muff528

That's Waffle House. Well, mystery solved! ...I wondered why that waitress wanted to pour syrup all over my chalupa.

To be fair I think this thread was started before Limbaugh made his remarks. But as lawrocket said, reasonable discussion was poisoned because Rush's comments give the other side an easy "go to" response when they start losing debate points. Kind of like a universal "Oh, Yeah!?". ...and Maher is not even worth the risk of getting callouses on your typing fingers.

Well, you learn something new every day! I always thought Taco Bell was just the place you went when the bars closed because it was the only place that was open!

Not sure if I like the idea of "the government" mandating a medical procedure that has no benefit to general public health or welfare (like vaccines, etc.), no medical benefit to the "patient", and is intended only to influence a personal decision, possibly against her will. Maybe the ultrasound procedure itself is not morally objectionable, but the door it opens is a little orwellian ...especially with the prospect of government-controlled national "healthcare" looming.

I wonder if there would be a problem with the utility owning the charging station, whether at Starbucks or in a parking garage. They could use something like a "smart meter" (2-way communication between the meter and the utility) and charge the customer's card like at a gas pump. The electricity would be metered independently from the "host site" and the host would be paid a periodic commission from the utility. That way the utility could maintain control of the calibration of the meters, maintenance, etc. That could solve problems related to legally being able to buy and sell power and remove a whole layer of accounting and regulatory bureaucracy.

Are you saying it's not!?

OK, I know I'm probably gonna regret revisiting this, but... I find myself disagreeing with your statements regarding adversity vs quality of education. Here's a short list: MIT, Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Wesleyan, Chicago, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Georgetown, W&M, Wellesley, and many more. ...are among colleges and universities which might be considered to be in the top tiers of "quality of education". Graduates of these institutions are generally well-regarded ...especially if they are left-leaning. (of course right-leaning graduates of these schools are usually portrayed either as anomalies or as "fortunate-son/daughter" types.) The weather can get quite hostile during winters at the locations of these schools. It really speaks quite well for the students who have overcome this adversity and have made it through these schools unscathed by violent blizzards and nasty nor'easters. In contrast, I went to a coastal Florida college. The weather was usually absolutely beautiful during the winter. I spent a lot of time surfing and hanging out with the local beach babes. Unfortunately, I eventually dropped out of school. I was largely unaffected by hostile weather conditions but I was concerned, and at times preoccupied, with contraception issues. Ahhh!, the memories!

I guess they will be back advertising on his show soon. Perhaps David Friend is driven not just by money? His stockholders are, though. he will be sniveling and whining like a baby begging Limbaugh to let him advertise again very soon. I'm hoping I move up in the waiting line to get my company ads on the Limbaugh Show. Advertising on his show is very profitable. As someone once said, "It appears the free market is taking it's course."

No I don't. 'taxation' is taxation. Government makes me pay for tags for my car. Government pays for the tags for my car and I pay for it through income taxes. It's the same thing. But it is also a great argument for the case of a single payer Health Care system. hooray for that. Well, that seems to settle that whole "tax-or-fee" argument! ...And it seems that there is a glimmer of hope for TK after all!

I have developed my tentative opinion of Ms. Fluke and her motivations by actually trying to find out who this person is. I did not really have an opinion before doing a little research. ...a little suspicious bias maybe but I tried to have an open mind about it. I've supported my arguments with evidence taken from various internet sites. Not the best resource but that's what we have for these kind of discussions. Some of the sources were quite sympathetic to her activism and others were not. But all led me to my opinion of what her agenda really is. I really did try to find sources that spread across the ideological spectrum. Your final response was to accuse me of resorting to just calling her a liar while not being able to "speak to the topic". Your side of the discussion has been to refute my comments with anecdote, hypothetical scenarios and your own unsupported opinions about her agenda and her reasons for attending a school that she might find hostile to her ideology. Your only supporting argument is that she said she was "absolutely not willing to compromise the quality of my education in exchange for my health care" and presumably implying that the only institution that is capable of meeting that level of quality is a university that is affiliated with a religious institution that is wholly hostile to her own beliefs. I actually expected you to counter any points that I or other posters have made in this thread with your own sources and your own interpretation of that evidence. Instead you decided to disregard us as unmoving, right wing ideologues. The topic I was "speaking to" was this imagined "War on Women" angle and the true agenda of Ms. Fluke. I did incidentally state my stance on the sub-topic of whether contraceptives should or should not be included in a health policy to provide insight as to where I stood in the spirit of openness. Also, Her decision to go to Georgetown in the face of "hostile" health care policy is quite different than coping with the weather in Boston. From what I understand it's getting warmer up there anyway.

