How do you figure? Ethanol use by vehicles is expanding by various government decrees in the US even as we speak.
And people are whinging about it as we speak. It's just a matter of time before someone decides we must "think of the children" or some such rot, and make it illegal.
c. economic: a stable agricultral source of fuel is a lot better for a healthy economy than undependable one you need to mine
Of course, if this happens, someone will start whinging about all the food we're not growing because of that evil biodiesel being more profitable than corn.
Followed quickly by laws making it illegal to grow the stuff, so as to allow us to concentrate on growing food....
Not necessarily. There are plenty of examples of exclusivity in our laws; so, for an individual, we don't have to allow more than one marriage to be valid at any one time. I'm not so sure about group marriages, where the "marriage contract" is between 3 or more individuals; but it seems as if [disallowing group marriages] might not be discriminatory.
Let's see. We change the laws to allow one group who formerly couldn't marry to do so, but forbid another group who can't marry from doing so. Sounds like a textbook definition of discrimination to me.
You forgot between adults and animals, or adults and inanimate objects.
It's a contract. Animals and inanimate objects neither need nor are able to sign contracts.
This I definitely don't agree with. Children are a protected class of citizen, and do not have full rights under our laws. Children cannot vote, they cannot be drafted, they cannot enter into [some] legally binding agreements. If your argument was valid, then we'd have to allow marriage involving children today, assuming that they're heterosexual.
Children are protected, yes. They also cannot, in general, sign contracts. Except whatever they have to sign to get an abortion, of course. But...
It's not actually against the law for a child of 16 to marry in most places. Requires parental consent, of course. But abortions used to require parental consent too. It would be very easy to justify changes to marriage laws allowing marriage to occur freely with anyone above the age of consent (mostly 16, sometimes 15), especially if those idiotic exceptions for "statutory rape" were removed (note that saying that it is good, right and moral for a 16 year old to bed a 16 year old whose birthday is tomorrow, but it's an immoral, evil act for the same person to bed someone who turned 17 yesterday is silly, at best).
The best argument against allowing child marriage would actually be contract law. Of course, we've inserted that exception for abortions. That exception won't get narrower with time, it'll widen.
Note also that heterosexuality is as irrelevant to marriage as homosexuality. Or did you skip the part in my previous where I said that sex was irrelevant to marriage. Get over the notion that marriage is required to screw, or even to legitimize screwing. Screw whomever, or whatever, you'd like, as long as you don't do it in public and frighten the horses.
The only reason to forbid gay marriage is because you don't like homosexuality.
No, the only real reason is because it serves no public good to allow it. If current laws allowed it, then opposing it would be because you don't like homosexuality. Since current laws don't allow it, then there really needs to be some social benefit to changing the laws for it to be worth the bother. And I can't see one. If you can see one (qualifier: that doesn't involve some irrelevancy like sex,love, kids), then feel free to point it out.
Note, by the way, that with the current social mores, if there were no marriage laws in place, there'd be no reason to bother to create them, since they'd serve no useful public good. Marriage laws were created under different social mores, and served (at the time) a useful purpose. They no longer do so, and I'd be as inclined to remove existing marriage laws as to extend them.
If I were inclined to change laws for no reason at all. Which I'm not.
Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, unless you live in a cave as a hermit, you know gay people. Outlawing gay marriage won't make them go away. Society is changing, and does so all the time. If you truly believe in the Declaration of Independence's "all men are created equal", you owe it to yourself to vote down these ridiculous attempts to codify discrimination and hate into our laws.
I doubt many Americans know, nor do many care. Oddly enough, I do know that, but only because my wife's family used to summer in Canada.
If HillaryCare had been done like the Canadian system, we might have been able to have a rational debate on the subject. As was, the way it was designed (both from the POV of the result of the design and the process of the design) left a bad taste in so many people's mouths that even the guys in favour of socialized medicine couldn't stomach it.
Note, for the record, that I am in favour of socialized medicine on even-numbered days, and opposed on odd-numbered days. I can see the benefits to both sides of the argument, and the problems with both sides of the argument, and will argue either side depending on the mood of the moment.
It was much easier to ignore when they weren't running campaign commercials for two stinking years.
