To my knowledge, they are only tapping phones of those with ties to the Middle East. I have not heard of any situation where an American Citizen has been dragged fro mhim home and held as you describe. I am generally not into wire tapping, but otherwise, how do you catch these guys before they are able to initiate another attack?
As far as the waiting period, it is on ALL firearms. Not just assault rifles. The term assault rifles was coined to generate a negative viewpoint on some firearms. They also put restrictions on magazine capacity. You should be aware the liberals use incrementalism to get what they want. They may have changed it, but HCI's ultimate goal is to totally disarm the American Public. Their page used to even include that their latest attack would use product liability laws to do it. They have changed their page since they had that on it and I am not sure what it says now. I am pretty convinced that their end goal is still gun confiscation. They are just using the frog in boiling water approach. You drop the frog in boiling water, he will immediately jump out. If you put him in lukewarm water then slowly turn up the heat, he will stay there and cook.
I think the "children" in this case were all the Clintonites who childishly removed all the "W's" from the Keyboards, ripped the phones out of the walls, and were just generally poor sports.
Before you are so hasty to want the dems to win, remember that Hillary Clinton had FBI files on all of Bill's political enemies. The democrats would be much more likely to use wire tapping for political purposes "in the interest of national security". I am not sure how old you are, but can you remember when the last big gun control push was? It was in 1993. Do you remember who was President? Do you remember who had control of both Houses of Congress? I just always find it an enigma that gun enthusiasts would consider voting for democrats.
Also, to whoever thinks Bush will invoke the War Powers act to stay in office, let us not forget that the same urban legend went around about Clinton back when Bush took office. As crazy as it is, this is still the USA and when someone wins the election, the current President will let him take office. I think that when the winner takes office this time, the keyboards will have all the letters. (For those of you who are too young to remember, the Clinton staff removed all the "W's" from all the White House computer keyboards.)
At some point you have to "believe". You either believe in a higher power or you believe what some human scientist says. Either way you have to believe something. Check out this article:
Remember that everyone has some sort of agenda. Be it a Biblical writer or a scientist, you would do well to know what their true intent in disseminating information.
I read your article and it was quite interesting. I found an article that I would like you to read as well.
http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/locke.html
I would like to discuss this issue further also. Too many times people get defensive about their position on this and true communication breaks down. Read the article above then lets discuss both.
I am open minded. I just happen to see so much evidence that God's hand is involved in things. Where you might say that a species underwent a certain change because of random chance and that the random changes enables the organisms with those changes to survive better, I would say that someone somewhere decided that the organism would better in its current form and directed the changes. I have several questions, but I would like to hear what you say about fossil chains for certain species increasing and decreasing the number of ribs they have as they evolve. It would seem that the smaller animals would have fewer ribs and gain more as their descendents became larger. It would seem even more plausible that they kept the exact same number of ribs, except that the ribs got larger in size to accommodate the larger size.
You are right. As far as who pays their salaries, it is grants from the National Science Foundation that fund much of the climate research. As long as they keep paying these guys to "study" climate change, they will keep saying that it is catastophic and that they need more money for funding.
Actaully, one of the top scientists at NASA made a public statement that he didn't believe that the current climate changes were caused by human activity. He was forced to retract this statement or lose his job. Log on to the National Science Foundation web site and check out the number of grants and the amount of money being spent to "study" climate change. You will see that the guys recieving that monay want to keep it flowing and will try to discredit anyone who threatens to cut off that funding.
You have answered your own question. The fossil record does not show a link between humans and any other species. There are similarities, but they have never found the "missing link". The fossil record for horses was supposeed to be Eohippus, Mesohippus and so forth until you get the the modern horse. The problem is that each of those animals had a different number of ribs and the number jumped around for each type of animal. Lets consider the actual fossil evidence that caused the courts to allow evolution in the first place. It was a molar that was supposed to have belonged to an early human. Years later its was discovered that it was from an ancient swine. So there's your fossil record. Also, if you make another personal remark i.e. talking out my ass, I will not reply to any more of your posts. Either we can discuss the facts, or we can digress to name calling which I gave up in grammar school.
