Have you ever wondered what percentage of those 10000+ Iraqi Civilians were pregnant women- who thus along with their own lives had war-caused ABORTIONS?
For those who seem to limit pro-life views to the womb, it's that sort of point that we have to make. Same with medical care for the poor- every time you reduce medical care for the poor, you cause another family to be forced into the "choice" between a $6000 birth and a $400 abortion...
A huge part of the problem here is the over taxing of the American family. I am somewhere around the 80th percentile of income earners in the US, my nicome would easily support my family if I did not have to pay so much of it in taxes. Even with that I make due and with my wife pregnant and thinking of leaving her job I know we will get by but it will be hard.
Absolutely agreed, but there's another strategy for taxation available; tax corporate income rather than individual income. Don't tax payrolls at all- and you will have eliminated the effects of taxation on that 80% of US families. However, neither the Republicans or Democrats are likely to do this one anytime soon; I don't know of any candidate who is willing to make corporations into second class citizens when compared to human beings.
How do you grant a mother economic protection?
You've already given one way- grant special taxation rules for family income in comparison to income used for other things. A second suggestion that has come forth in recent years is to create localized public daycare for the infant-to-preschool age groups, and hire any woman who has not enough income to raise her child as a daycare provider. There are many possible plans- but all would require giving up corporate profits to do this.
So you want to see us pay people *not* to have abortions? And this will greatly increase the tax burden, thus making it more impossible for a family to be single earner.
Not if the taxes to pay for it come from some other income other than payroll taxes and individual sole proprietor income. The grand majority of income generation in this country is from limited liability corporations, the very groups that encourage materialism over maternalism. Why not take the money away from them to help restore the balance? They'll get some of it back anyway in increased sales to single-income families and single mothers who would otherwise be on wellfare.
However, my whole point is this- we should be thinking of ways OTHER than legal to attack abortion. The Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus way back in 1982 said that Charity was our biggest weapon against Abortion- I see NO reason not to do this on a national scale.
Theoretically, zygotes can spend years "living" in the freezer, only to be unthawed, implanted (not even necessarily back into the same womb), and grow into fully functioning adults- so the "living on its own" test is an outdated concept to say the least.
Biologically, life begins at conception- just ask any biologist. Whether that life is deserving of legal protection is left to the lawyers.
Surely you're not comparing the execution of criminals to the execution of helpless children.
A human life is a human life- regardless of who the human being is. One cannot be for the sanctity of human life and be for the death penalty in cases where life imprisonment with modern technology would do equally well.
What about the comparison between the life of a rich oil man and the life of a retarded man who has committed murder? To me, that's also the same comparison- but not to Bush.
I do agree that Bush mostly pays lip service to the abortion issue, but he will pick judges that will base their decisions on the Constitution and not just pull rights out of their nether regions with vaguely-worded justifications that barely conceal the fact that they are merely establishing these so-called rights by fiat.
If previous conservative picks to the judiciary are any indication (especially Scalia) the only basis for their decision is who offers the best vacations, and does my family have any stock in their company.
An estate tax is fair because allowing anybody to gain more than 10x anybody else to begin with is inherrantly UNFAIR, at least according to Plato's Republic. Nobody gets so rich that they leave behind a $10 million estate without taking advantage of their fellow citizens and their government in some small way. Thus, society needs a payback at the end. It also prevents the real evil- idle rich children making a mess of the world with their parent's money.
Personally, I think we'd be better off without a death tax, but replace it with a cap on yearly income instead. Go ahead and take away the 45% taxes at the time of death; but replace it with a 100% tax bracket that kicks in on any money made over 10x minimum wage (about $235,000/year, currently, but to do it right it needs to be indexed to minimum wage). Better yet, let's give a tip of the hat to the myth of individualism- if you qualify for this tax bracket, not only should you get a refund for any taxes paid on the first $235,000, but you should also be able to raise the limit by paying money out as payroll (which redistributes the money to your employees) or charity (which redestributes the money to the needy) instead of redistributing the money to a corrupt and ineffectual government that thinks that spending $500,000 to create a single $20,000/year job is a good use of government borrowing power.
