timesjoke

Well that 4,000 word book was interesting but it seemed to be designed to take us further off the path. No, we do not "HAVE" to have a two party system but at least on the National scale, this is what we do have and I again mention my football example, the game is the game, trying to get mad at your team and run from the field to play a different game only gurantees defeat for the causes you claim to hold dear. And this is on topic for Sarah Palin. Part of running off to play a different game than the one at hand is people take unreasonable shots at people like Sarah Palin. What decent and moral person would want to run for office when even conservative minded people like you and hugo will rip them apart because they are not "pure" enough for you? We end up with mostly lawyers because they go to school to learn how to manipulate and lie with a straight face and let the mess slide off their backs, ignore the harsh public where even if your on their general side of beliefs, that is not good enough. If it was just one side attacking most decent people can take that, but when your being attacked on both sides, what good person would want that? As far as the flames are concerned, I took considerable heat because I gave back what I got, I undetrstand now the mess only gets worse by feeding into the flames by giving it back, but at the same time I am not going to be a punching bag. Flames are not supposed to be a part of the forum anyway and yes I know, your staff so you can choose not to enforce the rule on yourself but in reality it is a very good rule. So being as I am not one to just be a punching bag, and this is a great rule even if it will not be enforced, I will simply point it out when it happens instead of joining in as I used to do. My responding to flames made by other people was not wrong RO. But it was garbage the rest of the forum got tired of seeing so even though I was not really wrong to respond in kind, I was still not being fair to my forum mates by adding to the mess. So, from now on when someone flames I will try to not respond with more flames but instead simply point them out instead. There really is no excuse for flames anyway.

He did change his possition on a few things but after those changed he has stayed pretty true to those things. I believe people can change, in McCain's situation he was doing what a lot of Republicans were doing, they fell for the middle to left possition so it was easy to pass legislation, the path of least resistence was a way to not really have to take a stand on some things. After the explosion from the people against his amnesty bill I truly believe McCain started seeing things a little differently. That is not to say I am excited by McCain, he will always leave that hint of doubt when any real conservative looks at his name. The question is can we put someone into his place that can win his seat against a liberal, if not then let's stick with him because the alternative is more things like this healthcare bill.

Sarah has a lot more popularity than McCain does, McCain would be stupid not to take advantage of her popularity. Sarah is the most popular name on the National stage, the only people who do not like her are those who are jealous of her or are swallowing the BS about her being a socialist just because she followed Alaska state laws. Every one of her fiscal possitions she has stated for the National stage are completely in line with all but the most radical of isolationist conservative canidates. You know who started the socialist rumors? The liberals did, they are scared to death of her so they started a counter insergency to inflame the most radical conservatives against her. And these radicals fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Every time some conservative radical spouts off against Sarah the liberals giggle like school girls and shuffle off to feel pleased with themselves at successfully getting conservatives to do what they could not have done themselves and eliminate their biggest threats.

Was there a chair and whip involved? Again, I am very happy for you Ali, you seem to have covered a lot of rough road to reach this point and if anyone deserves to find happiness, you surely do. Do you think a wedding might be in your future?

It is a loaded question, you know all votes are private so there is nothing that can be said as hard facts, all that we have to use for discussion is things like the exit polls and you already excluded from consideration any kind of opinions or polls so your question was not a question, it was a closed comment designed to create a false impression of fabrication on my part because you do not want to admit that the splintered groups were what made the difference in getting Obama elected. Very slick actually, but I am not interested in lawyer like word twisting RO, all I concern myself with is reality, and reality tells us that the independents elected Obama, not the two main party members who are going to vote for the guy in their party anyway. The only question in each of these elections is what way will the independents lean this time. What the heck are you talking about? The optimistic voter what??????? You can't possibly believe that. The educated voter knows it is down to two people, one liberal, one conservative, nobody else has any chance in hell of being elected. Voting for anyone other than those two is taking a vote away from one of the two who are capable of winning. That does not mean I like this reality, but like it or not it is still reality. This is why I offered a sports example earlier, if the USA hockey team had your attitude in 1980 they would not have even bothered to play USSR and just gave up, nobody in the world gave the American team a chance to beat USSR. But they did beat the USSR team and set the world on it's ear. The contest is not over until it is over. Being offended is not what makes a flame a flame, I am all for spirited debate where some feathers fly but when someone steps outside of the discussion at hand and tosses pure insults that have nothing to do with the discussion that to me is a flame, no matter if the flame caused hurt feelings or not. It is all about being decent. I have made the decision to try and be less hostile and more decent to my fellow forum members and try not to get into a back and forth insult fest, that kind of thing is not very mature anyway. Well clearly you do not understand it based on what you just said. The concept of splintering has nothing to do with progressives because these same progressive types are falling victim to it in Canada where their own splintering is making the conservatives win. The basic concept is that people generally fall into two basic groups, those who want the Government to help provide for the people (play Robin Hood), and those who believe the Government should stay out of our lives as much as possible. That is it, we can argue all day and all night on tiny specks of definitions on the finer points but at the end of the day this is where it boils down to when we get rid of all the childish bickering. Sure, we each may want to look at different ways of reaching those goals but still the basic root directions are the same. So the question is why is it some people who agree on less or more Government, will at the same time bicker among people with the same general beliefs instead of joining together? In America the liberals seem to be able to stick together most of the time but in Canada these same progressive types cannot stick together and are crippled with splintering. At the same time in America, the Conservatives are crippled with splintering but in Canada the conservative minded people stick together. So it is possible to stick together by both types of people but some figure out how to do so while others do not.

