TomAiello

That would be when you described the 1940's as "not that long ago" (again, your words, not mine). -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Which was exactly the point of my #4, above. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Then why have you "several times" (your words) tried to inject such a concept into this discussion? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Haven't you been paying attention, John? Here are the facts. Please try to memorize them: 1) The Emancipation Proclamation was a worthless document that accomplished nothing. 2) Slavery in the United States persisted well past the end of the civil war--probably right up to the present day. 3) You, yourself, probably own dozens of slaves, even if you don't realize it. 4) These are extremely important issues worthy of the immediate and undivided attention of all branches of our government, which should immediately drop all other business and tend to this. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

"statistical faith based initiative." WTF does that mean? I think it means "we just takes the statistics on faith (rather than investigating them), and base our policy initiative on that." -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Honestly, I think they need a GOMER ("Get Out of My ER!"--it's what the ER docs I know call those guys) exception. Something like a 25 trip limit, and after that, just start denying care. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Absolutely. That debate ought to be had amongst the people living there, though. Not amongst a bunch of people thousands of miles away who decide for them. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

No. It is a matter of honor. I am composing my death haiku. Wouldn't it be nicer in Dreamku?

It seems to me this is a perfect case of "one size does not fit all." Wind farms are great, in some places. Southern Idaho and Northern Nevada, for example, have huge chunks of desert, with high winds. No one lives there, and they are great places for wind farms. Sticking them in the middle of populated land really doesn't make sense in very many places. When the government intervenes to try to "build wind power" we end up with wind farms where people don't want them, rather than where they make sense. As a side note, did anyone else read the article about building wind farms on tethered balloons in the jet stream? Interesting stuff. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

You just need to learn to view them as "jumpable object farms." That makes it all much better. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Bill, what is driving temperatures? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Do you happen to know how they're defining "younger" and "older"? Or "middle income" for that matter? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

It is an opinion. Heinlein is expressing his opinion about political systems. You've overlooked the fact that he's not talking about any specific (or historical) case--he's drawing a general hypothesis. He uses the terms from the Roman era ("plebes", "bread and circuses", etc) for rhetorical effect--not as an effort to discuss the actual facts of that (or any) particular historical case. If you read the entire work (To Sail Beyond the Sunset, I think, although it might have been from Time Enough for Love) Heinlein goes to great pains to establish an obviously fictional universe within which to set his narrator. He is very clearly not talking about any actual history, and going to great lengths to make that clear to the reader. There is no historical record to be argued there. Heinlein is stating his opinion. Opinions aren't "right" or "wrong." You're insistence that his opinion is "wrong" because it doesn't coincide with some set of historical facts is...well, I dunno...just weird? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

"Representative" can mean a lot of things. The founders created a system that was basically representative of free white men, although some of them argued that only landowners ought to be allowed to vote. Their argument was that only people who had a basic "stake" in society, and had the wherewithal to acquire land, ought to be represented. That's not so different from other types of voting requirements (like that quadratic equation). I'm still in favor of an unlimited franchise for a government of limited powers, though. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Her mother immigrated from Mexico, and her father immigrated from Croatia. It probably sounded just fine to their non-Anglo ears. That's ok. My first thought was "what is she, a six?" But I thought that would be harder for most of the folks here to understand. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

That's a huge political cherry waiting to be picked--20 million new voters to reward the best panderers. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Who are these "right-Libertarian" Monarchists of yours?

Nah. The hypocrite in that case was Hilary "Stand by Your Man and Bake Him Some Cookies" Clinton. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Bill, are you really trying to say that the solution to a quadratic equation is open to as much debate as causation of global warming? 'Cause that kinda sounds like a bit of an exaggeration, to me. -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Given her name (Capricia? Really? Someone actually named their daughter that? Does she have sisters named "Whimsical" and "Unreliable" ?) did you really expect her to have reliably filed her tax returns? -- Tom Aiello Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com SnakeRiverBASE.com

Of course not--they needed an airplane to fly.

Could you explain the difference between your right-Libertarianism and your left-Libertarianism?

I have never resided in a monarchy, so why should I bother to have a position?

Perhaps we should refer to this posting style as "dreamku"?

Where do you dredge up these bizarre caricatures of Libertarianism to use as straw men?