In order for theory to be valid, there must be a test that can be applied to it that would disprove it and it must fail that test. Last time I posted about this, I got all sorts of answers like "just the fact that we are here today proves that we evolved". People assume that we all started from some pool of primodial soup and all life came from that, however, scientists cannot recreate the primodial soup. Neither can they create life from nothing. As far as intelligent design being a theory, it is easily observable that there is order in the universe. Everything that happens in the universe is subject to observable laws. To say that these laws came about by random chance is amazingly short sighted.
I submit to you that if intellegent design did happen, then that is what we should study if we are to fully understand all the scientific secrets of the universe. Keep in mind that the theory of evolution is not even a valid theory by standard scientific principles. Scientists today approached science by "ruling out" intellegent design. This is a quite closed minded approach to studying anything. In true science, all possibilities are left open unless something can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The problem is, scientists are NOT objective. They are highly biased. They do work to shut down anyone with a dissenting opinion. The study of Climate Change is BIG money in the scientific community. If it were discredited, then millions of dollars of grant money to study it would dry up. Ben Stein just happened to use a movie to bring this to light. He is pulling a Michael Moore.
2) The "We can only hope that environmental concerns will not again, stifle our progress," is a bit more blatent of an example of flamebaiting. The reason that environmental concerns occasionally "stifle our progress" is because it would be foolish for anyone NOT to think of environmental concerns. Would the poster of this article rather that environmental concerns never be taken into account in the case of new technology? It would be like a scientist intentionally ignoring a key variable in a study. You wouldn't tell a clinical group performing studies on a new (for example) vaccine to ignore if the vaccine causes heart attacks just because said vaccine is supposed to cure cancer.
This was not "flame bait". If not for the environmental movement, we would already have many more reactors in the US and much fewer coal burning facilities. If you believe, as many environmentalists do, that coal burning plants are a major cause of global warming, then you should be able to see the irony that the actions of the environmentalist movement actually helped cause global warming. Even during the 80's, when new Nuclear Plant construction was brought to a halt, they had already developed reactors that use weapons grade Plutonium as fuel. Imagine being able to produce energy in stead of weapons from this stuff.
A side note: My brother in law recently retired from the US Navy as a Captain. He served as a diver so most of his Navy peers were also divers and it was really interesting talking to them. One thing I learned is that of the two US Nuclear subs that have been sunk, neither reactor has had any radiation leak. They do send probes down to check this from time to time and even under crushing conditions, the reactor cores remained sealed. This speaks volumes about the safety systems that can be built into reactor cores.
I have been in a creationism debate on slashdot before. People here seem to be open minded about everything EXCEPT the possibilty that perhaps there is intelligent design in the universe. But lets not start a flame war...
If there are more advanced races than us, they would most likely find us before we would find them. In any case, unless wormholes really exist and a ship could survive a trip through one, any life form we manage to discover would be too far away to be of any value. The question was whether money should be spent on it. Personally, I think it is a lost cause and any money spent on it is wasted.
Planets to sustain life - check, they can, 100% certain
This is the part that puzzles me. What planet other than earth do you know of that can sustain life? Please name the planet or at least give the name of the star that it orbits and its orbit number.
Life to be intelligent enough to say something - check, here we are, 100% certain
This implies that if life does spring into existence on a particular planet, then it will 100% certainly evolve into an intelligent life form? How can you be certain of this? If not for the cataclysmic event that killed the dinosaurs, they would still be the dominant life form here on earth.
Radio to be an achievable technology - check, 100% certain
I can agree with this. You get life, intelligence and quartz and they will most likely discover radio.
So there's nothing too magical anywhere in that list. The trick, actually, would seem to be where we are in technological and political development as compared to where others are. There's little reasonable doubt of any of the rest of it, it seems to me.
