking about the economy at large), instead of some bizarre, highly-regulated, half-socialist hybrid, maybe you could correctly use this country as a comparison of free market vs. socialism. As it is, you can't prove that free market doesn't work until it's actually been tried.
Compare it to this as an analogy... someone who's driving a station wagon instead of a full-sized van can't really tell you by experience what the pros and cons are of riding a motorcycle instead of a van.
One of the big reasons why doctors charge the rest of us so much is to make up for being badly under-compensated for Medicare/Medicaid costs. I heard recently from one heart surgeon who specializes in infants who was considering cutting back on his hours despite being the only one in the area with his specialty, because between the higher taxes coming on his income and his income being lowered by a drop in government reimbursement for cases he must take by law, he was starting to get into financial trouble.
Basically, imagine being paid $25/day for the entire heart surgery procedure on a preterm infant. Doctor's fee? No, hospital's fee, meant to cover all parts of the surgery and hospital stay. This is not an exaggeration. He ran the actual numbers. The last I'd heard, government healthcare will only reimburse something like 2/3rds of the doctor's/hospital's actual cost, and the doctor/hospital has to eat the rest. Now that percentage is going to drop again.
Medicare might seem to be efficiently run, but it's habit of under-compensating for government-mandated services is part of what's terribly wrong with our healthcare system.
Could you explain, then, how global warming has been causing record cold temperatures across the majority of the world for several years now? The snow in Israel? In Iraq? The roofs in Japan collapsing under snow weight that they were never designed to take, because Japan simply never got that much snow? The orange crops becoming smaller in Florida due to wintertime cold snaps? Antarctica ice thickening and Arctic ice either holding steady or thickening, depending on which source you use?
When is "global warming" actually going to result in some WARMTH?
Actually, what I'm advocating is a continuation of the structure in which the President listens equally to Iowans and Californians, even though there are fewer Iowans.
People are so individualistic nowadays, it's harder to get them to understand the notion of being part of a group to be viewed equally with another group. I wonder if part of the reason why the states issue was once such a no-brainer was because the notion of the family as a societal structure used to be so much stronger. I'm going to look like I go on a tangent here, but I'm actually not. Well, maybe I am.
People say that it used to be that blacks and women were not allowed to vote. This is not strictly true. In many (most? all?) states, blacks could vote at one time or another. But let's put that aside and look at women. Women were always allowed to vote. Notably, widows were always allowed to vote.
Why widows? Why only property owners? (People tend to equate property ownership with Rich White Men, but really that was only true during a short period of time in the South. We have a saying up here: Land-rich and Money-poor.) The idea was that each family had a vote. To ensure that each family had a vote, all you had to do was to give the vote to the person in society who represented a family... the male property-owner. (Younger men who didn't own had not yet married and settled down.) There were exceptions, but it worked pretty well.
So when would women vote? Typically, the man would vote as a representative of his family, as our senators vote as representatives of our state, in a situation where all families were equal despite their size or wealth. If he died, the vote would pass to his wife, the "XO" of his family and automatic successor to the leadership role. (It was also under these conditions that the widow would hold title to his property etc.)
It is important to note here that the family has, throughout history, represented a bunch of people working as one entity with its own goals and dreams. Today, in many cases, the only place where you see something similar is if you work for a large company, which is usually a sadly sterile version of the concept, but it will have to do.
Back to states: Part of the changes in modern society have included the breakdown of the family as a unit into individualism, and I theorize that each person has more difficulty viewing a collective of persons as a whole, as a result. Even the husband/wife unity is strained with different cars, different phones, different hobby rooms... different lives. As a result, how do you explain to someone how one state should be equal to another, when his or her worldview is centered around the individual as the sole societal unit?
Let's try it this way. Pretend that, to each state, the number of people it has is its riches. Pretend that a state is a person with its own dreams and goals, and it's population is its money. This country has 50 people in it. The House of Representatives is basically an aristocracy. The richer you are, the more pull you have. However, the Senate is a different story. In the Senate, you are treated equally, no matter how much money you have.
As mentioned above, each state has its own needs and reasons for the laws it writes. Arizona and Montana have different water needs. Maine and Florida have different reasons to carry guns. Each state has different priorities, and the more populous ones merely have more people in them asking for the same thing.
So should we ditch the old system, where each state is treated like a person despite its richness or poorness, or should we devolve into an aristocracy of population count?
