With oil reserves limited, attention is turning to other energy sources. Natural gas and Nuclear Power are the obvious choices.
Unfortunately, natural gas isn't infinite, and while it will last a while, its loss will be accelerated by oil substitution. In other words, it will peak not long after whenever oil peaks.
Nuclear power is contentious, difficult, and actually not in infinite supply. The world would consume all the nuclear power in a couple of decades; and there isn't any easy way to make its energy available for transportation.
Have you ever heard of fuel reprocessing? Have you ever heard of breeder reactors that use U-238? How about using thorium? Estimates are that we have anywhere from 10,000 to 5,000,000,000 years worth of nuclear fuel remaining with these technologies that are largely already available. If by "contentious" you mean "NIMBY" then I suppose people will have to consider whether or not they'd rather accept a lower standard of living or nuclear power. I choose the latter.
Geothermal, hydro and tidal power all have much promise, but many parts of the world have no access to any of these options.
Some people think that hydro power winds up dumping almost as much greenhouse gas into the air (mainly methane) as a coal plant does. Why? Decaying vegetation in the reservoirs. In any case hydro and tidal are hardly eco-free options (and we've already used most of our hydro resources in the West) and geothermal spots eventually go cold.
Energy is going to get more expensive. Transportable energy for cars, trucks and planes will be really difficult; and nobody is going to be flying around cheaply in 10 years time.
I liked the idea of the hydrogen economy for transportable energy and nuclear fission/fusion for the backend (i.e: the grid). Whether or not hydrogen would scale (odds are it works for a SUV -- will it work for a 747?) is another matter and outside my area of expertise.
In any case I don't see why nuclear isn't being seriously considered as an option. We know that renewables won't scale. We also know that nuclear technology works and properly used is safe.
The issue is whether we can sustain our usage at current levels indefinitely. The answer is of course, no.
Sure we can. It's called Nuclear Fission.
What would you rather deal with? An energy source that dumps massive amounts of CO2 and radioactivity into the atmosphere or an energy source that is carbon neutral and produces nuclear waste that can be reprocessed into more fuel and/or stored somewhere (i.e: it's not released into the atmosphere)?
There's no reason to accept a reduction in our standard of living and there's certainly no compelling reason to use coal over fission. We know that the waste can be reprocessed (the US just chooses not to), we know that the technology works and is safe. We also know that coal dumps massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Those are not counted because they are not valid votes -- you still have to file (at lease most places), even if you are running as a write-in. It is not a "I can vote for anybody" space.
That's not always the case and it depends on the elections law of your particular state. My county (in New York) tallies the "Donald Duck" votes in the official certified results. In fact the results are usually three or four pages across (in landscape) because each write-in person gets a column.
I've often amused myself by voting for unheard of people at the Board of Elections in uncontested races. Figure it will probably amuse them for a few minutes while they are canvassing the machines:)
Not unless you contacted the Secretary of State for your state, or whomever the highest elections official is and filed a certificate of electors pledged to you, whom would vote for you in the electoral college.
I'm trying to get people to understand that it's misaligned. You seem like you might understand it, with your talk of dependent people, but you're still avoiding it. You see the debate as being over personal choice, correct? You don't think that anyone should impose their opinions on you, and that they can't tell anyone what to do with their own bodies, correct? Well, the other side isn't trying to tell you what do do with your own body. They're trying to tell you not to kill other people. To them, abortion is indistinguishable from taking a sledgehammer to someone's skull. Your arguments of personal choice and autonomy are beyond meaningless to them.
And what part of my posts lead you to think that I don't understand where they are coming from? I understand that they don't view it as an issue of choice over ones own body. That's how I view it and I was expressing my own opinions. What part of the three different posts where I stated that I understand where they are coming from don't you understand? Why do you think the debate is misaligned? Because the pro-choice crowd doesn't see it as being about human life? Or because the pro-life crowd doesn't see it as being about bodily choice?
If you want to make any headway, you need to start arguing over the most basic disagreement: whether the fetus is part of the mother's body, or a separate person.
Who says my objective in my posts was to make headway? I was stating my own opinions. I would not even attempt to make headway with somebody that has based his or her views on religion. You and I can have a rational discussion about taxes or foreign policy. But the minute religion rears it's ugly head (think abortion or evolution/ID debate) all rational discussion goes out the window. All I can do is preach to the choir and do everything I can do to ensure that a woman's right to choose is protected. I can't win them over and I'm not going to waste my time trying.
Umm..We live in a nation of laws. Law IS imposes an opinion on you. If you steal a car, they try to catch you and send you to jail. They don't care if they are imposing on you or not, and rightly so. You missed the train.
The last time I checked stealing a car doesn't have anything to do with ones own body. But then again, you've added me to your foes list, so you probably aren't too willing to listen to the other side of the debate.
The issue is whether or not I can control my own body. If I accidentally swallow the keys to your car you don't have the right to cut them out of me. Yeah, that's a crappy analogy, but so was yours.
I'll reiterate: I don't care what you think about abortion. This discussion is not about abortion. It is about the abortion debate. You're still apparently not even trying to understand the fundamental disagreement between pro-abortionists and anti-abortionists
You are the one who doesn't understand. I've acknowledged that I understand where the pro-life crowd is coming from. I even stated that if I believed the fetus was a human being with a soul that I would probably be opposed to abortion as well. Why when I state the position of the pro-choice crowd can't you understand it? To our way of thinking the status of the fetus isn't relevant. It's about forcing somebody to do something with their body that they don't want to do.