The magical part is how raw elements supposedly formed themselves into a cell which not only started living, but reproducing as well.
You seem pretty convinced that there is something else out there, even though there is no evidence at all to support the idea. I know the general idea is that if life happened here (assuming it happened by pure chance) then chances are that it happened somewhere else too. But what if life didn't happen here by chance? What if it was created by a higher power and this is the only place He saw fit to create it? I believe in freedom and someone can blow his money on whatever crazy idea he wishes. Just keep in mind that Star Trek is fiction. It is the creation of the brilliant mind of Gene Roddenberry, but it doesn't really exist. What we do know is that there are terrorists out there that would take any available opportunity to destroy the United States and right now, most of them are in Iraq blowing stuff up instead of here blowing stuff up. I sure don't want them over here with their suicide bombs.
Another fact you didn't consider is that what if there is life out there and it is not a bunch of liberal pacifists? What if we contact them and they see us as a resource to be consumed rather than a new neighbor? Talk about a "world of hurt"! In that case, we are much better off not letting them know we are here.
There is so much to discover about our own world and I think our resources should be focussed on that rather than searching the heavens for something that is most likely not there.
We went to the Bahamas a few years back. Being a Consultant, I wanted to know who all had called so I left my phone on, even though I never answered it. I got hi with a huge bill the next month because every call that came in got an international charge, then it got forwarded to my voicemail which incurred another international charge. To top this off, free roaming was only in the continental US so I got hit for this too. The phone company (Cingular at the time) did actually reduce the amount, but it was an eye opener.
[Quote]
Just out of curiosity, why shouldn't they do it? It is a much less painful solution than requiring the media outlets to provide accurate reporting.
[/Quote]
So you are saying that the network television news agencies, CNN and such provide accurate reporting? Why single out talk radio? Why not force the networks to report accurate information? Why don't they mention the fact that Hillary Clinton's college thesis is being withheld from the public? Is there something there she doesn't want us to know? Seems like all the news agencies would be curious. This is just one example of network media bias. Can you give me some specific information from a talk radio host that was incorrect?
[Quote]
Given the problems that changepac, Swiftboat veterans for truth, the US chamber of commerce and others that specifically and intentionally break campaign finance laws and other related regulations in order to publicly spend on libelous attack ads. Interfering in the political process directly and intentionally to destroy the opposition candidate.
[/Quote]
If these people were actually libelous, then they could have been sued as such. I don't remember a successful lawsuit against them. Which campaign finance laws did they break?
[Quote]
It might seem to you to be a liberal trick, but requiring that bloggers disclose when they are being paid off is especially important now that blogs regularly get covered by more traditional media outlets. As well as the large number of people that read them. It will be even more so as blogs gain the same rights and privileges that the traditional news sources have.
[/Quote}
I think people that read blogs know they are reading peoples opinions. Do you want Air America to have to disclose that it is funded by left wing groups?
[Quote]
I do kind of wonder what kind of a person you are if you are OK, with illegal actions as long as they support your party. Seems kind of hypocritical to accuse the Democrats of trying to rig things when the opposition party is already engaged in significant abuses of power. I'm not saying that the Democrats haven't benefited from this kind of thing ever, but as an apparent pseudo conservative you should recognize that corruption is bad for business whether it is for or against your candidates.
[/Quote]
I am not OK with illegal actions from either side. You haven't given any examples of illegal actions. If the democrats successfully apply the fairness doctrine to talk radio and not to network and/or cable television, then that is where the true corruption lies.
[Quote]
Allowing "news" outlets to swing only in favor of the right, while not allowing for the left to have appropriate rebuttal time is an excellent way of slipping into a less than democratic way of doing things. I'm really doubtful that you would feel the same way if it was your views that were being shortchanged for somebody elses.