No, you frontloaded your question to allow you wiggle room to say whatever I offered was not 100% scientific fact, and I agree, but we do have these polls and these polls have been accurate in the past, trying to say now things like exit polls are not to be considered as evidence of voting trends just shows that your hiding from the truth. There is nobody in the voting booth with each of us RO, of course there is no way to know for certain, but I believe in using the tools we do have and even listening to people like hugo and yourself who admitted to not voting for the conservative out of the two choices we had to choose from. No RO, a flame is when you say something that is only designed to hurt, like when someone steps outside the conversation and starts making personal comments about the other guy's manhood or something personal. I have made a promise to you and everyone else that I was going to try harder not to hurt your feelings and I mean that so I would not now turn to flames, I have no desire to hurt your feelings and if I do it will be only by mistake. In this case I was on topic and expressing my inability to get through to you on the concept of splintering and how it harms the general causes of these groups. I had no idea that you understood the concept and was just pretending not to know, these conversations would go a lot easier if you would just say what you understand to be true instead of pretending not to understand just to avoid admitting I am right about something. And Canada is a great example, people are people, voting is voting (as long as there is no major corruption changing the votes after they are cast), their general trend is liberal while most of America tends to be conservative. Both Countries are having issues politically staying on the course of the general trend of the majority of those who live there. In Canada the people tend to be liberal but right now conservatives win control while here in America the people tend to be conservative and liberals have control. Both Countries have lost control for the same reason, splintering.

Hey Ali, I guess I missed the transition from devoted single lady to you being hooked up, the last I remember you seemed to be talking about a guy dating and getting too serious. Congrats, I hope everything works out well for you two. No disaster stories about the first meetings, my family has always been very supportive of whoever I liked, sometimes I wish they would have helped me avoid a couple of the bad ones but the bad helps to make us strong too.

Hitler accomplished many things no one had done before too, that did not make his actions good. And no, I am not trying to compare the two, Obama is not anywhere near that realm and I would never say he was, but my point is just because you can do a thing, that does not mean you should do a thing. Obama is running the most closed door administration in over 30 years when he promised to run the most open one. Obama is a pure partisan President when he promised to be someone who was going to change Washington and bring people together. What are some of his big accomplishments Chi? Spend money faster than any other President in history? Did his stimulus bill keep unemployment below 8% as promised? Remember that was why it had to be passed right away before anyone could read it? Obama has passed a healthcare bill into law that most Americans did not want. Obama is close to destroying our relationship with Israel. Obama has shown himself weak on foreign policy and places like North Korea and Iran are looking down their nose at him. What exactly are his great accomplishments? Help me out here because I really do want to be proud of the man running our Country but I am having difficulty finding something I can point at and say "that" is a great thing Obama has done. hugo, you gave up before the game was over, imagine if any game was played that way, why not end the football games at 30 minutes of play? How about 6 innings in baseball? Your saying it is okay to assume defeat and act accordingly, I don't believe that is part of the American way, we don't give up, hell if we had looked at the assumptions of who was the most powerful we never would have fought for our freedom but we did fight the unwinnable war and guess what......we beat the odds and came out on top. We won not because we were divided but because like minded people stuck together and used their combined will to give each other the strength to go one, to keep going, and to ultimately win.

So nothing counts unless you want it to count? Seems to me like your putting on your blinders and blocking out anything that does not feed into your self-imposed concept that only your 'purity' stand is good and everyone else in America has it wrong. Your circular agrguments are designed for one thing, to dodge the truth that only two people can win, and refusing to support the conservate in the race is in reality supporting the liberal. I can't even remember how many times you and many other people made big deals about gray area being real life but now, it is you who refuses to see the gray, why is that RO? Why is this one time you cannot see the gray? Maybe because it proves it is you who is being unreasonable? The game we have comes down to two people, I know that sucks, I agree that sucks, but it sucking does not change the reality and that reality is we have to choose between two men. If you refuse to play the game at hand then your part of the reason we lose. Now I just gave you another great example of how the 33% popularity conservatives in Canada are winning elections because the 56% popularity liberals are divided among three seperate groups and still.....you claim to not understand the concept of how splintering weakens a group.........I have to admit I am out of ideas on how to educate you on this concept so I will bow out of this, I have tried my best, but I guess it was not enough.