Note that people who weren't already in an office they could abuse for free publicity don't get to take advantage of this sort of thing. Obama is an example - his office for the last couple years has been to be a Senator that everyone ignores (being junior and a reliable Party-line vote means that the Senate leadership can safely ignore you completely). Which is why he started running overtly so early.
Still sucks that the pattern has now been set to start elections two+ years early.
Also sucks for all those people who approve of government financed elections that Obama is likely to win this one, and he's the first guy to forego public financing.
Want to bet that next time both Parties skip the public financing in favour of the big bucks?
What I don't understand is why any state would vote to write discrimination into the state constitution. I mean, if the same amendment said "All black people can never vote." it wouldn't pass. Why is gay marriage any different?
1) Marriage is a contract. Between two people, pretty much by definition. Though there is no intrinsic requirement that it be limited to two people other than the (currently) discriminating laws on the subject.
2) Marriage is within the proper sphere of interest of government. That is, government may (or may not) have an interest in promoting or discouraging the activity. The reasons that government may promote or discourage marriage (or any other activity) depend entirely on the objectives of the lawmakers.
3) Marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with sex, children, love, or much of anything else other than certain economic realities. Contrary to popular romour. Fact is, I'm not required to marry the person I love, or love the person I marry. Nor am I required to have children with the person I marry, or refrain from doing so with others. And sex doesn't even enter into the issue anymore.
4) Current marriage laws in the USA and other countries are NOT discriminatory. They apply equally to all people. Any unmarried man may marry any unmarried woman. And vice versa. Since love is not relevant to the subject, the question of whether the man and woman are "in love" is irrelevant to the question or whether marriage is discriminatory.
Note that if we were to remove "discrimination" from marriage, we'd have to allow polygamy. And if "love" were relevant to marriage, then we'd be pretty much required to approve of marriages between adults and children or children and children (ask any 13 year old if they're in "love" with their current bf/gf if you doubt me).
Now, as to the economic elements of marriage. Certainly, there are some economic factors that are relevant issues that suggest the desirability of gay marriage (and of polygamy, by the by - Mormons take note). But, fact is, most of the economic issues are self-inflicted by a government trying to "help" us. HIPA, for instance. Or the income tax progression for married couples (note that the latter was intended to deal with the extra costs associated with raising children, which the government has an economic interest in - more children means a new generation of taxpayers, after all).
On balance, I can't see a good reason to allow gay marriage. On the other hand, I can't see a good reason to forbid it, either. So I guess I have to come down on the status quo ante side of the argument - leave it as is, and stop trying to change society to no great purpose. Save the effort for something that matters, because this isn't it.
the average life expectancy of an American man which seems to be all over the place, with 70~74 being the most common answers
You are perhaps unaware that those life expectancy numbers are from birth. Someone who reaches 70 isn't actually expected to drop dead around 75, he's expected to make 85 or 90.
Harder to find figures for someone who is already 70+, of course. Best number I could find is that a man in the USA, aged 70-74, could expect to live an average of 18 more years.
Trust me, most Americans have no more interest in two-year campaigns than you do.
Alas, since Clinton and Obama decided to start two years before election this time, it'll happen earlier next time, as all the hypothetical candidates decide that the reason Obama got the nomination was that he started working on name recognition really early.
I'm expecting the next campaign to start by the end of 2009. And again in 2013, right after Inauguration. By 2016, the new campaign will start the day after the election.
This assuming that Obama doesn't start campaigning for election/reelection (depending on whether he loses/wins today) tomorrow. Which I about half expect.
The other half of me thinks Hillary will start campaigning tomorrow, no matter whether Obama wins or loses.
Sometimes I am really wondering about the antipathy against something that is perceived "socialized medicine".
Perhaps you should look at the details of the Clinton healthcare proposals for reasons to oppose it. Micromanagement of healthcare at a Federal level is not the key to socialized medicine.
Come to that, micromanagement of anything is not a key to success.
"That's the wrong tool for the job. Use a small pair of tin snips, and there's very little chance that you'll injure yourself. "
Yeah..like everyone has a pair of those laying around...
A pair of scissors works just fine. Or do you not have those either? If the latter, you're the first person I've ever met who owns box-cutters but not scissors....
Assuming that person can aim that gun well enough to hit a person sized target while under stress, and can prevent you from taking it away from them.