You are the one who doesn't understand the debate and between that and your "pro-abortionist" comments I think that you are just a pro-life troll hoping to attract some sympathy. But granted, I don't have a four digit UIN, so I'm probably just trolling. Even though you are the one calling people stupid. And BTW, my UID is lower then yours:P
No, they view the debate as being over murder, just like you view the debate as being over personal choice. But that's not the basic difference between both sides - the basic difference is whether a fetus is a person, or part of a woman's body
I don't really care if it is a person or if it isn't. The woman's right to control her own body trumps whatever rights the fetus may or may not have. Just like my right to decide what to do with my own kidneys/bone marrow/blood trumps your right to a donation.
You're wrong. Pro-choice is a loaded term, and I'm not arguing it anymore.
I'm pro-choice. Not pro-abortion.
No. If you truly understood their mindset, you wouldn't say "if they don't believe in abortions then nobody is forcing them to get one."
I do understand their mindset. I just don't care. You are free to believe whatever you want. Believe that the fetus is a person, hell believe in the FSM for all I care. It's when you start forcing your opinions on me that I have a major problem and will fight you with every means at my disposal. That's why I'm pro-choice.
And again, you're failing to see both sides of the debate. Anti-abortionists see it exactly the same way. You're evil, believe in legal murders, and are trying to impose your opinions on the legal system so other people can kill their children. All they're trying to do, really, is defend life.
How many times do I have to say that I just don't care what they think? You are free to think whatever you want. Just don't force it on me.
I don't always advocate seeing an issue from both sides, because sometimes the other person is just wrong, but in the abortion debate you have to. There's no scientific evidence for either side, and that's a problem. You, instead of arguing about anti-abortionists stifling your personal choice, should be arguing about what a human is. You'll have a much higher chance of converting a person or two, and you'll be helping realign the rhetoric with the disagreement. Better yet, start studying neurology. Once consciousness is described scientifically, the debate will be over.
Consciousness is irrelevant to my position. It's about the right of the woman to control her own body. I don't care if the fetus is a fully sentient being or not. You can not force a woman to do something with her body that she does not want to do. That's the bottom line.
Perhaps some of the pro choice people would like to argue that, since newborns don't actually have much personality yet, or much of a soul, it is alright to kill them too.
Actually the pro-choice people aruge that the rights of the mother trump the rights of something completely dependant on her for survival. Again, how can you force somebody to do something with their own body that they don't want to?
I am always amazed at how many people who don't want innocent cows killed so humans can eat them are perfectly willing to let an innocent fetus be killed because someone finds it inconvenient. Selective compassion is great, isn't it?
Kinda like the pro-life crowd that supports the Iraq War and the death penalty you mean?
For the record, I love meat and I'm pro-choice, so there:P I don't see anything wrong with not eating meat as a lifestyle choice. I know a lot of people that don't eat meat because they think it's bad for them or they just don't like it. But the people who don't eat meat because "the animal suffers" don't know a lot about the food chain or nature.
There it is, your fundamental misunderstanding distilled to 5 words. The debate is not over personal choice. You view abortion as a personal choice, and anti-abortionists don't due to their differing opinions on the fetus (the real debate).
So you are telling me that the pro-life crowd views the debate as centering whether or not the fetus is deserving of protection and not whether or not the woman has a right to control her own body? I've never disagreed with this. I know why they think what they do. And I don't see the two positions as completely incompatible. You can believe that the fetus is alive/kicking/whatever you want without believing that the Government has the right to control what we can do with our bodies.
No, you don't understand what a loaded term is. A loaded term carries the debate with it. Pro-choice and pro-life are loaded terms because they imply that your opponents are anti-choice or anti-life. Anti-abortionist and pro-abortionist are terms describing the position without bias.
Bullshit. "Pro-abortionist" implies that I'm for abortions. Pro-choice implies that I'm for a woman's right to choose. That more accurately describes my opinion as I think I said before that I would not encourage somebody carrying my child to get an abortion, yet I still recognize that it is ultimately her choice.
I'm resisting the urge to curse at you in frustration. I'm aware that you don't think a fetus is a person. It was a thought experiment. The anti-abortion crowd sees the situation thus: "People are killing their children! I've gotta do something to save the poor kids!" Your response is "Well, nobody's forcing you to get an abortion." I was trying to get you to see from their perspective, so you'd understand why they're imposing their opinions on other people (even those anti-abortionists don't impose their opinions in other areas).
I know why they feel the way they do. How many times do I have to beat that into your skull? Why do you assume that I don't? The bottom line is that I really don't give a flying fuck why they feel the way that they do. To my way of thinking they don't have the right to impose their opinions on me or anybody else. I don't think they don't sincerely believe that the fetus is a person, equally deserving of protection under the law. I know they passionately believe that. But I don't give a damn! They can believe whatever they want until they start trying to impose it on other people. Then they've crossed the line.
And don't even get me started about the hypocrisy on that side of the debate. While the pro-choice side certainly has it's share of hypocrites, we aren't the ones advocating a "culture of life" whilst supporting the death penalty and starting wars. I guess all life is sacred, save that of a convicted criminal or enemy civilian, right?
You're an example not of people dodging the debate, but of people not even understanding the debate.
So because I disagree with them that means you presume that I don't understand them or the debate? I understand their POV quite well. If I bought the concept of a "soul" then I might even agree with them. But I don't agree with them and to my way of thinking it's irrelevant what they think the fetus is. This is about personal choice.
Pro-abortionists don't think it is.
Pro-abortionist? That's a loaded term. I'm pro-choice. I personally would not encourage a woman carrying my child to have an abortion. But I recognize her right to choose for herself. Being pro-choice isn't about being pro-abortion and now I'm starting to think that you are the one that doesn't understand the debate.
They believe the fetus is a SEPARATE body.
And for what reason do you assume that I don't realize that's what they believe? Because I disagree with them?
Regarding your last sentence: If it were legal to kill your own children before their 18th birthday, would you say "well, nobody's forcing me to kill MY child" or would you fight it?
A child isn't completely dependant on another being for survival. A fetus is connected to a woman that has the right to choose if she wants it inside of her or not.