As for the limit to federal power, I advocate that too.:) Actually, I prefer to limit (but not wholly remove) federal power over the states, state power over the cities, and city power over ME. It's the best way to make sure the decisions are made by the people who understand the situations.:)
There is a difference, because the majority of people in California are going to have completely different priorities than the majority of people in Iowa. Let's take a look at some problems with this, shall we?
Right now the Federal Government has more and more power to limit freedoms. Pretend for a moment that not only the Presidential office, but the legislature was treated as if this was a full democracy instead of a republic.
Now let's pretend that shooting bears is utterly outlawed nationwide because people who live in NYC don't see any reason why anybody needs to shoot a bear.
Let's say that new houses and apartments are mandated to be built without full bathtubs, because in the crowded cities, you need all the extra space you can get. Did you know that up here, whenever a storm is coming we fill the bathtubs because if we lose power, we lose running water, sometimes for days? Space isn't a problem, though.
The fact is, this country has a lot of different cultures and a lot of different populations and a lot of different geographic features. What works in the plains won't work in the mountains. What works in the cities won't work in the country. What works in the near-tropical zones won't work in the high-temperate zones. We need to treat the states as their own entities so that a big city on a water-hungry plain in an eternal summer won't be setting policy for the town built in the mountain with fresh water springs pushing into everyone's basements and two-foot snowfalls from September to May.
There's another reason to have a 10-20 year old car. My '89 handles better than many '05's, according to mechanics taking it on a test drive. It's a remarkably steady snow car, and it's incredibly reliable. In addition, it gets 35mpg, and that's not it's sticker level, that's what I actually get from it doing mostly backroads driving.
Granted, if the government gave me a grant to go buy a new used car with, I could get something with fewer miles and more amenities and put off having to spend all of my money for a 'new' car for a while longer. But seriously, what are my chances of getting that fuel economy on a newer station wagon? And what good is power windows to me if I end up paying more in gas as a result?
Some people own 10-20 year old cars because they were just plain better 20 years ago. Multiple times I've had a mechanic look at the age of the car and tell me I need to get a new one, only to see how it functions when they repair it and how it drives when they test it and then tell me no, actually, I ought to hold onto this gem as long as I can. I plan to drive it until it dies horribly.
As someone who has taught the college-level Intro to Computers course multiple times, I can assure you that if she did not know the term "google search" that it really did not matter whether her OS was Windows or Linux-based. She'd have been just as hopelessly lost.
I wouldn't be surprised to find blood pressure easing with Oblivion. I bring up the game just when I need a bit of relaxation and wander through the woods. It's so immersive and, yes, engaging, that the beautiful scenery calms my senses and cheers me up.
"Example: Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner."
This is why some of us object to a one-world government. We are all Americans here. The wolves all vote in one country, the sheep in another, the horses in another...
No need to spread racial or class hatred about here.
The polar bear is often regarded as a marine mammal because it spends many months of the year at sea.[24] Its preferred habitat is the annual sea ice covering the waters over the continental shelf and the Arctic inter-island archipelagos. These areas, known as the "Arctic ring of life", have relatively high biological productivity in comparison to the deep waters of the high Arctic.[20][25] The polar bear tends to frequent areas where sea ice meets water, such as polynyas and leads (temporary stretches of open water in Arctic ice), to hunt the seals that make up most of its diet.[26] Polar bears are therefore found primarily along the perimeter of the polar ice pack, rather than in the Polar Basin close to the North Pole where the density of seals is low.
Annual ice contains areas of water that appear and disappear throughout the year as the weather changes. Seals migrate in response to these changes, and polar bears must follow their prey.
...
The 'original' poster is right. Polar bears do Not go that far north.
In my experience, granted this is slightly off-topic, no amount of studying technical discussions on ethics makes someone into an ethical person, and plenty of people with no formal training in technical discussions of ethics are more ethical than the average politician, who probably has.
You know what, it took me this long to realize the Gramm-etc. law you have listed under 1999. That's about in the middle of the crisis, not at the end, 2005, as I misread. Sorry about that!
On the other hand, the numbers show a temporary dip around 1999 and even Bill Clinton denies that it had anything to do with causing the current crisis. Then again, this is Bill Clinton... ^.^
The act, by the way, merely allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. Some of the banks which did so, including Citigroup, are not only solid but have been mitigating the crisis somewhat by buying out problem banks (Citigroup recently picked up Wachovia). Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan and Chase are examples of other banks who merged using that act and are holding steady. (JPMorgan Chase is another rescuer, the one who picked up Washington Mutual.)