It's not as hard as rumour would have it, really. A person is a pretty big target from five feet. And taking a gun from someone isn't as easy as you might think. It can be done, but bet on the gun going off once or twice in the process. And the taker is more likely to be in front of the hole than not when that happens.
And replacing "gun" with "baseball bat" gives the same result, by the way. Or knife, or any other weapon that doesn't rely on massive amounts of training to make it useful.
No. Baseball bats and knives take more training to use effectively than guns, frankly. And depend rather strongly on the muscle power of the wielder. Which guns don't. My mother-in-law is in her 80's, and can still shoot just fine. But I doubt she could even lift a regulation baseball bat anymore.
It's not that having a gun doesn't make someone more dangerous, it's that it doesn't make them equal to another person with a gun. It's not an equalizer, it's a tool that increases one's capacity for damaging violence.
No. It's an equalizer. It removes the need to be large and powerful in order to win a fight. All things being equal, the bigger, stronger guy will win any fight. Unless either or both people have a gun in hand. I'm larger than most (and no, it's not all fat, or even mostly fat). But my mother-in-law (to use as an example, since she's less than five feet tall and in her 80's) can shoot someone as big as me dead with her revolver. Yeah, being trained makes a difference in a fight. A huge one. But a gun, which removes the need for strength and size, makes a tremendous equalizer, since it makes irrelevant one of the biggest inequalities in any fight.
Clue-stick: being six foot plus means I have an automatic advantage in a fistfight with anyone of "average" size - I can outreach them. Doesn't imply that there aren't normal sized guys (or even extremely short ones) that are stronger than me, or better fighters (given that I haven't been in a fistfight in considerably more than 30 years, it's not even unlikely). But it's an advantage that they can't overcome, they can just compensate for.
Unless they have a gun. A gun doesn't care how long your opponent's arms are, any more than it cares how much your opponent can benchpress.
Yes, the hypothetical bad guy could preemptively shoot you. But the data tends to show that your average criminal is less inclined to just start shooting than might be supposed by the ignorant. Especially since armed robbery gets you hard time, but murder gets you the chair in a lot of places....
If you consider a majority, but not enough of one to surmount a presidential veto or overcome a filibuster the power to withdraw from the war, that would be true.
They had enough of a majority to put a bill before the President if they'd cared to do it. Yeah, it would have been vetoed, but it would have established the moral high ground. If they'd had any moral high ground.
It really isn't, though.
It is, really. Don't insist that something is a crime against humanity, then passively go along with it without even raising a protest vote.
It doesn't have any magic equalizing powers that make it more likely for one man to be effective against twenty.
Yes, actually it does. I'm quite large. Bigger than most men, much less most women. I am less likely to be seriously injured in a fight with someone much smaller than me than the little guy/girl is to be injured in a fight with me (discounting, for the sake of argument, the effects of my chemotherapy on my ability to fight).
Unless that smaller person has a pistol. Her pistol means I am just as likely to be dead at the end as she is, since I can kill her (with or without a gun), and she can kill me with a gun (but not without one).
All other things being equal of course. When all is said and done, a gun is a weapon that removes the need to be large and muscular in a fight, and replaces the muscles with a chemical explosive. Sort of like a car removes the need to be able to run 100 miles nonstop, since the engine works just as well for an anemic nebbish as for a marathoner.
Standard reply to this idiocy: and the wolves are armed as well. What does the sheep do now? I always find it ludicrous that in this example, only the sheep are armed with guns.
The sheep shoots one wolf, is killed by the other, and the surviving wolf eats a somewhat larger, though lonelier dinner. That's one theory.
Another is that the two wolves look at the sheep's guns, and say simultaneously "you go first" to the other...
Or don't you believe in deterrent effects? Trust me, it takes a lot to convince people to start something when it's not clear just who all is going to be dying at the end.
So go for the write-in option. Write yourself in if you can't think of anyone else but at least let them know you don't approve of any of the candidates. If you don't vote at all they'll just assume you don't care and that is not what democracy's about. Everyone's voice should be heard, even if all you want to say is 'none of the above'.
I wouldn't trust myself with the power of the Presidency.
I'm also not into Quixotic gestures. Write-ins qualify.
They can assume whatever they like about me, frankly. I'm not terribly concerned with the opinions of politicos. Or much of anyone else, really.