One thing that does puzzle me, however: those pro-choice partisans (and I am very much pro-choice) who don't call for drug decriminalization. If the right to choose what happens to your own body is so fundamental, then why is it OK to criminalize the act of putting certain chemicals into it?
Most of them probably feel more strongly about the choice issue then they do about the drug issue. And those that are pro-choice and anti-drug are hypocritical. That's hardly new to either side of any major issue.
In any case, I'm pro-choice and all for drug decriminalization. The only thing that worries me about drugs is the cost to society. If my neighbor gets an abortion it doesn't impact me one iota. If she's a washed up druggie with no job and a failing liver being supported by welfare and medicare then it's probably impacting me. That said, drug laws are still hypocritical and they need to go. There's no law stopping me from swallowing a quart of antifreeze if I decide to do so. Why is there a law that says I can't possess marijuana?
The real question is whether a fetus is a person or not - is it part of the woman's body?
Your wrong. The real question is whether or not the Government can tell us what to do with our own bodies. I understand the other sides opinion -- and if they don't believe in abortions then nobody is forcing them to get one.
That said, your comments do not argue against the arguments against abortion. The main argument against abortion is that the woman is not choosing what to do to her body, she is choosing what to do with someone else's body.
I know what their argument is and it's really irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't matter what the fetus is. The ideology as far as that goes is irrelevant to my point. Whether you believe the fetus is a living human being with a soul or just a parasitic clump of cells doesn't really matter. The point is that you can't force a woman to carry it to term if she wants it out of her body. This guy said it better then I can -- just because giving you one of my kidneys will save your life, doesn't mean that I should be forced to hand that kidney over. It's my body and my choice.
The crux of the disagreement is whether or not the fetus counts as someone else
That's the crux as far as they see it. To my mind it doesn't matter what it counts as. If it was my flesh and blood and shared half my genes and I was watching it on the sonogram that still doesn't give me the right to force the woman to carry it to term if she doesn't want to. It's her body and as long as the fetus is dependant on her body for survival it's her choice.
If we could humanely euthanize a fetus, then it wouldn't be an issue. But any kind of injection would be passed onto the mother as well, so we are left with abortion methods that *will* cause some measure of pain to a late-term fetus.
And that's relevant why? Again, how can you force the woman to carry it to term if she doesn't want to? Does the Government really have a place telling people what they can and can not do with their bodies?
Now, for a solution that makes noone happy, but might actually work. Let the anti-abortionites sign up for an "I'm willing to adopt list". If a woman goes for an abortion, and there's a name on that list, then she carriest he baby to term and the name on the list gets the kid and is taken off. If there isn't a name on that list, then, well, the public obviously doesn't care enough, and the abortion is allowed to happen.
I don't know if your suggestion is serious or tounge in cheek, but abortion rights aren't about unwanted children. It's about the right of a woman to decide what she wants to do with her own body without her husband or the Government telling her otherwise. Forcing her to carry it to term just to give it up for adoption is no solution at all because it's still removing this choice.
Choice? Democrats traditionally is bout social programs...Eliminating poverty, civil liberties, etc.
The right to choose what you want to do with your own body is very much about civil liberties. The Government doesn't have the right to tell you that you can't put drugs into your body, it doesn't have the right to tell you that you have to wear a seat belt, it doesn't have the right to tell you what to eat and it certainly doesn't have the right to regulate when a woman can terminate a pregnancy.
Abortion is just a small part of that platform, whose inclusion is dependent upon an assumption, namely that the unborn is not losing a choice when the woman is given one. This is an assumption, or perhaps a reasonable loss for the greater good. If this assumption was made in error, and in fact the fetus is deserving of 'choice', a choice to live, then it is easily seen that Pro-Life would not in fact contradict the ideals of the Democrats which are civil liberties, economic equality and opportunity etc.
To my way of thinking it doesn't matter what the fetus is "deserving" of. The bottom line is that the Government can not force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. The Government has no right to tell anybody what they can do with their body. Perhaps one day science will provide a solution to the problem (i.e: bringing a fetus to term with technology instead of the womb), but until that happens the Government has no place telling a woman that she must carry a fetus to term. It's her body and her choice.
Thus, the privileged to have an abortion, like driving a car, may be exercised only when certain requirements are met: namely, like insurance and a drivers test, you took reasonable steps to prevent pregnancy. If, as did my wife, you get pregnant while on an approved contraception, a woman may rid her self of the baby/fetus.
That's bullshit. The right to choose what to do with your own body is not a "privilege" like driving. And she needs to prove that she was using contraception? How exactly does she do that? You aren't a Democrat or a Republican. You are a fascist.
I'll say it again. It is a waste of time for the Democrats to court religious conservatives. And the day that the Democratic Party abandons choice from it's platform is the day that I start voting Green or Working Families. I'm male and I feel this strongly about it.
Give them a hardcore left liberal, but who happened to be pro-life, and neutral/quiet on gay issues, and you'd have a viable candidate for the nation's republicans. IT IS the only reason many people vote republican.
And the minute you do that you'll lose half of the people that support the Democratic Party. And your selling out one of the items that the party stands for -- the freedom to make ones own choice regarding ones own body.
It's a mistake to suggest that the Democrats should cater to the religious right. The Democrats should be busy trying to pull disenfranchised libertarians/fiscal conservatives away from the Republicans. While they may not agree with the Democrats idea of social programs they have a heck of a lot more in common with them regarding civil liberties and personal choice then they ever will with the Reagan republicans.
And yet another option she has is to go into academics and then simply........ collaborate or consult for the NSA (or other TLAs like the CIA or others) and/or Google.
Furthermore, and call me cynical for this, but I had my go-around working for a for-profit (an insurance agency). Now I work for a non-profit health care provider. It's a completely different environment.