[/Quote]
We have been getting hammered with liberal banter from the major media outlets for years. My views have been shortchanged by ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and the likes for many years. If you are a liberal, then you have plenty of media outlets from which to get your fill of left wing jargon. The only place to hear conservative ideas is from Fox News and talk radio. Forcing talk radio stations to air liberal shows that no one wants to hear would only serve to amke their audiences go away. This is what the democrats want to do. Radio stations are there to make money. They can't make money airing shows that people don't want to listen to. If liberal ideas are so wonderful, why don't people want to hear them? Where I live, we had to endure the Alan Colmes show and the Larry King show before they went belly up. If the market is just not there, why should radio station be forced to air the stuff. Should television networks be forced to air conservative shows?
[Quote]
BTW, I'm a conservative, I'm just not an idiot.
[/Quote]
If you voted for John Kerry, then you are not a conservative.
It is good to hear that you would apply the same standard. I wish the same could be said for the liberals in Washington. Do consider that while talk radio programs generally lean towards conservatism, that the major news networks (whom also use the public airwaves) lean towards liberalism. Keep in mind that talk radio is market driven. The people who listen to talk radio want to hear conservative thinking. Have you ever noticed that Air Amercia has to be propped up by donations from left wing groups? Why? Because most people don't want to listen to it. Forcing radio stations to air shows that the listeners do not want to hear would, in effect, cause the listeners to quit listening. This would drive them out of business. I submit to you that this is the intention of the democratic politicians. The same could be said of whoever filed the FEC complaint against the liberal blog that started this discussion. Even though I would disagree with most everything on that blog, I think that people have a right to say what they think and have a place to say it. The unfortunate thing is that if a democratic president is elected, the democrats will most likely be successful in shutting down much of talk radio. This should scare all of us to death.
I am just curious as to if you are going to feel this way when the democrats try to ram through the "Fairness Doctrine" in an effort to squelch talk radio? Do you really believe in free speech or do you just want it when it is beneficial to the democratic party?
Fair enough... I have gotten to the point where I don't really trust any politician, mainly because their first and formost agenda is to get re-elected. This does not make them good advocates for the american people. I am curious as to your point of view on the Supreme Court. Liberals tend to want activist judges that will "legislate from the bench". If they can force laws on people on a whim or try to order congress to pass certain laws, how do you reconcile this with limiting the power of government?
If you think Hillary Clinton won't abuse any power, then you have forgotten the flurry of Executive Orders that her husband issued during the last 90 days of his presidency. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/c-execorder s.html Bill Clinton abused the use of Executive more than any other president. One of his staff members was quoted as saying "Stroke of the pen... Law of the land. Kinda cool". Well it is not very cool for any politician to bypass the normal legislative process.
As for Gonzales, he is merely a vehicle by which the democrats have sought to destroy President Bush. US Attorneys serve at the discretion of the current President. He decided that he didn't want them working as US Attorneys so they had to go. Should have been end of story, but democrats are too driven in their hatred of Presidnet Bush. President Bush is not perfect, but he is not nearly what the media portrays him to be. We can only thank God that it was he and not Al Gore who appointed the recent Supreme Court Justices. A liberal stacked court would have easily cranked out more new laws than congress... all with no recourse from the people.
Sure its a virtual Crime that should be punished by a virtual Prison Sentence. I guess they could be forced to log in every day and sit in a virtual prison cell. It would be more interesting to do it like colonial days and put them in virtual stocks so that the townsfolk could throw virtual eggs at them.
Personally, I don't have a problem a problem with researching alternative fuel sources. It is only prudent to do so. I do hold with great suspicion anyone who gets paid to come up with a scientific notion. There was an article here a little while back where a group was predicting that the North Pole was melting. I posted an article here http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=211442 &cid=17225920
showing how much money they got for coming up with that idea. Researching global warming is BIG money and, apparently, people are willing to kill rather than have their cash cow dry up.
Also, your tag line
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
- Mahatma Gandhi
could apply to your savior Al Gore. He wants us all to use less energy while ONE of his homes uses 20 times the amount used by a normal household. I know he pays "Carbon Credits", but he owns the company that he pays them to, so he pays them to himself????