That said, my voice will be heard as well as anyone's else (not much, really). Not voting is semantically identical with "none of the above" on the ballot, even if there were such an option. Now, if "none of the above" could actually win (and the office go unfilled for an election cycle if the majority voted "none of the above"), then I'd go down the street and vote within minutes of the polls opening.
Alas, voting "none of the above" won't actually get "none of the above" elected, so I'll stay home tomorrow.
Well, it usually works in a way that you stay registered at your parents' address until you settle for good.
I'm sure that'll help my grown children deal with the issue. Doesn't apply to me. I've moved around all my life, childhood and adulthood. I still find the idea of having to tell the government I've moved strange.
So vote for a third party. It's not throwing your vote away if you weren't going to vote for either of the two major parties anyway and who knows? It might actually make a difference.
Perhaps I erred in not specifying my objections to the candidates other than McCain and Obama.
To summarize, the so-called third-Parties are all too far from "mainstream" for me to categorically approve of any of them. I am not Green enough to deal with the patent lunacies of that Party. I am not Libertarian enough to deal with the idiocies of that Party. Likewise all the other "third Parties".
If the die-offs of amphibians like salamanders and frogs indicate trouble ahead for mammals, as a mammal I feel it's important to pay attention to what's going on.
Quite right.
So, the key question then becomes "does the die-off of amphibians indicate trouble ahead for mammals?"
Get back with me when you have some evidence one way or another. Until then, I won't concern myself with the notion that I should interfere with evolution unnecessarily.
The federal government really isn't the appropriate place to deal with any kind of primary educational policy.
It's called investing in our workforce to remain competitive in a global economy. I realize long-term planning isn't the Republican's forte; sorry we see things differently.
In the USA, it's called a State/local issue, not a federal one. Sorry, the Constitution doesn't include an education mandate. And the Bill of Rights specifically says that if it's not granted to the Feds by the Constitution, it's not their business.
Note that I am quite well aware that the Federal government has been violating that part of the Constitution (sometimes with good reasons, sometimes without) for two centuries. Nonetheless, what remains of my idealism insists that education isn't a federal issue, till such time as we get an amendment saying it is.
Personally, I think your opinion doesn't count whether you vote or not. But this will the first Presidential Race I've not voted in since I was old enough to vote (which happened longer ago than many of you have lived). I object to McCain's attack on the First Amendment to such an extent that I can't vote for him, and I have seen no good reason to vote for (and more than a few to vote against) Obama (he's not Bush isn't a reason to vote for him. Neither is "hope" or "change".).
* you're not entitled to complain
Alas, the First Amendment entitles me to complain about anything I damn well please. So I will, no matter who is elected.
* you'll have several years to regret it
I'll be regretting it for years no matter who wins, I think. I can only hope there's a decent candidate next time.
Oh the other hand again, having an offical address in a database can (not saying it always does) also help prevent fraud/identity-crime, and make moving easier. For instance phone companies will only send new SIM-cards to my registered address. Tax-returns and study loan can only be paid out to my registered accounts. And when you move, quite a few "important" databases (banks/etc) is automatically updated. As stated elsewhere, they know a lot about you anyway, so might just as well admit it, and make it easier for everyone...
I don't hide my address. I just don't bother notifying people of it unless I have a good reason to. And that doesn't include letting someone know I've moved, unless I want to receive mail from them (the postal service is nominally private here, by the way).
As to your specific points...
SIM cards - I don't bother. When I need a new phone, I go to the cellphone office and get one, without telling them anything other than my name. They can look me up by name without knowing or caring where I live, so long as I pay the bills. Online, so my address doesn't matter much.
Tax returns get direct-deposited to my account. When I get one, which isn't more than half the time. I try to avoid giving the government no-interest loans. But they don't need to know my address to send me my refund. Any more than my bank needs to know where I live. Not like I don't get my banking information online, which I can do from anywhere. And no, I don't change banks just because I move. Why should I?
So, the banks update my new address when I move, eh? I wonder how, since I've moved five or six times since I opened my account at my current bank, without ever telling them that I've moved, much less to where I've moved.
As I said, I understand that the government can find me if they want me. But I still find it odd that I'd have to essentially ask their permission to move. Or notify them when I did so.