My friends that work for Lockheed Martin make more money then I do. But at the end of the day my job helps people. They get to work on building missiles all day. I have a better feeling about my job then they will ever.
Naw, the NSA is simply that which cannot be named as their history of secrecy goes much further than that of the CIA. Interestingly though, they *are* the largest employer of mathematics PhDs in the world, but may soon find themselves in competition with Google as well.
You are actually pretty damn close to hitting the nail on the head. One of my best friends is about a year away from finishing her mathematics PhD. She basically has three choices. Become a professor, work for the NSA or work for Google. She'll probably opt for option number one (to stay local) but Google is her fallback. Its rather nice to be able to talk about your day at the office without worrying about breaking Federal laws.....
What's funny is that if you take the article and replace 'Google' with 'Microsoft' or 'Verizon' then I find it highly unlikely that the editor would have made that comment. After all, Google can do no evil whilest all other large companies are clearly out to screw the consumer out of their god given right to free software/broadband/beer.
Teddy Roosevelt's "Speak softly, carry a big stick" (1901) which was his take on........ Monroe Doctrine (1820s).
I don't think it's fair to cite the Monroe Doctrine or TRs reimplementation of it as a legitimate reason to hate Americans. Take it in the context of that time period. The first thing any history or anthropology student learns is that it's a mistake to judge the past by the standards of today.
I love it! I'm opposed to illegal immigration so I'm automatically a racist white power asshole that's afraid of changing demographics! You didn't bother to read a single one of my posts about American culture, how immigration has influenced it (positively) or any of them. You just assume that I'm a racist because this particular conversation started over Hispanic immigration. I'm opposed to all illegal immigration.
You're the same sort of asshole that turned away Haitian refugees because they were black (and they spoke French!) and were, more importantly, poor.
And you are the same sort of asshole that busts out the racism card in the debate about immigration, thus preventing a rational conversation about anything.
And there are certainly different classes of crimes. Do you think illegal parking is the same as mass murder? Overstaying a visa/undocumented work is a minor procedural crime, like a traffic ticket.
Did I advocate deporting/throwing in jail people who overstay a visa? I'm talking about people who are completely undocumented and who are here illegally. There is no reason to pander to them. They aren't American citizens. There is no reason to give them a pass for breaking the law.
And as for your Canadian friend (probably white), the fact that it takes her 12 months to get a visa says there is something screwed up with the SYSTEM, not with your friends. Shockingly, the US immigration system is far from a model of efficiency. This is deliberate. Want to make life easier for your friend? Get the white power anti-immigration types in Congress (mostly Republicans) to reform the immigration service to make the process both more open and easier.
Again, thanks for inflaming opinion with "white power" comments. Both parties have failed us. Republicans want to pander to big business that wants cheap labor and the Democrats are afraid of being called racists by assholes like you.
Have them impose real enforcement and penalties (very large fines) on the large corporations that employ illegal immigrants. How about fines against Home Depot for running an illegal employment service? They're a lot easier to track down that 12,000,000 illegal immigrants.
That's how I'd go about solving the problem. There needs to be a system in place to heavily fine businesses that employ illegal immigrants. Unfortunately every time it's attempted (on a local or state level) people cry racism. Kinda like what you are doing now. Since when did it become racist to want to enforce existing laws? I'd be as disgusted if we had millions of illegal Anglo-Saxon immigrants as I am over millions of illegal Mexicans.
But I'm not holding my breath since the white power-types don't actually want to STOP illegal immigration, they just want to pander to racism.
And I'm not holding my breath since assholes like you cry "racism" every single time somebody tries to have a rational conversation about this. Blow it out your ass. I know how much my country depends on immigration. I know how it influences us for the better. That doesn't mean I have to be happy when my elected officials start talking about giving a free pass for breaking the law.
Perhaps, but the US isn't exactly in a position to argue - they're spread a little thin as it is.
And the South Koreans and Japanese would just roll over and take it? Heck, I could envision the South helping the North if the Chinese were to invade. They are Koreans first, North and South second. And if you think that Korea couldn't hold off the Chinese for quite some time then I suggest you study the Winter War. It's amazing what a small number of outnumbered defenders can do to defend their homeland. The Finns managed a 5 to 1 ratio against the Soviets -- even though they were outnumbered almost four to one.
combined with the fact that *everyone* wants to be commercially in bed with them, I'm sure they'll all turn a blind eye as China makes all their troubles in the region just disappear.
There's no way that anybody would turn a blind eye. Not Japan, not South Korea, not Russia, not the United States, and certainly not the UN.
The reason I believe this to be a possibility, is that in the past, China has had a history of asking the rest of the world to lay off North Korea and leave them alone. With the North Korean government changing from what appeared to be just an oppresive and semi-stable dictatorship into something with long range ballistic weaponry and the attitude of a rabid wolf, China will be starting to get very nervous.
China isn't "very nervous". In their eyes (the Chinese) the North embarrassed the hell out of them and proved just how little influence they had when they tested that nuke. But they aren't "very nervous". The only thing China doesn't want to see happen is a failed North that sends millions of refugees pouring across the Yalu river.
The last thing China needs on their western border is a number of nuclear exchanges. Even if one of them is launched by a technical ally of theirs.
A "nuclear exchange" would imply that North Korea had a number of nuclear weapons and a suitable delivery system. Nobody knows for sure how many nukes they have (probably less then half a dozen) and they don't have anything remotely like a delivery system. There's not going to be an "exchange". This is all brinkmanship. The Chinese know that. So does everybody else.
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With oil reserves limited, attention is turning to other energy sources. Natural gas and Nuclear Power are the obvious choices.
Unfortunately, natural gas isn't infinite, and while it will last a while, its loss will be accelerated by oil substitution. In other words, it will peak not long after whenever oil peaks.
Nuclear power is contentious, difficult, and actually not in infinite supply. The world would consume all the nuclear power in a couple of decades; and there isn't any easy way to make its energy available for transportation.