There are 4,000 abortions a day in the US, I would like to see some statisitc that in 1960 there were that many abortions a day (1.5 Million a year)
Well, maybe not 1.5 million a year- but certainly above 1 million a year. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193727.html This article suggests that the teen pregnancy rate in general has fallen since the early 1960s- and the abortion rate more so- but that was before the Bush Admin's fiscal policies induced the jump in the abortion rate that you reference (Clinton had it down to 1.3 million/year- but then again, he didn't have the tax-break-induced recession to deal with, and when the cost of a live birth pushes $2000 even with insurance vs $400 for an abortion, it's easy to see where those who worship money will be going- to the abortionist rather than the delivery room).
Abortion is 100% about when human life begins, there can be debate on that issue, anything else is a smokescreen.
Among thinking individuals, there is no debate left on that issue- LIFE begins at conception, it's a biological fact that can't be disputed. Legal personhood begins at birth, but that's only because the US Constitution has yet to be amended to fit with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which in Article 2 says you can't use birth to discriminate against human beings (among other things that people commonly discriminate on).
But you are 100% right about Bush being ineffectual when it comes to abortion. The republican and the democrats both abuse this and other issues for no other reasns than getting votes..
Depending on your source, someplace between 12% and 21% of abortions could be avoided simply by making birth and motherhood have the same econimic impact as abortion and career upon the family. In 1948, a Democratic First Lady stepped forward in the United Nations to dare suggest that pregnancy and motherhood be granted equal economic protection to work- and it got written into the Declaration of Human Rights. I want to see a pro-life candidate who is willing to make that a reality- to give up some corporate profits to reduce abortion. Until I see that, I will never again vote on pro-life issues alone.
Actually, Larry Flynt of Penthouse fame researched it in an article he was doing in 2000 about hypocritical politicians. The same article included a story about Al Gore dumping toxic waste into the Tenassee River (since the environment was Gore's big thing). The story has been confirmed since then; but it pales in comparison to what else W was doing in 1970, so it rarely makes the news.
Doesn't Kerry support a "Family Farm" loophole for the death tax? Of course, I'm in an area of the country where a family farm rarely exceeds 100 acres and $900,000 in value, and so family farms haven't been swallowed up as quickly by agribusinesses here.
However, having said that- there's something I could support Bush on if I was convinced that he'd do anything about it properly (that is, relieve the family farmer without putting in a giant loophole to allow all his friends to continue to hoard liquidity for multiple generations).
I have alcoholics in my family- the one surprising thing in that article is that Bush was seen with a Beer. I'm sure most Bush supporters would simply say "So What?", but to me, a single drink is enough for an alcoholic personality to destroy his life, his business, and take as many people down with him as possible. It's not possible for an alcholic to have "just one" drink. My grandfather, a 12-beer-an-hour drunk, was always on drink #2- he could see the one he was drinking and the empty in front of him, but had no memory beyond that.
Funny- that's the reason I decided that Bush wouldn't get my vote- because everything he's done on both issues has been nothing but slight of hand showboating.
First- Bush personally isn't anti-abortion, he even paid for one for his girlfriend back in 1970. He's using that as an issue to get religious people to vote for him- and he throws them bones, like the Partial Birth Abortion Bill which got destroyed by the courts, and reducing funding for sex ed programs that include abortion and birth control as options (thereby insuring that no abortionist will EVER run out of patients). He's done absolutely NOTHING to help change the society to a point where the choice of life is the only logical choice in every situation- which is what we'll need to reduce abortion (merely making it illegal will only return us to the 1960s, which had exactly the same abortion rate as today but a far higher death toll from the procedure for the mothers).
The second- Kerry rightly points out that there's no need to worry about widescale destruction of embryos for stem cell research because FETAL stem cells are a scientific dead end; all we can learn from fetal stem cells is how to get adult stem cells to change their programmed tissue types. Mitochondrial DNA Rejection will likely always prevent embryonic stem cells to be a source of spare parts for adults. So once again, Bush has pulled a fast one- by limiting to 43 lines for FEDERAL research, he's done NOTHING to stop the PRIVATE research, and he gets to showboat it for people who wouldn't vote for him otherwise.