Or even that I'd have to notify any private companies that I'd moved, for that matter. Only reason I could think of that I'd want to bother doing that is if they mailed me things I wanted to see. And most of that sort of thing I can get online. Yes, mailorder needs an address to mail to. Which doesn't actually imply that they know or care where I lived before, or where I'll live next.
However, I think you're still pretty naiive if you think you don't notify anyone?
Had to transfer your internet connection?
Transfer it? No. Just get a new one. Yeah, whichever ISP we pay knows where we are. Course, they don't know (or care) where we came from, or where we go, so long as we pay the bills before we leave. Or after we leave. We pay online, so they don't have to know where we are when we pay.
Note that we have a domain of our own, so we don't need to change anything for our email and such, just for the connection. And if I wanted to go down to Starbucks to get on the net, I'd not even have to bother with that much of a trail.
Phone service?
My cellphone service works pretty much anywhere, and doesn't need to be transferred when I move. It hasn't, in fact, been transferred during my last five moves. And I pay the bills online, so they neither know nor care where I live.
Television?
I assume you mean cable? When we bother with cable, we have to tell the cable company where we live. They neither know nor care where we lived before, or will live next. Most of the time, we don't bother with cable, since we don't watch TV, so no.
Health insurance?
Comes through employer, so the old company neither knows nor cares where we live, and the new one doesn't know or care where we used to live, or will live next time.
BLOCKQUOTE>And for the government:
Driver's license
I have to get a new DL if I live somewhere a year. Theoretically. In practice, I have to get a new one when the old one expires, which may be five years down the line.
Taxes
Federal taxes and State taxes are handled through the employer - he notifies the government that I'm working for him. I don't. And while my address is part of my tax information, it's not terribly relevant - not like they're sending me a notice of taxes due or anything. I use tax software, so I don't even care whether they know where to send me a copy of the 1040 forms.
Local taxes are usually Sales taxes, which I pay at the till, so they neither know nor care where I live, have lived, or will live.
Note that I understand that the government knows where to find me if they really want me. But the notion of having to let them know when or where I'm moving is a bit bizarre. The closest I've ever come to that in all my life is leaving a forwarding address when I move. And I don't even have to do that anymore, since the people I care to get mail from know where to send it, and my bills are paid online, so I don't have to (and don't) get bills in the mail.
Slashdot Mirror
And people are whinging about it as we speak. It's just a matter of time before someone decides we must "think of the children" or some such rot, and make it illegal.
Of course, if this happens, someone will start whinging about all the food we're not growing because of that evil biodiesel being more profitable than corn.
Followed quickly by laws making it illegal to grow the stuff, so as to allow us to concentrate on growing food....
Let's see. We change the laws to allow one group who formerly couldn't marry to do so, but forbid another group who can't marry from doing so. Sounds like a textbook definition of discrimination to me.
It's a contract. Animals and inanimate objects neither need nor are able to sign contracts.
Children are protected, yes. They also cannot, in general, sign contracts. Except whatever they have to sign to get an abortion, of course. But...
It's not actually against the law for a child of 16 to marry in most places. Requires parental consent, of course. But abortions used to require parental consent too. It would be very easy to justify changes to marriage laws allowing marriage to occur freely with anyone above the age of consent (mostly 16, sometimes 15), especially if those idiotic exceptions for "statutory rape" were removed (note that saying that it is good, right and moral for a 16 year old to bed a 16 year old whose birthday is tomorrow, but it's an immoral, evil act for the same person to bed someone who turned 17 yesterday is silly, at best).
The best argument against allowing child marriage would actually be contract law. Of course, we've inserted that exception for abortions. That exception won't get narrower with time, it'll widen.
Note also that heterosexuality is as irrelevant to marriage as homosexuality. Or did you skip the part in my previous where I said that sex was irrelevant to marriage. Get over the notion that marriage is required to screw, or even to legitimize screwing. Screw whomever, or whatever, you'd like, as long as you don't do it in public and frighten the horses.
No, the only real reason is because it serves no public good to allow it. If current laws allowed it, then opposing it would be because you don't like homosexuality. Since current laws don't allow it, then there really needs to be some social benefit to changing the laws for it to be worth the bother. And I can't see one. If you can see one (qualifier: that doesn't involve some irrelevancy like sex,love, kids), then feel free to point it out.