If you're interested, check out factcheck.org for more information. Neither Republicans nor Democrats escape all the blame, but Gramm-Leach-Bliley wasn't a factor.
Then why did percentage of subprime mortgages start rising sharply in the mid 90's, take a temporary dip in 2002, and continue to rise sharply until 2005, when they started to decline? If an act passed in 2005 caused the crisis, wouldn't the data reflect the rise beginning in 2005?
No, I'm sorry, all the actual hard data involving these dangerous loans show that they started in the Clinton Administration. It's true that the CRA by itself didn't do it... banks were able to comply with CRA and stay solid. However, the decreasing of regulations and encouragement of risky loans started the housing bubble that is now popped. Gramm-Leach-Bliley was so late to the party that I don't even know if it HAD an effect. At least the numbers and graphs don't show any.
Interestingly, the first time John McCain warned Congress about Fannie Mae was in 1991, just on the very leading edge of the bubble according to the graphs.
Unfortunately, your "accurate generalization" was dead wrong. I am not a big-government fascist s***bag. I am a libertarian, and as such I see elements of socialism in both Communism and Fascism - indeed, in any group, including those of the left or right wing who seek increased government control "for the good of all".
Sorry to hear about your grandfather fighting against extremist Republicans. My grandfather was not in any war, but my father fought communists in Vietnam and my great-uncle fought fascists in WW2.
I find your claim interesting that "'You deserve this despite your ability to pay' sounds socialist" breaks the bounds of common decency but "You are a fascist s***bag" does not. Good luck with that.
Coming from someone who, without knowing who I am or how I came to my conclusions, decided I was a "big government ninny state right wing extremist fascist ****bag", that's rich!
In case you hadn't noticed, that's also when I ceased to believe that you were someone who could be reasoned with, hence my decision to not even bother defending or explaining my viewpoint to you.
I wasn't the one to break the rules of common decency. Judging from the moderation on your original response, I am not the only one who noticed that.
Yeah! Why should you lower your breast cancer risk, increase your cervical health and reduce the severity and quantity of painful menstrual cramps just to allow some"thing" else to survive?
The benefits to seeing a pregnancy to term are nearly all medical, and the detriments are nearly all based on society's distorted assessment of 'beauty', which, by the way, does not line up with the male majority in reality.
On the other hand, the kindest assessment of abortion is that it is as dangerous as pregnancy/childbirth, and the least kind assessment considers it a great deal more risky.
I think something people forget in modern day abortion debate is that pregnancy is something a woman was well-designed to do. We even have a notch in our spines that is unique to human females to help carry the extra weight. It's as natural as eating and digesting, or breathing and receiving oxygen. Nowadays we're taught that unless you were absolutely sure you wanted it AND haven't changed your mind yet, it's some sort of atrocity, something unnatural and terrifying, horrible and alien.
Why? Congress hasn't yet been able to pass a bailout bill because the constituents oppose it so strongly that the legislators are afraid to vote Yes. This in spite of those who get on the news and claim that our economy will "come to a stop" if we don't bail them out.
I think it's clear that the majority of Americans favor 'taking the medicine'. What's the hypocrisy in fighting government intervention?
Slashdot Mirror
Scientists and doctors are worried about the younger-than-early-teens sexual maturity trend, looking for triggers and citing increased sexual problems and illnesses along the "early birds" including various genital cancers later in life.
Granted I am not a scientist or doctor, but that suggests to me that "this little thing called research" is uncovering an anomaly and not the optimal functioning of the human body...
When I and my "XO" decided to change the rating on our Star Trek RPbE sim, we used The Dark Knight as an example as to why we wanted to go from PG-13 to PG-15. We explained that we wanted more leeway over plot elements and implied violence/sexuality/etc. without resorting to lurid descriptions and such.
In a day and age where a simple drag on a cigarette, mention of drug use, or addressing of slavery can up a rating fast on an otherwise fairly innocuous movie, we wanted that buffer.
I'd like to add a recommendation that those who are homeschooling, especially if it is to avoid heavy-handedness like this in the local public schools, ought to consider joining the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA).