Have you ever heard of fuel reprocessing? Have you ever heard of breeder reactors that use U-238? How about using thorium? Estimates are that we have anywhere from 10,000 to 5,000,000,000 years worth of nuclear fuel remaining with these technologies that are largely already available. If by "contentious" you mean "NIMBY" then I suppose people will have to consider whether or not they'd rather accept a lower standard of living or nuclear power. I choose the latter.
Geothermal, hydro and tidal power all have much promise, but many parts of the world have no access to any of these options.
Some people think that hydro power winds up dumping almost as much greenhouse gas into the air (mainly methane) as a coal plant does. Why? Decaying vegetation in the reservoirs. In any case hydro and tidal are hardly eco-free options (and we've already used most of our hydro resources in the West) and geothermal spots eventually go cold.
Energy is going to get more expensive. Transportable energy for cars, trucks and planes will be really difficult; and nobody is going to be flying around cheaply in 10 years time.
I liked the idea of the hydrogen economy for transportable energy and nuclear fission/fusion for the backend (i.e: the grid). Whether or not hydrogen would scale (odds are it works for a SUV -- will it work for a 747?) is another matter and outside my area of expertise.
In any case I don't see why nuclear isn't being seriously considered as an option. We know that renewables won't scale. We also know that nuclear technology works and properly used is safe.
The issue is whether we can sustain our usage at current levels indefinitely. The answer is of course, no.
Sure we can. It's called Nuclear Fission.
What would you rather deal with? An energy source that dumps massive amounts of CO2 and radioactivity into the atmosphere or an energy source that is carbon neutral and produces nuclear waste that can be reprocessed into more fuel and/or stored somewhere (i.e: it's not released into the atmosphere)?
There's no reason to accept a reduction in our standard of living and there's certainly no compelling reason to use coal over fission. We know that the waste can be reprocessed (the US just chooses not to), we know that the technology works and is safe. We also know that coal dumps massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.
Those are not counted because they are not valid votes -- you still have to file (at lease most places), even if you are running as a write-in. It is not a "I can vote for anybody" space.
That's not always the case and it depends on the elections law of your particular state. My county (in New York) tallies the "Donald Duck" votes in the official certified results. In fact the results are usually three or four pages across (in landscape) because each write-in person gets a column.
I've often amused myself by voting for unheard of people at the Board of Elections in uncontested races. Figure it will probably amuse them for a few minutes while they are canvassing the machines :)
Wonder if they registered...
Not unless you contacted the Secretary of State for your state, or whomever the highest elections official is and filed a certificate of electors pledged to you, whom would vote for you in the electoral college.
I'm trying to get people to understand that it's misaligned. You seem like you might understand it, with your talk of dependent people, but you're still avoiding it. You see the debate as being over personal choice, correct? You don't think that anyone should impose their opinions on you, and that they can't tell anyone what to do with their own bodies, correct? Well, the other side isn't trying to tell you what do do with your own body. They're trying to tell you not to kill other people. To them, abortion is indistinguishable from taking a sledgehammer to someone's skull. Your arguments of personal choice and autonomy are beyond meaningless to them.
And what part of my posts lead you to think that I don't understand where they are coming from? I understand that they don't view it as an issue of choice over ones own body. That's how I view it and I was expressing my own opinions. What part of the three different posts where I stated that I understand where they are coming from don't you understand? Why do you think the debate is misaligned? Because the pro-choice crowd doesn't see it as being about human life? Or because the pro-life crowd doesn't see it as being about bodily choice?
If you want to make any headway, you need to start arguing over the most basic disagreement: whether the fetus is part of the mother's body, or a separate person.
Who says my objective in my posts was to make headway? I was stating my own opinions. I would not even attempt to make headway with somebody that has based his or her views on religion. You and I can have a rational discussion about taxes or foreign policy. But the minute religion rears it's ugly head (think abortion or evolution/ID debate) all rational discussion goes out the window. All I can do is preach to the choir and do everything I can do to ensure that a woman's right to choose is protected. I can't win them over and I'm not going to waste my time trying.
Umm..We live in a nation of laws. Law IS imposes an opinion on you. If you steal a car, they try to catch you and send you to jail. They don't care if they are imposing on you or not, and rightly so. You missed the train.
The last time I checked stealing a car doesn't have anything to do with ones own body. But then again, you've added me to your foes list, so you probably aren't too willing to listen to the other side of the debate.
The issue is whether or not I can control my own body. If I accidentally swallow the keys to your car you don't have the right to cut them out of me. Yeah, that's a crappy analogy, but so was yours.
I'll reiterate: I don't care what you think about abortion. This discussion is not about abortion. It is about the abortion debate. You're still apparently not even trying to understand the fundamental disagreement between pro-abortionists and anti-abortionists
You are the one who doesn't understand. I've acknowledged that I understand where the pro-life crowd is coming from. I even stated that if I believed the fetus was a human being with a soul that I would probably be opposed to abortion as well. Why when I state the position of the pro-choice crowd can't you understand it? To our way of thinking the status of the fetus isn't relevant. It's about forcing somebody to do something with their body that they don't want to do.
You are the one who doesn't understand the debate and between that and your "pro-abortionist" comments I think that you are just a pro-life troll hoping to attract some sympathy. But granted, I don't have a four digit UIN, so I'm probably just trolling. Even though you are the one calling people stupid. And BTW, my UID is lower then yours :P
No, they view the debate as being over murder, just like you view the debate as being over personal choice. But that's not the basic difference between both sides - the basic difference is whether a fetus is a person, or part of a woman's body
I don't really care if it is a person or if it isn't. The woman's right to control her own body trumps whatever rights the fetus may or may not have. Just like my right to decide what to do with my own kidneys/bone marrow/blood trumps your right to a donation.