So if these are the two reasons you're voting for Bush, may I suggest Peroutka instead? He's WAY more in line with your thinking- heck, Kerry's private thoughts on both matters are more in line with your beliefs anyway (Kerry has publically stated that no family member of his will EVER have a medically unneccessary abortion- and that life begins at conception).
The interesting thing about the pre-existing partisanship comes out in the editorial- where they go through every single instance of supporting the President going back to the 2000 campaign, and exactly how he failed in EVERY instance. In addition, I found the section on what his real campaign promises should have been to be quite interesting- and they're right, nobody would have voted for what he actually accomplished.
Talk about failing your drug test! Between the alcohol, caffine, and whatever that THC-like ingredient is in the Twinkies- you wouldn't be able to apply for a secure job for a year!
Seems that what the article is saying is that poor programming comes from a lack of business process analysis and programmers talking to customers directly.
Which describes Microsoft completely...and to a lesser extent, any given offshore outsourcing company.
He will be remembered for being stupid enough to sink one of our first Mercury capsules. He was the clown of the bunch, at least according to the book The Right Stuff. Nearly drowned himself in that accident too- not only did he fail to get the capsule right side up after splashdown before he blew the hatch- in his effort to escape the sinking capsule he failed to close the air hose valves on his suit, which promptly filled with water. It was only good luck that saved him- the rescue helicopter was already overhead.
No- but NCLB didn't help on funding, it hurt- it costs extra to do that testing and ended up closing schools early. Federal mandates are usually a burden to local school boards, not a help.
But the point is- teacher salary doesn't come out of federal funds ANYWHERE- it comes out of local taxes. NOTHING in the federal mandates even requires states to license teachers.
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Have you ever wondered what percentage of those 10000+ Iraqi Civilians were pregnant women- who thus along with their own lives had war-caused ABORTIONS?
For those who seem to limit pro-life views to the womb, it's that sort of point that we have to make. Same with medical care for the poor- every time you reduce medical care for the poor, you cause another family to be forced into the "choice" between a $6000 birth and a $400 abortion...
A huge part of the problem here is the over taxing of the American family. I am somewhere around the 80th percentile of income earners in the US, my nicome would easily support my family if I did not have to pay so much of it in taxes. Even with that I make due and with my wife pregnant and thinking of leaving her job I know we will get by but it will be hard.
Absolutely agreed, but there's another strategy for taxation available; tax corporate income rather than individual income. Don't tax payrolls at all- and you will have eliminated the effects of taxation on that 80% of US families. However, neither the Republicans or Democrats are likely to do this one anytime soon; I don't know of any candidate who is willing to make corporations into second class citizens when compared to human beings.
How do you grant a mother economic protection?
You've already given one way- grant special taxation rules for family income in comparison to income used for other things. A second suggestion that has come forth in recent years is to create localized public daycare for the infant-to-preschool age groups, and hire any woman who has not enough income to raise her child as a daycare provider. There are many possible plans- but all would require giving up corporate profits to do this.
So you want to see us pay people *not* to have abortions? And this will greatly increase the tax burden, thus making it more impossible for a family to be single earner.
Not if the taxes to pay for it come from some other income other than payroll taxes and individual sole proprietor income. The grand majority of income generation in this country is from limited liability corporations, the very groups that encourage materialism over maternalism. Why not take the money away from them to help restore the balance? They'll get some of it back anyway in increased sales to single-income families and single mothers who would otherwise be on wellfare.
However, my whole point is this- we should be thinking of ways OTHER than legal to attack abortion. The Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus way back in 1982 said that Charity was our biggest weapon against Abortion- I see NO reason not to do this on a national scale.
Theoretically, zygotes can spend years "living" in the freezer, only to be unthawed, implanted (not even necessarily back into the same womb), and grow into fully functioning adults- so the "living on its own" test is an outdated concept to say the least.
Biologically, life begins at conception- just ask any biologist. Whether that life is deserving of legal protection is left to the lawyers.
Surely you're not comparing the execution of criminals to the execution of helpless children.
A human life is a human life- regardless of who the human being is. One cannot be for the sanctity of human life and be for the death penalty in cases where life imprisonment with modern technology would do equally well.