Note, by the way, that with the current social mores, if there were no marriage laws in place, there'd be no reason to bother to create them, since they'd serve no useful public good. Marriage laws were created under different social mores, and served (at the time) a useful purpose. They no longer do so, and I'd be as inclined to remove existing marriage laws as to extend them.
If I were inclined to change laws for no reason at all. Which I'm not.
Yep. I know som
I doubt many Americans know, nor do many care. Oddly enough, I do know that, but only because my wife's family used to summer in Canada.
If HillaryCare had been done like the Canadian system, we might have been able to have a rational debate on the subject. As was, the way it was designed (both from the POV of the result of the design and the process of the design) left a bad taste in so many people's mouths that even the guys in favour of socialized medicine couldn't stomach it.
Note, for the record, that I am in favour of socialized medicine on even-numbered days, and opposed on odd-numbered days. I can see the benefits to both sides of the argument, and the problems with both sides of the argument, and will argue either side depending on the mood of the moment.
I agree it wasn't so obvious.
It was much easier to ignore when they weren't running campaign commercials for two stinking years.
Note that people who weren't already in an office they could abuse for free publicity don't get to take advantage of this sort of thing. Obama is an example - his office for the last couple years has been to be a Senator that everyone ignores (being junior and a reliable Party-line vote means that the Senate leadership can safely ignore you completely). Which is why he started running overtly so early.
Still sucks that the pattern has now been set to start elections two+ years early.
Also sucks for all those people who approve of government financed elections that Obama is likely to win this one, and he's the first guy to forego public financing.
Want to bet that next time both Parties skip the public financing in favour of the big bucks?
1) Marriage is a contract. Between two people, pretty much by definition. Though there is no intrinsic requirement that it be limited to two people other than the (currently) discriminating laws on the subject.
2) Marriage is within the proper sphere of interest of government. That is, government may (or may not) have an interest in promoting or discouraging the activity. The reasons that government may promote or discourage marriage (or any other activity) depend entirely on the objectives of the lawmakers.
3) Marriage has nothing whatsoever to do with sex, children, love, or much of anything else other than certain economic realities. Contrary to popular romour. Fact is, I'm not required to marry the person I love, or love the person I marry. Nor am I required to have children with the person I marry, or refrain from doing so with others. And sex doesn't even enter into the issue anymore.
4) Current marriage laws in the USA and other countries are NOT discriminatory. They apply equally to all people. Any unmarried man may marry any unmarried woman. And vice versa. Since love is not relevant to the subject, the question of whether the man and woman are "in love" is irrelevant to the question or whether marriage is discriminatory.
Note that if we were to remove "discrimination" from marriage, we'd have to allow polygamy. And if "love" were relevant to marriage, then we'd be pretty much required to approve of marriages between adults and children or children and children (ask any 13 year old if they're in "love" with their current bf/gf if you doubt me).
Now, as to the economic elements of marriage. Certainly, there are some economic factors that are relevant issues that suggest the desirability of gay marriage (and of polygamy, by the by - Mormons take note). But, fact is, most of the economic issues are self-inflicted by a government trying to "help" us. HIPA, for instance. Or the income tax progression for married couples (note that the latter was intended to deal with the extra costs associated with raising children, which the government has an economic interest in - more children means a new generation of taxpayers, after all).
On balance, I can't see a good reason to allow gay marriage. On the other hand, I can't see a good reason to forbid it, either. So I guess I have to come down on the status quo ante side of the argument - leave it as is, and stop trying to change society to no great purpose. Save the effort for something that matters, because this isn't it.
You are perhaps unaware that those life expectancy numbers are from birth. Someone who reaches 70 isn't actually expected to drop dead around 75, he's expected to make 85 or 90.
Harder to find figures for someone who is already 70+, of course. Best number I could find is that a man in the USA, aged 70-74, could expect to live an average of 18 more years.
Trust me, most Americans have no more interest in two-year campaigns than you do.
Alas, since Clinton and Obama decided to start two years before election this time, it'll happen earlier next time, as all the hypothetical candidates decide that the reason Obama got the nomination was that he started working on name recognition really early.
I'm expecting the next campaign to start by the end of 2009. And again in 2013, right after Inauguration. By 2016, the new campaign will start the day after the election.