As a member of LSRJ, isn't Georgetown exactly the kind of school she'd want to go to? I mean, if she's looking to fight something she perceives as injustice, it's only logical that she place herself somewhere near the battle. If she went to Berkely while fighting for the rights of students at Georgetown, well then you'd all accuse her of being related to Al Gore. Blues, Dave EXACTLY!! That is my point! Thanks!

Fluke came to Georgetown University interested in contraceptive coverage: She researched the Jesuit college’s health plans for students before enrolling, and found that birth control was not included...... ........Fluke plans to continue working on the issue to ensure that the health reform regulations do eventually require Georgetown University to provide birth control to its students. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/meet-sandra-fluke-the-woman-you-didnt-hear-at-congress-contraceptives-hearing/2012/02/16/gIQAJh57HR_blog.html So, if she researched the health plans before enrolling and found they did not meet her needs as a student, why did she decide to go with Georgetown over another school that was more suited to her needs? ...unless it was her intent to devote large amounts of her time to her activist RJ agenda against the policies of a private religious institution which is exercising its right to religious freedom? She is not denied RJ healthcare since she is free to exercise her right to attend any other law school that does pay for contraceptives. She does focus on religious universities and colleges and their health plans in her testimony before Congress. As a graduate law student, I'd think that she would have found time for her "regular" studies to be in short supply. It still appears to me that Fluke did not enroll at Georgetown University primarily for their educational program. And, there does not have to be a conspiracy for the agendas of various entities to cross paths from time to time. Like you said ...she had been involved with RJ at Georgetown for 3 years before the opportunity to address Congress about these issues eventually presented itself.

Aaand ...we're back to the point I was making earlier. She is not just a student who finds herself in a financial strut because her insurance is not paying for her contraceptives. This is the original image portrayed by the media when the firestorm broke. She did say at the hearing that she was a past pres of LSRJ but this seems to have been lost in all the reporting as is illustrated in Wendy's quote: "Since her previous specialty is human trafficking and domestic violence, activism against the Catholic Church's contraception policy sounds a little outside the box." And quoting you: "Given that she worked on ending human trafficking in Kenya and represented women in domestic violence cases while at Georgetown that would be a little hard to support. And given that she worked on stuff like that _before_ entering Georgetown, it's not like she suddenly decided to become an activist when she got there." THAT IS MY POINT! Now it's only a small step (considering the article I cited above, re: "conservative campuses") to suspect that maybe she enrolled in Georgetown specifically to target their "Reproductive Justice" policy. Edit to ask: Bill, by "stuff like that" did you mean the trafficking and domestic violence work or did you mean the RJ work? My response assumes you meant the RJ stuff.

Just beautiful! They look so alien. They look like covers for sci fi paperbacks of the 40s and 50s!

It appears the free market is taking it's course. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/rush-limbaugh-loses-7th-advertiser-sandra-fluke-slut-flap-article-1.1033208 Those companies are as full of it as Rush is. They are jumping ship because its bad pr to be associated with him right now. I suspect they'll be back. If they were so concerned with his values, they wouldn't be on his show to begin with. Ian Most seem to have strong leftist ties anyway. http://spectator.org/archives/2012/03/05/rally-for-rush/print They were there because they knew that advertising on Rush's show got results. It seems that, for them, profit trumps ideology.