What about the comparison between the life of a rich oil man and the life of a retarded man who has committed murder? To me, that's also the same comparison- but not to Bush.
Heck, if Taco's Journal Entry on the percentage of articles getting posted is accurate- you should submit the Lowell Sun editorial 25 times.
That doesn't change with a vote for Kerry though- just whether the Federal Government should handle the matter or the states is the only difference.
I do agree that Bush mostly pays lip service to the abortion issue, but he will pick judges that will base their decisions on the Constitution and not just pull rights out of their nether regions with vaguely-worded justifications that barely conceal the fact that they are merely establishing these so-called rights by fiat.
If previous conservative picks to the judiciary are any indication (especially Scalia) the only basis for their decision is who offers the best vacations, and does my family have any stock in their company.
An estate tax is fair because allowing anybody to gain more than 10x anybody else to begin with is inherrantly UNFAIR, at least according to Plato's Republic. Nobody gets so rich that they leave behind a $10 million estate without taking advantage of their fellow citizens and their government in some small way. Thus, society needs a payback at the end. It also prevents the real evil- idle rich children making a mess of the world with their parent's money.
Personally, I think we'd be better off without a death tax, but replace it with a cap on yearly income instead. Go ahead and take away the 45% taxes at the time of death; but replace it with a 100% tax bracket that kicks in on any money made over 10x minimum wage (about $235,000/year, currently, but to do it right it needs to be indexed to minimum wage). Better yet, let's give a tip of the hat to the myth of individualism- if you qualify for this tax bracket, not only should you get a refund for any taxes paid on the first $235,000, but you should also be able to raise the limit by paying money out as payroll (which redistributes the money to your employees) or charity (which redestributes the money to the needy) instead of redistributing the money to a corrupt and ineffectual government that thinks that spending $500,000 to create a single $20,000/year job is a good use of government borrowing power.
There are 4,000 abortions a day in the US, I would like to see some statisitc that in 1960 there were that many abortions a day (1.5 Million a year)
Well, maybe not 1.5 million a year- but certainly above 1 million a year. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193727.html This article suggests that the teen pregnancy rate in general has fallen since the early 1960s- and the abortion rate more so- but that was before the Bush Admin's fiscal policies induced the jump in the abortion rate that you reference (Clinton had it down to 1.3 million/year- but then again, he didn't have the tax-break-induced recession to deal with, and when the cost of a live birth pushes $2000 even with insurance vs $400 for an abortion, it's easy to see where those who worship money will be going- to the abortionist rather than the delivery room).
Abortion is 100% about when human life begins, there can be debate on that issue, anything else is a smokescreen.
Among thinking individuals, there is no debate left on that issue- LIFE begins at conception, it's a biological fact that can't be disputed. Legal personhood begins at birth, but that's only because the US Constitution has yet to be amended to fit with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which in Article 2 says you can't use birth to discriminate against human beings (among other things that people commonly discriminate on).
But you are 100% right about Bush being ineffectual when it comes to abortion. The republican and the democrats both abuse this and other issues for no other reasns than getting votes..
Depending on your source, someplace between 12% and 21% of abortions could be avoided simply by making birth and motherhood have the same econimic impact as abortion and career upon the family. In 1948, a Democratic First Lady stepped forward in the United Nations to dare suggest that pregnancy and motherhood be granted equal economic protection to work- and it got written into the Declaration of Human Rights. I want to see a pro-life candidate who is willing to make that a reality- to give up some corporate profits to reduce abortion. Until I see that, I will never again vote on pro-life issues alone.
Actually, Larry Flynt of Penthouse fame researched it in an article he was doing in 2000 about hypocritical politicians. The same article included a story about Al Gore dumping toxic waste into the Tenassee River (since the environment was Gore's big thing). The story has been confirmed since then; but it pales in comparison to what else W was doing in 1970, so it rarely makes the news.
Doesn't Kerry support a "Family Farm" loophole for the death tax? Of course, I'm in an area of the country where a family farm rarely exceeds 100 acres and $900,000 in value, and so family farms haven't been swallowed up as quickly by agribusinesses here.