This assuming that Obama doesn't start campaigning for election/reelection (depending on whether he loses/wins today) tomorrow. Which I about half expect.
The other half of me thinks Hillary will start campaigning tomorrow, no matter whether Obama wins or loses.
Perhaps you should look at the details of the Clinton healthcare proposals for reasons to oppose it. Micromanagement of healthcare at a Federal level is not the key to socialized medicine.
Come to that, micromanagement of anything is not a key to success.
I annoy my wife greatly by using her sewing shears. Better quality than your average pair of scissors, and worth every penny of it.
A pair of scissors works just fine. Or do you not have those either? If the latter, you're the first person I've ever met who owns box-cutters but not scissors....
It's not as hard as rumour would have it, really. A person is a pretty big target from five feet. And taking a gun from someone isn't as easy as you might think. It can be done, but bet on the gun going off once or twice in the process. And the taker is more likely to be in front of the hole than not when that happens.
No. Baseball bats and knives take more training to use effectively than guns, frankly. And depend rather strongly on the muscle power of the wielder. Which guns don't. My mother-in-law is in her 80's, and can still shoot just fine. But I doubt she could even lift a regulation baseball bat anymore.
No. It's an equalizer. It removes the need to be large and powerful in order to win a fight. All things being equal, the bigger, stronger guy will win any fight. Unless either or both people have a gun in hand. I'm larger than most (and no, it's not all fat, or even mostly fat). But my mother-in-law (to use as an example, since she's less than five feet tall and in her 80's) can shoot someone as big as me dead with her revolver. Yeah, being trained makes a difference in a fight. A huge one. But a gun, which removes the need for strength and size, makes a tremendous equalizer, since it makes irrelevant one of the biggest inequalities in any fight.
Clue-stick: being six foot plus means I have an automatic advantage in a fistfight with anyone of "average" size - I can outreach them. Doesn't imply that there aren't normal sized guys (or even extremely short ones) that are stronger than me, or better fighters (given that I haven't been in a fistfight in considerably more than 30 years, it's not even unlikely). But it's an advantage that they can't overcome, they can just compensate for.
Unless they have a gun. A gun doesn't care how long your opponent's arms are, any more than it cares how much your opponent can benchpress.
Yes, the hypothetical bad guy could preemptively shoot you. But the data tends to show that your average criminal is less inclined to just start shooting than might be supposed by the ignorant. Especially since armed robbery gets you hard time, but murder gets you the chair in a lot of places....
They had enough of a majority to put a bill before the President if they'd cared to do it. Yeah, it would have been vetoed, but it would have established the moral high ground. If they'd had any moral high ground.
It is, really. Don't insist that something is a crime against humanity, then passively go along with it without even raising a protest vote.
Noting, of course, that before WW2, when two countries were on the brink of war, they used diplomacy, then went ahead and had their war.
Unless one of the countries was much more powerful than the other, in which case the smaller country bent over and took what was coming to it.
Historically, diplomacy hasn't actually worked all that well unless it was clear that not doing things diplomatically would get you killed.
Yes, actually it does. I'm quite large. Bigger than most men, much less most women. I am less likely to be seriously injured in a fight with someone much smaller than me than the little guy/girl is to be injured in a fight with me (discounting, for the sake of argument, the effects of my chemotherapy on my ability to fight).
Unless that smaller person has a pistol. Her pistol means I am just as likely to be dead at the end as she is, since I can kill her (with or without a gun), and she can kill me with a gun (but not without one).
All other things being equal of course. When all is said and done, a gun is a weapon that removes the need to be large and muscular in a fight, and replaces the muscles with a chemical explosive. Sort of like a car removes the need to be able to run 100 miles nonstop, since the engine works just as well for an anemic nebbish as for a marathoner.
The sheep shoots one wolf, is killed by the other, and the surviving wolf eats a somewhat larger, though lonelier dinner. That's one theory.
Another is that the two wolves look at the sheep's guns, and say simultaneously "you go first" to the other...
Or don't you believe in deterrent effects? Trust me, it takes a lot to convince people to start something when it's not clear just who all is going to be dying at the end.
The highlighted word pretty much proves that you are correct that the school system has failed in your case. Further deponent sayeth not.
I'm sure that'll help my grown children deal with the issue. Doesn't apply to me. I've moved around all my life, childhood and adulthood. I still find the idea of having to tell the government I've moved strange.