I guess the key question here is: In what way are the internet backbone providers obligated to provide free access to any other computer on the internet? Internet service is a commodity. They have to put in the infrastructure to make it happen. This costs money. Why is it unfair for them to recoup these costs? I admit I will not like it if my internet priority gets bumped down so that someone elses can get bumped up, but I can also see that the telecom companies have a right to profit from the commodity that they sell. Now there is a possibilty that the government subsidizes the internet backbones. I don't know if that is the case or not, but if they are going to put the clamps on what a company can do with its commodity, then they should do something to offset the financial damages that will result from this type of legilation. I am not into government subsidies, but I am also against the government saying that a company MUST give away its commodity for free.
~AR
Slashdot Mirror
To my knowledge, they are only tapping phones of those with ties to the Middle East. I have not heard of any situation where an American Citizen has been dragged fro mhim home and held as you describe. I am generally not into wire tapping, but otherwise, how do you catch these guys before they are able to initiate another attack?
As far as the waiting period, it is on ALL firearms. Not just assault rifles. The term assault rifles was coined to generate a negative viewpoint on some firearms. They also put restrictions on magazine capacity. You should be aware the liberals use incrementalism to get what they want. They may have changed it, but HCI's ultimate goal is to totally disarm the American Public. Their page used to even include that their latest attack would use product liability laws to do it. They have changed their page since they had that on it and I am not sure what it says now. I am pretty convinced that their end goal is still gun confiscation. They are just using the frog in boiling water approach. You drop the frog in boiling water, he will immediately jump out. If you put him in lukewarm water then slowly turn up the heat, he will stay there and cook.
I think the "children" in this case were all the Clintonites who childishly removed all the "W's" from the Keyboards, ripped the phones out of the walls, and were just generally poor sports.
Before you are so hasty to want the dems to win, remember that Hillary Clinton had FBI files on all of Bill's political enemies. The democrats would be much more likely to use wire tapping for political purposes "in the interest of national security". I am not sure how old you are, but can you remember when the last big gun control push was? It was in 1993. Do you remember who was President? Do you remember who had control of both Houses of Congress? I just always find it an enigma that gun enthusiasts would consider voting for democrats.
Also, to whoever thinks Bush will invoke the War Powers act to stay in office, let us not forget that the same urban legend went around about Clinton back when Bush took office. As crazy as it is, this is still the USA and when someone wins the election, the current President will let him take office. I think that when the winner takes office this time, the keyboards will have all the letters. (For those of you who are too young to remember, the Clinton staff removed all the "W's" from all the White House computer keyboards.)
At some point you have to "believe". You either believe in a higher power or you believe what some human scientist says. Either way you have to believe something. Check out this article:
http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/locke.html
Remember that everyone has some sort of agenda. Be it a Biblical writer or a scientist, you would do well to know what their true intent in disseminating information.
I read your article and it was quite interesting. I found an article that I would like you to read as well.
http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/locke.html
I would like to discuss this issue further also. Too many times people get defensive about their position on this and true communication breaks down. Read the article above then lets discuss both.
I am open minded. I just happen to see so much evidence that God's hand is involved in things. Where you might say that a species underwent a certain change because of random chance and that the random changes enables the organisms with those changes to survive better, I would say that someone somewhere decided that the organism would better in its current form and directed the changes. I have several questions, but I would like to hear what you say about fossil chains for certain species increasing and decreasing the number of ribs they have as they evolve. It would seem that the smaller animals would have fewer ribs and gain more as their descendents became larger. It would seem even more plausible that they kept the exact same number of ribs, except that the ribs got larger in size to accommodate the larger size.
You are right. As far as who pays their salaries, it is grants from the National Science Foundation that fund much of the climate research. As long as they keep paying these guys to "study" climate change, they will keep saying that it is catastophic and that they need more money for funding.