You're wrong. Pro-choice is a loaded term, and I'm not arguing it anymore.
I'm pro-choice. Not pro-abortion.
No. If you truly understood their mindset, you wouldn't say "if they don't believe in abortions then nobody is forcing them to get one."
I do understand their mindset. I just don't care. You are free to believe whatever you want. Believe that the fetus is a person, hell believe in the FSM for all I care. It's when you start forcing your opinions on me that I have a major problem and will fight you with every means at my disposal. That's why I'm pro-choice.
And again, you're failing to see both sides of the debate. Anti-abortionists see it exactly the same way. You're evil, believe in legal murders, and are trying to impose your opinions on the legal system so other people can kill their children. All they're trying to do, really, is defend life.
How many times do I have to say that I just don't care what they think? You are free to think whatever you want. Just don't force it on me.
I don't always advocate seeing an issue from both sides, because sometimes the other person is just wrong, but in the abortion debate you have to. There's no scientific evidence for either side, and that's a problem. You, instead of arguing about anti-abortionists stifling your personal choice, should be arguing about what a human is. You'll have a much higher chance of converting a person or two, and you'll be helping realign the rhetoric with the disagreement. Better yet, start studying neurology. Once consciousness is described scientifically, the debate will be over.
Consciousness is irrelevant to my position. It's about the right of the woman to control her own body. I don't care if the fetus is a fully sentient being or not. You can not force a woman to do something with her body that she does not want to do. That's the bottom line.
Perhaps some of the pro choice people would like to argue that, since newborns don't actually have much personality yet, or much of a soul, it is alright to kill them too.
Actually the pro-choice people aruge that the rights of the mother trump the rights of something completely dependant on her for survival. Again, how can you force somebody to do something with their own body that they don't want to?
If I go into outer space in a rocket, I am not part of the rocket even though I need it's environment to survive there.
And if the rocket was a living, breathing, sentient life-form then it would have the right to decide if it wanted you inside it or not.
I am always amazed at how many people who don't want innocent cows killed so humans can eat them are perfectly willing to let an innocent fetus be killed because someone finds it inconvenient. Selective compassion is great, isn't it?
Kinda like the pro-life crowd that supports the Iraq War and the death penalty you mean?
For the record, I love meat and I'm pro-choice, so there :P I don't see anything wrong with not eating meat as a lifestyle choice. I know a lot of people that don't eat meat because they think it's bad for them or they just don't like it. But the people who don't eat meat because "the animal suffers" don't know a lot about the food chain or nature.
There it is, your fundamental misunderstanding distilled to 5 words. The debate is not over personal choice. You view abortion as a personal choice, and anti-abortionists don't due to their differing opinions on the fetus (the real debate).
So you are telling me that the pro-life crowd views the debate as centering whether or not the fetus is deserving of protection and not whether or not the woman has a right to control her own body? I've never disagreed with this. I know why they think what they do. And I don't see the two positions as completely incompatible. You can believe that the fetus is alive/kicking/whatever you want without believing that the Government has the right to control what we can do with our bodies.
No, you don't understand what a loaded term is. A loaded term carries the debate with it. Pro-choice and pro-life are loaded terms because they imply that your opponents are anti-choice or anti-life. Anti-abortionist and pro-abortionist are terms describing the position without bias.
Bullshit. "Pro-abortionist" implies that I'm for abortions. Pro-choice implies that I'm for a woman's right to choose. That more accurately describes my opinion as I think I said before that I would not encourage somebody carrying my child to get an abortion, yet I still recognize that it is ultimately her choice.
I'm resisting the urge to curse at you in frustration. I'm aware that you don't think a fetus is a person. It was a thought experiment. The anti-abortion crowd sees the situation thus: "People are killing their children! I've gotta do something to save the poor kids!" Your response is "Well, nobody's forcing you to get an abortion." I was trying to get you to see from their perspective, so you'd understand why they're imposing their opinions on other people (even those anti-abortionists don't impose their opinions in other areas).
I know why they feel the way they do. How many times do I have to beat that into your skull? Why do you assume that I don't? The bottom line is that I really don't give a flying fuck why they feel the way that they do. To my way of thinking they don't have the right to impose their opinions on me or anybody else. I don't think they don't sincerely believe that the fetus is a person, equally deserving of protection under the law. I know they passionately believe that. But I don't give a damn! They can believe whatever they want until they start trying to impose it on other people. Then they've crossed the line.
And don't even get me started about the hypocrisy on that side of the debate. While the pro-choice side certainly has it's share of hypocrites, we aren't the ones advocating a "culture of life" whilst supporting the death penalty and starting wars. I guess all life is sacred, save that of a convicted criminal or enemy civilian, right?
You are really, really stupid.
That's constructive.
You're an example not of people dodging the debate, but of people not even understanding the debate.
So because I disagree with them that means you presume that I don't understand them or the debate? I understand their POV quite well. If I bought the concept of a "soul" then I might even agree with them. But I don't agree with them and to my way of thinking it's irrelevant what they think the fetus is. This is about personal choice.
Pro-abortionists don't think it is.
Pro-abortionist? That's a loaded term. I'm pro-choice. I personally would not encourage a woman carrying my child to have an abortion. But I recognize her right to choose for herself. Being pro-choice isn't about being pro-abortion and now I'm starting to think that you are the one that doesn't understand the debate.
They believe the fetus is a SEPARATE body.
And for what reason do you assume that I don't realize that's what they believe? Because I disagree with them?
Regarding your last sentence: If it were legal to kill your own children before their 18th birthday, would you say "well, nobody's forcing me to kill MY child" or would you fight it?
A child isn't completely dependant on another being for survival. A fetus is connected to a woman that has the right to choose if she wants it inside of her or not.