After all, how much will it help to keep your child out of public school to avoid strip-searches if an over-zealous social worker decides to push her way into your home with police escort and strip-search your child anyways? It has happened.
"The patients don't decide the treatment they get, the doctors do."
Change doctors. Now.
My doctor always gives me the options and the pros/cons of each one. I have at times refused one treatment or demanded another. He won't give me a treatment if he thinks it'll actually HURT me, but otherwise he is quite aware that doctor/patient is a partnership towards better help, not a dictatorship.
"The free market is God B.S."
If we actually had a free market in the area of healthcare (or bank loans, if you're talking about the economy at large), instead of some bizarre, highly-regulated, half-socialist hybrid, maybe you could correctly use this country as a comparison of free market vs. socialism. As it is, you can't prove that free market doesn't work until it's actually been tried.
Compare it to this as an analogy... someone who's driving a station wagon instead of a full-sized van can't really tell you by experience what the pros and cons are of riding a motorcycle instead of a van.
One of the big reasons why doctors charge the rest of us so much is to make up for being badly under-compensated for Medicare/Medicaid costs. I heard recently from one heart surgeon who specializes in infants who was considering cutting back on his hours despite being the only one in the area with his specialty, because between the higher taxes coming on his income and his income being lowered by a drop in government reimbursement for cases he must take by law, he was starting to get into financial trouble.
Basically, imagine being paid $25/day for the entire heart surgery procedure on a preterm infant. Doctor's fee? No, hospital's fee, meant to cover all parts of the surgery and hospital stay. This is not an exaggeration. He ran the actual numbers. The last I'd heard, government healthcare will only reimburse something like 2/3rds of the doctor's/hospital's actual cost, and the doctor/hospital has to eat the rest. Now that percentage is going to drop again.
Medicare might seem to be efficiently run, but it's habit of under-compensating for government-mandated services is part of what's terribly wrong with our healthcare system.
Could you explain, then, how global warming has been causing record cold temperatures across the majority of the world for several years now? The snow in Israel? In Iraq? The roofs in Japan collapsing under snow weight that they were never designed to take, because Japan simply never got that much snow? The orange crops becoming smaller in Florida due to wintertime cold snaps? Antarctica ice thickening and Arctic ice either holding steady or thickening, depending on which source you use?
When is "global warming" actually going to result in some WARMTH?
Actually, what I'm advocating is a continuation of the structure in which the President listens equally to Iowans and Californians, even though there are fewer Iowans.
:) Actually, I prefer to limit (but not wholly remove) federal power over the states, state power over the cities, and city power over ME. It's the best way to make sure the decisions are made by the people who understand the situations. :)
People are so individualistic nowadays, it's harder to get them to understand the notion of being part of a group to be viewed equally with another group. I wonder if part of the reason why the states issue was once such a no-brainer was because the notion of the family as a societal structure used to be so much stronger. I'm going to look like I go on a tangent here, but I'm actually not. Well, maybe I am.
People say that it used to be that blacks and women were not allowed to vote. This is not strictly true. In many (most? all?) states, blacks could vote at one time or another. But let's put that aside and look at women. Women were always allowed to vote. Notably, widows were always allowed to vote.
Why widows? Why only property owners? (People tend to equate property ownership with Rich White Men, but really that was only true during a short period of time in the South. We have a saying up here: Land-rich and Money-poor.) The idea was that each family had a vote. To ensure that each family had a vote, all you had to do was to give the vote to the person in society who represented a family... the male property-owner. (Younger men who didn't own had not yet married and settled down.) There were exceptions, but it worked pretty well.
So when would women vote? Typically, the man would vote as a representative of his family, as our senators vote as representatives of our state, in a situation where all families were equal despite their size or wealth. If he died, the vote would pass to his wife, the "XO" of his family and automatic successor to the leadership role. (It was also under these conditions that the widow would hold title to his property etc.)
It is important to note here that the family has, throughout history, represented a bunch of people working as one entity with its own goals and dreams. Today, in many cases, the only place where you see something similar is if you work for a large company, which is usually a sadly sterile version of the concept, but it will have to do.
Back to states: Part of the changes in modern society have included the breakdown of the family as a unit into individualism, and I theorize that each person has more difficulty viewing a collective of persons as a whole, as a result. Even the husband/wife unity is strained with different cars, different phones, different hobby rooms... different lives. As a result, how do you explain to someone how one state should be equal to another, when his or her worldview is centered around the individual as the sole societal unit?