Actaully, one of the top scientists at NASA made a public statement that he didn't believe that the current climate changes were caused by human activity. He was forced to retract this statement or lose his job. Log on to the National Science Foundation web site and check out the number of grants and the amount of money being spent to "study" climate change. You will see that the guys recieving that monay want to keep it flowing and will try to discredit anyone who threatens to cut off that funding.
You have answered your own question. The fossil record does not show a link between humans and any other species. There are similarities, but they have never found the "missing link". The fossil record for horses was supposeed to be Eohippus, Mesohippus and so forth until you get the the modern horse. The problem is that each of those animals had a different number of ribs and the number jumped around for each type of animal. Lets consider the actual fossil evidence that caused the courts to allow evolution in the first place. It was a molar that was supposed to have belonged to an early human. Years later its was discovered that it was from an ancient swine. So there's your fossil record. Also, if you make another personal remark i.e. talking out my ass, I will not reply to any more of your posts. Either we can discuss the facts, or we can digress to name calling which I gave up in grammar school.
In order for theory to be valid, there must be a test that can be applied to it that would disprove it and it must fail that test. Last time I posted about this, I got all sorts of answers like "just the fact that we are here today proves that we evolved". People assume that we all started from some pool of primodial soup and all life came from that, however, scientists cannot recreate the primodial soup. Neither can they create life from nothing. As far as intelligent design being a theory, it is easily observable that there is order in the universe. Everything that happens in the universe is subject to observable laws. To say that these laws came about by random chance is amazingly short sighted.
I submit to you that if intellegent design did happen, then that is what we should study if we are to fully understand all the scientific secrets of the universe. Keep in mind that the theory of evolution is not even a valid theory by standard scientific principles. Scientists today approached science by "ruling out" intellegent design. This is a quite closed minded approach to studying anything. In true science, all possibilities are left open unless something can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The problem is, scientists are NOT objective. They are highly biased. They do work to shut down anyone with a dissenting opinion. The study of Climate Change is BIG money in the scientific community. If it were discredited, then millions of dollars of grant money to study it would dry up. Ben Stein just happened to use a movie to bring this to light. He is pulling a Michael Moore.
A side note: My brother in law recently retired from the US Navy as a Captain. He served as a diver so most of his Navy peers were also divers and it was really interesting talking to them. One thing I learned is that of the two US Nuclear subs that have been sunk, neither reactor has had any radiation leak. They do send probes down to check this from time to time and even under crushing conditions, the reactor cores remained sealed. This speaks volumes about the safety systems that can be built into reactor cores.
~AR
I have been in a creationism debate on slashdot before. People here seem to be open minded about everything EXCEPT the possibilty that perhaps there is intelligent design in the universe. But lets not start a flame war...
If there are more advanced races than us, they would most likely find us before we would find them. In any case, unless wormholes really exist and a ship could survive a trip through one, any life form we manage to discover would be too far away to be of any value. The question was whether money should be spent on it. Personally, I think it is a lost cause and any money spent on it is wasted.
~AR
This implies that if life does spring into existence on a particular planet, then it will 100% certainly evolve into an intelligent life form? How can you be certain of this? If not for the cataclysmic event that killed the dinosaurs, they would still be the dominant life form here on earth.
I can agree with this. You get life, intelligence and quartz and they will most likely discover radio.
The magical part is how raw elements supposedly formed themselves into a cell which not only started living, but reproducing as well.
You seem pretty convinced that there is something else out there, even though there is no evidence at all to support the idea. I know the general idea is that if life happened here (assuming it happened by pure chance) then chances are that it happened somewhere else too. But what if life didn't happen here by chance? What if it was created by a higher power and this is the only place He saw fit to create it? I believe in freedom and someone can blow his money on whatever crazy idea he wishes. Just keep in mind that Star Trek is fiction. It is the creation of the brilliant mind of Gene Roddenberry, but it doesn't really exist. What we do know is that there are terrorists out there that would take any available opportunity to destroy the United States and right now, most of them are in Iraq blowing stuff up instead of here blowing stuff up. I sure don't want them over here with their suicide bombs.