One thing that does puzzle me, however: those pro-choice partisans (and I am very much pro-choice) who don't call for drug decriminalization. If the right to choose what happens to your own body is so fundamental, then why is it OK to criminalize the act of putting certain chemicals into it?
Most of them probably feel more strongly about the choice issue then they do about the drug issue. And those that are pro-choice and anti-drug are hypocritical. That's hardly new to either side of any major issue.
In any case, I'm pro-choice and all for drug decriminalization. The only thing that worries me about drugs is the cost to society. If my neighbor gets an abortion it doesn't impact me one iota. If she's a washed up druggie with no job and a failing liver being supported by welfare and medicare then it's probably impacting me. That said, drug laws are still hypocritical and they need to go. There's no law stopping me from swallowing a quart of antifreeze if I decide to do so. Why is there a law that says I can't possess marijuana?
The real question is whether a fetus is a person or not - is it part of the woman's body?
Your wrong. The real question is whether or not the Government can tell us what to do with our own bodies. I understand the other sides opinion -- and if they don't believe in abortions then nobody is forcing them to get one.
That said, your comments do not argue against the arguments against abortion. The main argument against abortion is that the woman is not choosing what to do to her body, she is choosing what to do with someone else's body.
I know what their argument is and it's really irrelevant as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't matter what the fetus is. The ideology as far as that goes is irrelevant to my point. Whether you believe the fetus is a living human being with a soul or just a parasitic clump of cells doesn't really matter. The point is that you can't force a woman to carry it to term if she wants it out of her body. This guy said it better then I can -- just because giving you one of my kidneys will save your life, doesn't mean that I should be forced to hand that kidney over. It's my body and my choice.
The crux of the disagreement is whether or not the fetus counts as someone else
That's the crux as far as they see it. To my mind it doesn't matter what it counts as. If it was my flesh and blood and shared half my genes and I was watching it on the sonogram that still doesn't give me the right to force the woman to carry it to term if she doesn't want to. It's her body and as long as the fetus is dependant on her body for survival it's her choice.
If we could humanely euthanize a fetus, then it wouldn't be an issue. But any kind of injection would be passed onto the mother as well, so we are left with abortion methods that *will* cause some measure of pain to a late-term fetus.
And that's relevant why? Again, how can you force the woman to carry it to term if she doesn't want to? Does the Government really have a place telling people what they can and can not do with their bodies?
Now, for a solution that makes noone happy, but might actually work. Let the anti-abortionites sign up for an "I'm willing to adopt list". If a woman goes for an abortion, and there's a name on that list, then she carriest he baby to term and the name on the list gets the kid and is taken off. If there isn't a name on that list, then, well, the public obviously doesn't care enough, and the abortion is allowed to happen.
I don't know if your suggestion is serious or tounge in cheek, but abortion rights aren't about unwanted children. It's about the right of a woman to decide what she wants to do with her own body without her husband or the Government telling her otherwise. Forcing her to carry it to term just to give it up for adoption is no solution at all because it's still removing this choice.
Choice? Democrats traditionally is bout social programs...Eliminating poverty, civil liberties, etc.
The right to choose what you want to do with your own body is very much about civil liberties. The Government doesn't have the right to tell you that you can't put drugs into your body, it doesn't have the right to tell you that you have to wear a seat belt, it doesn't have the right to tell you what to eat and it certainly doesn't have the right to regulate when a woman can terminate a pregnancy.
Abortion is just a small part of that platform, whose inclusion is dependent upon an assumption, namely that the unborn is not losing a choice when the woman is given one. This is an assumption, or perhaps a reasonable loss for the greater good. If this assumption was made in error, and in fact the fetus is deserving of 'choice', a choice to live, then it is easily seen that Pro-Life would not in fact contradict the ideals of the Democrats which are civil liberties, economic equality and opportunity etc.
To my way of thinking it doesn't matter what the fetus is "deserving" of. The bottom line is that the Government can not force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. The Government has no right to tell anybody what they can do with their body. Perhaps one day science will provide a solution to the problem (i.e: bringing a fetus to term with technology instead of the womb), but until that happens the Government has no place telling a woman that she must carry a fetus to term. It's her body and her choice.
Thus, the privileged to have an abortion, like driving a car, may be exercised only when certain requirements are met: namely, like insurance and a drivers test, you took reasonable steps to prevent pregnancy. If, as did my wife, you get pregnant while on an approved contraception, a woman may rid her self of the baby/fetus.
That's bullshit. The right to choose what to do with your own body is not a "privilege" like driving. And she needs to prove that she was using contraception? How exactly does she do that? You aren't a Democrat or a Republican. You are a fascist.
I'll say it again. It is a waste of time for the Democrats to court religious conservatives. And the day that the Democratic Party abandons choice from it's platform is the day that I start voting Green or Working Families. I'm male and I feel this strongly about it.
Give them a hardcore left liberal, but who happened to be pro-life, and neutral/quiet on gay issues, and you'd have a viable candidate for the nation's republicans. IT IS the only reason many people vote republican.
And the minute you do that you'll lose half of the people that support the Democratic Party. And your selling out one of the items that the party stands for -- the freedom to make ones own choice regarding ones own body.
It's a mistake to suggest that the Democrats should cater to the religious right. The Democrats should be busy trying to pull disenfranchised libertarians/fiscal conservatives away from the Republicans. While they may not agree with the Democrats idea of social programs they have a heck of a lot more in common with them regarding civil liberties and personal choice then they ever will with the Reagan republicans.
And yet another option she has is to go into academics and then simply........ collaborate or consult for the NSA (or other TLAs like the CIA or others) and/or Google.
Furthermore, and call me cynical for this, but I had my go-around working for a for-profit (an insurance agency). Now I work for a non-profit health care provider. It's a completely different environment.
My friends that work for Lockheed Martin make more money then I do. But at the end of the day my job helps people. They get to work on building missiles all day. I have a better feeling about my job then they will ever.