Past president of Law Students for Reproductive Justice "The question is, how do we combat this conservative opposition and oppression, in order to facilitate a discussion and educate others about the RJ movement? I am obviously not alone in facing these problems, as Sandra Fluke of Georgetown lead a packed room in a discussion on this question at the first Issue Caucus that I attended at the Leadership Institute, LSRJ’s national conference at Berkeley." Scroll down to the article entitled "Finding our footing on conservative campuses". Other interesting reading there, too. dated 8 months ago. She just didn't happen to bop into the congressional hearing last week because she couldn't get contraceptives and thought it would be a good way to give them her opinion. Like I said, she does have a right to promote her agenda. Just don't do it by playing Miss Innocent and blowing smoke up folks asses. She loses a little credibility that way.

Well, like I said ....nothing wrong with activism or having opinions. My opinion is that her cover story (about enrolling at Georgetown for quality of education, etc.) is BS. I simply don't believe her. My opinion, based on what little research I've done about her previous activism, is that she enrolled in Georgetown expressly to challenge their contraception policy. Just to be clear, I certainly would not deny a person's right to access contraception. But, I do think that it should not be covered by an insurance program ....especially if the provider of that program ...the entity paying for it... has conscientious objections. The drugs (and other methods) are available elsewhere, sometimes for free or for very little cost. I don't think that Georgetown is banning the use of contraceptives by its students. (I may be wrong here and its irrelevant and none of my business anyway). I do think contraceptives should be covered if it is prescribed for a legitimate medical condition ...but then it would not be a "contraceptive" per se. It would be "medication" for that condition. I don't consider fertility a "medical condition" requiring insured medication. My opinion, of course. I am also against insurance coverage for Viagra, etc. BUT, My Opinion again, this is not about contraception. It is about the intrusion of the federal government into the private affairs of an institution and the attempt to mandate a socio-political agenda that is contrary to that institution's own freedoms and rights guaranteed under the 1st Amendment. She could go to Columbia and fit right in with like-minded folks. If it is her intent to change the beliefs and social mores of Georgetown University she is going about it the wrong way. The correct way would be to follow Obama's lead in his dealings with the Islamists and strive to be concessional and apologetic while trying to win her adversaries' hearts and minds. In my opinion, of course.

There is likely more to Ms. Fluke than Miss-Innocent-Private-Citizen-Being-Bullied-By-Powerful-Sexist. It seems she is a long-time, outspoken political activist who has publicly inserted herself into the discourse before. Nothing wrong with that, but it does cause her motives to be questioned. I seriously doubt that she was personally concerned with her difficulty making ends meet because of the great cost of contraceptives. Don't know anything about the Examiner. ...just the first one to pop up after a search. I've seen other articles about her prior activism. http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-spokane/is-sandra-fluke-a-fake-victim-used-by-democrats-to-push-free-birth-control. It's my belief that her "victimization" was planned and intentional and I agree with the article that she was a card that was played at a predetermined moment. Limbaugh was just unfortunate enough to have taken the bait. The article also raises the question of why she chose to attend a private Catholic school that would have been ideologically at odds with her views? ...unless (considering her leftist, activist history) her intent was to stir up shit? I don't believe that the inclusion of contraception in a health insurance plan at this school was really at the core of her motivations here. It was really just way to get "foot in the door" for the political take-down of the idea that a private organization can decide what they will or will not provide as determined by their beliefs. (...in much the same way that Daley's "concern" that a bunch of old ladies in Palm Beach County may have voted for the wrong candidate in 2000 was just a catalyst that opened the door for the attempted theft of an election.)

WTF is a "space boffin"? ...Maybe that thing over in the Netherlands UFO thread? And just what, exactly, is it's relationship to the "UN boffins"?

Dear to my heart.

First heard it by Kingston Trio. I thought Jacks ruined it.

I love Horton's Greatest Hits album. A lot of good stuff on there. Comanche, North to Alaska. Just about every cut is good, (IMO)

Two of the dopiest songs ever. 4. Sometimes When we Touch--- Dan Hill AAAAAAaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrg! I hate that song. Some other annoying songs: Undercover Angel, The Night Chicago Died, MacArthur Park, Wildfire... Honey by Bobby Goldsboro is right up there! ....and what the heck is wrong with MacArthur Park!?

Agreed But I still will not do it Maybe I am just a whimp What could possibly go wrong?