Another fact you didn't consider is that what if there is life out there and it is not a bunch of liberal pacifists? What if we contact them and they see us as a resource to be consumed rather than a new neighbor? Talk about a "world of hurt"! In that case, we are much better off not letting them know we are here.
There is so much to discover about our own world and I think our resources should be focussed on that rather than searching the heavens for something that is most likely not there.
~AR
We went to the Bahamas a few years back. Being a Consultant, I wanted to know who all had called so I left my phone on, even though I never answered it. I got hi with a huge bill the next month because every call that came in got an international charge, then it got forwarded to my voicemail which incurred another international charge. To top this off, free roaming was only in the continental US so I got hit for this too. The phone company (Cingular at the time) did actually reduce the amount, but it was an eye opener.
~AR
[Quote] Just out of curiosity, why shouldn't they do it? It is a much less painful solution than requiring the media outlets to provide accurate reporting. [/Quote]
So you are saying that the network television news agencies, CNN and such provide accurate reporting? Why single out talk radio? Why not force the networks to report accurate information? Why don't they mention the fact that Hillary Clinton's college thesis is being withheld from the public? Is there something there she doesn't want us to know? Seems like all the news agencies would be curious. This is just one example of network media bias. Can you give me some specific information from a talk radio host that was incorrect?
[Quote] Given the problems that changepac, Swiftboat veterans for truth, the US chamber of commerce and others that specifically and intentionally break campaign finance laws and other related regulations in order to publicly spend on libelous attack ads. Interfering in the political process directly and intentionally to destroy the opposition candidate. [/Quote]
If these people were actually libelous, then they could have been sued as such. I don't remember a successful lawsuit against them. Which campaign finance laws did they break?
[Quote] It might seem to you to be a liberal trick, but requiring that bloggers disclose when they are being paid off is especially important now that blogs regularly get covered by more traditional media outlets. As well as the large number of people that read them. It will be even more so as blogs gain the same rights and privileges that the traditional news sources have. [/Quote}
I think people that read blogs know they are reading peoples opinions. Do you want Air America to have to disclose that it is funded by left wing groups?
[Quote] I do kind of wonder what kind of a person you are if you are OK, with illegal actions as long as they support your party. Seems kind of hypocritical to accuse the Democrats of trying to rig things when the opposition party is already engaged in significant abuses of power. I'm not saying that the Democrats haven't benefited from this kind of thing ever, but as an apparent pseudo conservative you should recognize that corruption is bad for business whether it is for or against your candidates. [/Quote]
I am not OK with illegal actions from either side. You haven't given any examples of illegal actions. If the democrats successfully apply the fairness doctrine to talk radio and not to network and/or cable television, then that is where the true corruption lies.
[Quote] Allowing "news" outlets to swing only in favor of the right, while not allowing for the left to have appropriate rebuttal time is an excellent way of slipping into a less than democratic way of doing things. I'm really doubtful that you would feel the same way if it was your views that were being shortchanged for somebody elses. [/Quote]
We have been getting hammered with liberal banter from the major media outlets for years. My views have been shortchanged by ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN and the likes for many years. If you are a liberal, then you have plenty of media outlets from which to get your fill of left wing jargon. The only place to hear conservative ideas is from Fox News and talk radio. Forcing talk radio stations to air liberal shows that no one wants to hear would only serve to amke their audiences go away. This is what the democrats want to do. Radio stations are there to make money. They can't make money airing shows that people don't want to listen to. If liberal ideas are so wonderful, why don't people want to hear them? Where I live, we had to endure the Alan Colmes show and the Larry King show before they went belly up. If the market is just not there, why should radio station be forced to air the stuff. Should television networks be forced to air conservative shows?
[Quote] BTW, I'm a conservative, I'm just not an idiot. [/Quote]
If you voted for John Kerry, then you are not a conservative.