Naw, the NSA is simply that which cannot be named as their history of secrecy goes much further than that of the CIA. Interestingly though, they *are* the largest employer of mathematics PhDs in the world, but may soon find themselves in competition with Google as well.
You are actually pretty damn close to hitting the nail on the head. One of my best friends is about a year away from finishing her mathematics PhD. She basically has three choices. Become a professor, work for the NSA or work for Google. She'll probably opt for option number one (to stay local) but Google is her fallback. Its rather nice to be able to talk about your day at the office without worrying about breaking Federal laws.....
Plus the pay is probably better :P
What's funny is that if you take the article and replace 'Google' with 'Microsoft' or 'Verizon' then I find it highly unlikely that the editor would have made that comment. After all, Google can do no evil whilest all other large companies are clearly out to screw the consumer out of their god given right to free software/broadband/beer.
Teddy Roosevelt's "Speak softly, carry a big stick" (1901) which was his take on .... .... Monroe Doctrine (1820s).
I don't think it's fair to cite the Monroe Doctrine or TRs reimplementation of it as a legitimate reason to hate Americans. Take it in the context of that time period. The first thing any history or anthropology student learns is that it's a mistake to judge the past by the standards of today.
You want to quote the Monroe Doctrine as a reason to hate Americans? Then why don't people hate the French? As recently as the 60s the French were busy trying to retain a colonial empire. As recently as the 50s the French and British attempted to steal a national asset belonging to a sovereign nation. Yet I don't hear people denouncing them as loudly as I hear them denouncing the United States.
Don't throw events from 100 years ago in my face. If you want to debate the merits of recent history then go right ahead.
I love it! I'm opposed to illegal immigration so I'm automatically a racist white power asshole that's afraid of changing demographics! You didn't bother to read a single one of my posts about American culture, how immigration has influenced it (positively) or any of them. You just assume that I'm a racist because this particular conversation started over Hispanic immigration. I'm opposed to all illegal immigration.
You're the same sort of asshole that turned away Haitian refugees because they were black (and they spoke French!) and were, more importantly, poor.
And you are the same sort of asshole that busts out the racism card in the debate about immigration, thus preventing a rational conversation about anything.
And there are certainly different classes of crimes. Do you think illegal parking is the same as mass murder? Overstaying a visa/undocumented work is a minor procedural crime, like a traffic ticket.
Did I advocate deporting/throwing in jail people who overstay a visa? I'm talking about people who are completely undocumented and who are here illegally. There is no reason to pander to them. They aren't American citizens. There is no reason to give them a pass for breaking the law.
And as for your Canadian friend (probably white), the fact that it takes her 12 months to get a visa says there is something screwed up with the SYSTEM, not with your friends. Shockingly, the US immigration system is far from a model of efficiency. This is deliberate. Want to make life easier for your friend? Get the white power anti-immigration types in Congress (mostly Republicans) to reform the immigration service to make the process both more open and easier.
Again, thanks for inflaming opinion with "white power" comments. Both parties have failed us. Republicans want to pander to big business that wants cheap labor and the Democrats are afraid of being called racists by assholes like you.
Have them impose real enforcement and penalties (very large fines) on the large corporations that employ illegal immigrants. How about fines against Home Depot for running an illegal employment service? They're a lot easier to track down that 12,000,000 illegal immigrants.
That's how I'd go about solving the problem. There needs to be a system in place to heavily fine businesses that employ illegal immigrants. Unfortunately every time it's attempted (on a local or state level) people cry racism. Kinda like what you are doing now. Since when did it become racist to want to enforce existing laws? I'd be as disgusted if we had millions of illegal Anglo-Saxon immigrants as I am over millions of illegal Mexicans.
But I'm not holding my breath since the white power-types don't actually want to STOP illegal immigration, they just want to pander to racism.
And I'm not holding my breath since assholes like you cry "racism" every single time somebody tries to have a rational conversation about this. Blow it out your ass. I know how much my country depends on immigration. I know how it influences us for the better. That doesn't mean I have to be happy when my elected officials start talking about giving a free pass for breaking the law.
Perhaps, but the US isn't exactly in a position to argue - they're spread a little thin as it is.
And the South Koreans and Japanese would just roll over and take it? Heck, I could envision the South helping the North if the Chinese were to invade. They are Koreans first, North and South second. And if you think that Korea couldn't hold off the Chinese for quite some time then I suggest you study the Winter War. It's amazing what a small number of outnumbered defenders can do to defend their homeland. The Finns managed a 5 to 1 ratio against the Soviets -- even though they were outnumbered almost four to one.
combined with the fact that *everyone* wants to be commercially in bed with them, I'm sure they'll all turn a blind eye as China makes all their troubles in the region just disappear.
There's no way that anybody would turn a blind eye. Not Japan, not South Korea, not Russia, not the United States, and certainly not the UN.
The reason I believe this to be a possibility, is that in the past, China has had a history of asking the rest of the world to lay off North Korea and leave them alone. With the North Korean government changing from what appeared to be just an oppresive and semi-stable dictatorship into something with long range ballistic weaponry and the attitude of a rabid wolf, China will be starting to get very nervous.
China isn't "very nervous". In their eyes (the Chinese) the North embarrassed the hell out of them and proved just how little influence they had when they tested that nuke. But they aren't "very nervous". The only thing China doesn't want to see happen is a failed North that sends millions of refugees pouring across the Yalu river.
The last thing China needs on their western border is a number of nuclear exchanges. Even if one of them is launched by a technical ally of theirs.
A "nuclear exchange" would imply that North Korea had a number of nuclear weapons and a suitable delivery system. Nobody knows for sure how many nukes they have (probably less then half a dozen) and they don't have anything remotely like a delivery system. There's not going to be an "exchange". This is all brinkmanship. The Chinese know that. So does everybody else.