However, having said that- there's something I could support Bush on if I was convinced that he'd do anything about it properly (that is, relieve the family farmer without putting in a giant loophole to allow all his friends to continue to hoard liquidity for multiple generations).
I have alcoholics in my family- the one surprising thing in that article is that Bush was seen with a Beer. I'm sure most Bush supporters would simply say "So What?", but to me, a single drink is enough for an alcoholic personality to destroy his life, his business, and take as many people down with him as possible. It's not possible for an alcholic to have "just one" drink. My grandfather, a 12-beer-an-hour drunk, was always on drink #2- he could see the one he was drinking and the empty in front of him, but had no memory beyond that.
Israeli Zionist ~!= Jewish. There are many other groups of Jews in the world OTHER than Israeli Zionists.
Funny- that's the reason I decided that Bush wouldn't get my vote- because everything he's done on both issues has been nothing but slight of hand showboating.
First- Bush personally isn't anti-abortion, he even paid for one for his girlfriend back in 1970. He's using that as an issue to get religious people to vote for him- and he throws them bones, like the Partial Birth Abortion Bill which got destroyed by the courts, and reducing funding for sex ed programs that include abortion and birth control as options (thereby insuring that no abortionist will EVER run out of patients). He's done absolutely NOTHING to help change the society to a point where the choice of life is the only logical choice in every situation- which is what we'll need to reduce abortion (merely making it illegal will only return us to the 1960s, which had exactly the same abortion rate as today but a far higher death toll from the procedure for the mothers).
The second- Kerry rightly points out that there's no need to worry about widescale destruction of embryos for stem cell research because FETAL stem cells are a scientific dead end; all we can learn from fetal stem cells is how to get adult stem cells to change their programmed tissue types. Mitochondrial DNA Rejection will likely always prevent embryonic stem cells to be a source of spare parts for adults. So once again, Bush has pulled a fast one- by limiting to 43 lines for FEDERAL research, he's done NOTHING to stop the PRIVATE research, and he gets to showboat it for people who wouldn't vote for him otherwise.
So if these are the two reasons you're voting for Bush, may I suggest Peroutka instead? He's WAY more in line with your thinking- heck, Kerry's private thoughts on both matters are more in line with your beliefs anyway (Kerry has publically stated that no family member of his will EVER have a medically unneccessary abortion- and that life begins at conception).
Can we please get some Bush voters commenting on this? Is there anything you LIKE in this president's record?
The interesting thing about the pre-existing partisanship comes out in the editorial- where they go through every single instance of supporting the President going back to the 2000 campaign, and exactly how he failed in EVERY instance. In addition, I found the section on what his real campaign promises should have been to be quite interesting- and they're right, nobody would have voted for what he actually accomplished.
Space Tourism still needs a space hotel, though, to be worthwhile.
I just like that one translation- Horrortrip caused by a defective Tempomat.....
Damn, you are right- got my G's mixed up. Gus not Gordon.....No pun intended.
Talk about failing your drug test! Between the alcohol, caffine, and whatever that THC-like ingredient is in the Twinkies- you wouldn't be able to apply for a secure job for a year!
Seems that what the article is saying is that poor programming comes from a lack of business process analysis and programmers talking to customers directly.
Which describes Microsoft completely...and to a lesser extent, any given offshore outsourcing company.
Seriously - how is this public information?
Your answer is right here:
and the FEC.
The FEC is a governmental agency and their records are public by the Freedom of Information Act.
He will be remembered for being stupid enough to sink one of our first Mercury capsules. He was the clown of the bunch, at least according to the book The Right Stuff. Nearly drowned himself in that accident too- not only did he fail to get the capsule right side up after splashdown before he blew the hatch- in his effort to escape the sinking capsule he failed to close the air hose valves on his suit, which promptly filled with water. It was only good luck that saved him- the rescue helicopter was already overhead.
No- but NCLB didn't help on funding, it hurt- it costs extra to do that testing and ended up closing schools early. Federal mandates are usually a burden to local school boards, not a help.
But the point is- teacher salary doesn't come out of federal funds ANYWHERE- it comes out of local taxes. NOTHING in the federal mandates even requires states to license teachers.