Let's try it this way. Pretend that, to each state, the number of people it has is its riches. Pretend that a state is a person with its own dreams and goals, and it's population is its money. This country has 50 people in it. The House of Representatives is basically an aristocracy. The richer you are, the more pull you have. However, the Senate is a different story. In the Senate, you are treated equally, no matter how much money you have.
As mentioned above, each state has its own needs and reasons for the laws it writes. Arizona and Montana have different water needs. Maine and Florida have different reasons to carry guns. Each state has different priorities, and the more populous ones merely have more people in them asking for the same thing.
So should we ditch the old system, where each state is treated like a person despite its richness or poorness, or should we devolve into an aristocracy of population count?
As for the limit to federal power, I advocate that too.
There is a difference, because the majority of people in California are going to have completely different priorities than the majority of people in Iowa. Let's take a look at some problems with this, shall we?
Right now the Federal Government has more and more power to limit freedoms. Pretend for a moment that not only the Presidential office, but the legislature was treated as if this was a full democracy instead of a republic.
Now let's pretend that shooting bears is utterly outlawed nationwide because people who live in NYC don't see any reason why anybody needs to shoot a bear.
Let's say that new houses and apartments are mandated to be built without full bathtubs, because in the crowded cities, you need all the extra space you can get. Did you know that up here, whenever a storm is coming we fill the bathtubs because if we lose power, we lose running water, sometimes for days? Space isn't a problem, though.
The fact is, this country has a lot of different cultures and a lot of different populations and a lot of different geographic features. What works in the plains won't work in the mountains. What works in the cities won't work in the country. What works in the near-tropical zones won't work in the high-temperate zones. We need to treat the states as their own entities so that a big city on a water-hungry plain in an eternal summer won't be setting policy for the town built in the mountain with fresh water springs pushing into everyone's basements and two-foot snowfalls from September to May.
There's another reason to have a 10-20 year old car. My '89 handles better than many '05's, according to mechanics taking it on a test drive. It's a remarkably steady snow car, and it's incredibly reliable. In addition, it gets 35mpg, and that's not it's sticker level, that's what I actually get from it doing mostly backroads driving.
Granted, if the government gave me a grant to go buy a new used car with, I could get something with fewer miles and more amenities and put off having to spend all of my money for a 'new' car for a while longer. But seriously, what are my chances of getting that fuel economy on a newer station wagon? And what good is power windows to me if I end up paying more in gas as a result?
Some people own 10-20 year old cars because they were just plain better 20 years ago. Multiple times I've had a mechanic look at the age of the car and tell me I need to get a new one, only to see how it functions when they repair it and how it drives when they test it and then tell me no, actually, I ought to hold onto this gem as long as I can. I plan to drive it until it dies horribly.
I bet I can get it over 200K.
Yes.
As someone who has taught the college-level Intro to Computers course multiple times, I can assure you that if she did not know the term "google search" that it really did not matter whether her OS was Windows or Linux-based. She'd have been just as hopelessly lost.
I wouldn't be surprised to find blood pressure easing with Oblivion. I bring up the game just when I need a bit of relaxation and wander through the woods. It's so immersive and, yes, engaging, that the beautiful scenery calms my senses and cheers me up.
"But I've yet to see any game where racism represents a major theme. It would be just too close to reality to be fun. "
:)
Try playing Elder Scrolls: Morrowind as an Argonian.
"Example: Two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner."
This is why some of us object to a one-world government. We are all Americans here. The wolves all vote in one country, the sheep in another, the horses in another...
No need to spread racial or class hatred about here.
The polar bear is often regarded as a marine mammal because it spends many months of the year at sea.[24] Its preferred habitat is the annual sea ice covering the waters over the continental shelf and the Arctic inter-island archipelagos. These areas, known as the "Arctic ring of life", have relatively high biological productivity in comparison to the deep waters of the high Arctic.[20][25] The polar bear tends to frequent areas where sea ice meets water, such as polynyas and leads (temporary stretches of open water in Arctic ice), to hunt the seals that make up most of its diet.[26] Polar bears are therefore found primarily along the perimeter of the polar ice pack, rather than in the Polar Basin close to the North Pole where the density of seals is low.
...
Annual ice contains areas of water that appear and disappear throughout the year as the weather changes. Seals migrate in response to these changes, and polar bears must follow their prey.