~AR
It is good to hear that you would apply the same standard. I wish the same could be said for the liberals in Washington. Do consider that while talk radio programs generally lean towards conservatism, that the major news networks (whom also use the public airwaves) lean towards liberalism. Keep in mind that talk radio is market driven. The people who listen to talk radio want to hear conservative thinking. Have you ever noticed that Air Amercia has to be propped up by donations from left wing groups? Why? Because most people don't want to listen to it. Forcing radio stations to air shows that the listeners do not want to hear would, in effect, cause the listeners to quit listening. This would drive them out of business. I submit to you that this is the intention of the democratic politicians. The same could be said of whoever filed the FEC complaint against the liberal blog that started this discussion. Even though I would disagree with most everything on that blog, I think that people have a right to say what they think and have a place to say it. The unfortunate thing is that if a democratic president is elected, the democrats will most likely be successful in shutting down much of talk radio. This should scare all of us to death.
~AR
I am just curious as to if you are going to feel this way when the democrats try to ram through the "Fairness Doctrine" in an effort to squelch talk radio? Do you really believe in free speech or do you just want it when it is beneficial to the democratic party?
~AR
Fair enough... I have gotten to the point where I don't really trust any politician, mainly because their first and formost agenda is to get re-elected. This does not make them good advocates for the american people. I am curious as to your point of view on the Supreme Court. Liberals tend to want activist judges that will "legislate from the bench". If they can force laws on people on a whim or try to order congress to pass certain laws, how do you reconcile this with limiting the power of government?
~AR
If you think Hillary Clinton won't abuse any power, then you have forgotten the flurry of Executive Orders that her husband issued during the last 90 days of his presidency. http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/c-execorder s.html Bill Clinton abused the use of Executive more than any other president. One of his staff members was quoted as saying "Stroke of the pen... Law of the land. Kinda cool". Well it is not very cool for any politician to bypass the normal legislative process.
As for Gonzales, he is merely a vehicle by which the democrats have sought to destroy President Bush. US Attorneys serve at the discretion of the current President. He decided that he didn't want them working as US Attorneys so they had to go. Should have been end of story, but democrats are too driven in their hatred of Presidnet Bush. President Bush is not perfect, but he is not nearly what the media portrays him to be. We can only thank God that it was he and not Al Gore who appointed the recent Supreme Court Justices. A liberal stacked court would have easily cranked out more new laws than congress... all with no recourse from the people.
~AR
Sure its a virtual Crime that should be punished by a virtual Prison Sentence. I guess they could be forced to log in every day and sit in a virtual prison cell. It would be more interesting to do it like colonial days and put them in virtual stocks so that the townsfolk could throw virtual eggs at them.
Personally, I don't have a problem a problem with researching alternative fuel sources. It is only prudent to do so. I do hold with great suspicion anyone who gets paid to come up with a scientific notion. There was an article here a little while back where a group was predicting that the North Pole was melting. I posted an article here http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=211442 &cid=17225920
showing how much money they got for coming up with that idea. Researching global warming is BIG money and, apparently, people are willing to kill rather than have their cash cow dry up.
Also, your tag line
"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Gandhi
could apply to your savior Al Gore. He wants us all to use less energy while ONE of his homes uses 20 times the amount used by a normal household. I know he pays "Carbon Credits", but he owns the company that he pays them to, so he pays them to himself????
~AR
I guess the key question here is: In what way are the internet backbone providers obligated to provide free access to any other computer on the internet? Internet service is a commodity. They have to put in the infrastructure to make it happen. This costs money. Why is it unfair for them to recoup these costs? I admit I will not like it if my internet priority gets bumped down so that someone elses can get bumped up, but I can also see that the telecom companies have a right to profit from the commodity that they sell. Now there is a possibilty that the government subsidizes the internet backbones. I don't know if that is the case or not, but if they are going to put the clamps on what a company can do with its commodity, then they should do something to offset the financial damages that will result from this type of legilation. I am not into government subsidies, but I am also against the government saying that a company MUST give away its commodity for free. ~AR