Perhaps I erred in not specifying my objections to the candidates other than McCain and Obama.
To summarize, the so-called third-Parties are all too far from "mainstream" for me to categorically approve of any of them. I am not Green enough to deal with the patent lunacies of that Party. I am not Libertarian enough to deal with the idiocies of that Party. Likewise all the other "third Parties".
Quite right.
So, the key question then becomes "does the die-off of amphibians indicate trouble ahead for mammals?"
Get back with me when you have some evidence one way or another. Until then, I won't concern myself with the notion that I should interfere with evolution unnecessarily.
In the USA, it's called a State/local issue, not a federal one. Sorry, the Constitution doesn't include an education mandate. And the Bill of Rights specifically says that if it's not granted to the Feds by the Constitution, it's not their business.
Note that I am quite well aware that the Federal government has been violating that part of the Constitution (sometimes with good reasons, sometimes without) for two centuries. Nonetheless, what remains of my idealism insists that education isn't a federal issue, till such time as we get an amendment saying it is.
I don't hide my address. I just don't bother notifying people of it unless I have a good reason to. And that doesn't include letting someone know I've moved, unless I want to receive mail from them (the postal service is nominally private here, by the way).
As to your specific points...
SIM cards - I don't bother. When I need a new phone, I go to the cellphone office and get one, without telling them anything other than my name. They can look me up by name without knowing or caring where I live, so long as I pay the bills. Online, so my address doesn't matter much.
Tax returns get direct-deposited to my account. When I get one, which isn't more than half the time. I try to avoid giving the government no-interest loans. But they don't need to know my address to send me my refund. Any more than my bank needs to know where I live. Not like I don't get my banking information online, which I can do from anywhere. And no, I don't change banks just because I move. Why should I?
So, the banks update my new address when I move, eh? I wonder how, since I've moved five or six times since I opened my account at my current bank, without ever telling them that I've moved, much less to where I've moved.
As I said, I understand that the government can find me if they want me. But I still find it odd that I'd have to essentially ask their permission to move. Or notify them when I did so.
Or even that I'd have to notify any private companies that I'd moved, for that matter. Only reason I could think of that I'd want to bother doing that is if they mailed me things I wanted to see. And most of that sort of thing I can get online. Yes, mailorder needs an address to mail to. Which doesn't actually imply that they know or care where I lived before, or where I'll live next.
Transfer it? No. Just get a new one. Yeah, whichever ISP we pay knows where we are. Course, they don't know (or care) where we came from, or where we go, so long as we pay the bills before we leave. Or after we leave. We pay online, so they don't have to know where we are when we pay.
Note that we have a domain of our own, so we don't need to change anything for our email and such, just for the connection. And if I wanted to go down to Starbucks to get on the net, I'd not even have to bother with that much of a trail.
My cellphone service works pretty much anywhere, and doesn't need to be transferred when I move. It hasn't, in fact, been transferred during my last five moves. And I pay the bills online, so they neither know nor care where I live.
I assume you mean cable? When we bother with cable, we have to tell the cable company where we live. They neither know nor care where we lived before, or will live next. Most of the time, we don't bother with cable, since we don't watch TV, so no.
Comes through employer, so the old company neither knows nor cares where we live, and the new one doesn't know or care where we used to live, or will live next time.
BLOCKQUOTE>And for the government:
Driver's license
I have to get a new DL if I live somewhere a year. Theoretically. In practice, I have to get a new one when the old one expires, which may be five years down the line.
Federal taxes and State taxes are handled through the employer - he notifies the government that I'm working for him. I don't. And while my address is part of my tax information, it's not terribly relevant - not like they're sending me a notice of taxes due or anything. I use tax software, so I don't even care whether they know where to send me a copy of the 1040 forms.
Local taxes are usually Sales taxes, which I pay at the till, so they neither know nor care where I live, have lived, or will live.
Note that I understand that the government knows where to find me if they really want me. But the notion of having to let them know when or where I'm moving is a bit bizarre. The closest I've ever come to that in all my life is leaving a forwarding address when I move. And I don't even have to do that anymore, since the people I care to get mail from know where to send it, and my bills are paid online, so I don't have to (and don't) get bills in the mail.