The 'original' poster is right. Polar bears do Not go that far north.
In my experience, granted this is slightly off-topic, no amount of studying technical discussions on ethics makes someone into an ethical person, and plenty of people with no formal training in technical discussions of ethics are more ethical than the average politician, who probably has.
I wasn't aware our military was targeting civilians.
You know what, it took me this long to realize the Gramm-etc. law you have listed under 1999. That's about in the middle of the crisis, not at the end, 2005, as I misread. Sorry about that!
On the other hand, the numbers show a temporary dip around 1999 and even Bill Clinton denies that it had anything to do with causing the current crisis. Then again, this is Bill Clinton... ^.^
The act, by the way, merely allowed commercial and investment banks to consolidate. Some of the banks which did so, including Citigroup, are not only solid but have been mitigating the crisis somewhat by buying out problem banks (Citigroup recently picked up Wachovia). Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and JPMorgan and Chase are examples of other banks who merged using that act and are holding steady. (JPMorgan Chase is another rescuer, the one who picked up Washington Mutual.)
If you're interested, check out factcheck.org for more information. Neither Republicans nor Democrats escape all the blame, but Gramm-Leach-Bliley wasn't a factor.
Then why did percentage of subprime mortgages start rising sharply in the mid 90's, take a temporary dip in 2002, and continue to rise sharply until 2005, when they started to decline? If an act passed in 2005 caused the crisis, wouldn't the data reflect the rise beginning in 2005?
No, I'm sorry, all the actual hard data involving these dangerous loans show that they started in the Clinton Administration. It's true that the CRA by itself didn't do it... banks were able to comply with CRA and stay solid. However, the decreasing of regulations and encouragement of risky loans started the housing bubble that is now popped. Gramm-Leach-Bliley was so late to the party that I don't even know if it HAD an effect. At least the numbers and graphs don't show any.
Interestingly, the first time John McCain warned Congress about Fannie Mae was in 1991, just on the very leading edge of the bubble according to the graphs.
Which civilian targets did the Founding Fathers destroy?
Unfortunately, your "accurate generalization" was dead wrong. I am not a big-government fascist s***bag. I am a libertarian, and as such I see elements of socialism in both Communism and Fascism - indeed, in any group, including those of the left or right wing who seek increased government control "for the good of all".
Sorry to hear about your grandfather fighting against extremist Republicans. My grandfather was not in any war, but my father fought communists in Vietnam and my great-uncle fought fascists in WW2.
I find your claim interesting that "'You deserve this despite your ability to pay' sounds socialist" breaks the bounds of common decency but "You are a fascist s***bag" does not. Good luck with that.
Coming from someone who, without knowing who I am or how I came to my conclusions, decided I was a "big government ninny state right wing extremist fascist ****bag", that's rich!
In case you hadn't noticed, that's also when I ceased to believe that you were someone who could be reasoned with, hence my decision to not even bother defending or explaining my viewpoint to you.
I wasn't the one to break the rules of common decency. Judging from the moderation on your original response, I am not the only one who noticed that.
Yeah! Why should you lower your breast cancer risk, increase your cervical health and reduce the severity and quantity of painful menstrual cramps just to allow some"thing" else to survive?
The benefits to seeing a pregnancy to term are nearly all medical, and the detriments are nearly all based on society's distorted assessment of 'beauty', which, by the way, does not line up with the male majority in reality.
On the other hand, the kindest assessment of abortion is that it is as dangerous as pregnancy/childbirth, and the least kind assessment considers it a great deal more risky.
I think something people forget in modern day abortion debate is that pregnancy is something a woman was well-designed to do. We even have a notch in our spines that is unique to human females to help carry the extra weight. It's as natural as eating and digesting, or breathing and receiving oxygen. Nowadays we're taught that unless you were absolutely sure you wanted it AND haven't changed your mind yet, it's some sort of atrocity, something unnatural and terrifying, horrible and alien.
I'm a trifle deaf in this ear. Speak a little louder next time.
Why? Congress hasn't yet been able to pass a bailout bill because the constituents oppose it so strongly that the legislators are afraid to vote Yes. This in spite of those who get on the news and claim that our economy will "come to a stop" if we don't bail them out.
I think it's clear that the majority of Americans favor 'taking the medicine'. What's the hypocrisy in fighting government intervention?