I will fall back on this quote again, it says my point better than anything else on sticking together: “There are plenty of teams in every sport that have great players and never win titles. Most of the time, those players aren't willing to sacrifice for the greater good of the team. The funny thing is, in the end, their unwillingness to sacrifice only makes individual goals more difficult to achieve. One thing I believe to the fullest is that if you think and achieve as a team, the individual accolades will take care of themselves. Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.� ~ Michael Jordan In many countries the vote means little, other countries it means a little more, but only America is the great experiment where true freedoms were put in the hands of the people and now they seem to be choosing the shackle of the European socialism anyway.......so many have no real clue as to what they are giving up. You know RO, Obama did accomplish a great thing, he inserted an excitement that brought many people to the voting booth who normally would not have come, but he brought them to the booth with a lie that has dashed their dreams of the HOPE he was supposed to give them. The CHANGE in Washington so many people wanted....but all of it just more lies to get elected and gain power for himself and his liberal friends....what a waste, imagine if we could find a conservative minded person who could bring that kind of hope to the people but then follow through instead of turning his back on the campaign promises? Now that is a guy I could get behind reguardless of what his party he belonged to, you know, even though my mind knew Obama was telling lies, my heart really wanted him to be telling the truth about ending the Washington as usual politics, but as usual, great dreams are exactly that, dreams, not reality.

I just think it is interesting that when Israel refuses to do as ordered, Obama backs off of Iran. You are of course right RO, Obama is weak and everyone knows it, Obama on the world stage is a joke, he should just stay at home where he can enjoy his feeling of power and stop making a fool of himself and America around the world with the way he treats friends as enimies and he speaks kindly to enimies.

Just because someone like McCain does not believe everything you do that does not mean he is not a conservative, your only willing to see black and white but the world is shades of gray. Again, voting is not conservative or liberal. Voting is American.

But the 'centrists' who have the R or D in their description generally are voting for the R or D anyway, the only "wild cards" are the independents, they are the fence sitters who go either way the wind blows them at the time, that is why normally conservative minded people like the Libertarians ended up voting for the liberal instead of the conservative in the race. They are always going to be the deciding factor. Let me give it to you another example, in Canada recent elections have shown conservative canidates winning elections and gaining a lot of power, but do you know why? In most polls they only get 33% of the popularity and the heavy liberals have 56% of the popularity....but that 56% is divided among three seperate groups who do not cooperate with each other. If they joined under one banner they would easily destroy the conservatives, division and splintering is costing them control. I would not want to piss off everyone, but the liberals need to learn to learn a little humility, they are so dazzled by their own glamor they don't even see the little people and constitution they are trampling on.

It is truly sad to see the lengths people will go to in order to get the peanut butter jelly time song out of their head.

The latest in anti-mugging apparel.

Fresh on the heels of taking the toughest stand against our ally with Obama demanding Israel stop building homes even in areas that have never been included in any negotiations, today word has been leaked that Obama is backing down from very tough sanctions against Iran because Russia and China have refused to allow any big steps against Iran. Russia and China have together stated that they will not agree to any serious sanction increases and prefer to use small steps. I don't know if Obama is doing this on purpose but it seems crazy to me that right after the Israeli Prime Minister rejected Obama's demand, that Obama is backing down on his support of strong sanctions on Iran. I get the feeling that a showdown between Israel and Iran is comming very soon, and then what? Will Obama claim that Israel is the provocateur and not support them when they do act? Will there be a middle east war?

I was honestly surprised that so many Canadians who are actually actively looking for higher education feel it is reasonable to threaten violence in order to silence someone they do not agree with. Nobody was being forced to go listen to this woman, I agree she is over the top because she loves to take examples to the extreme and has a very edgy sense of humor, but again, the only people who would hear her would be those who wanted to. Why is that too much for Canadians to handle? Why is that too much for Canadian college students to handle? If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. ~John Stuart Mill The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. ~Henry Steele Commager Em, I'm not trying to bash Canada, but I spent some time today checking out the comment sections of several Canadian news sites and the vast majority of the comments were very supportive of not allowing conservative voices on colleges, I was very dissapointed. I don't think everyone in Canada believes in this kind of thing, but it sure seems that no matter what most people in Canada believe, the colleges are going to create their own reality.

I understand, it is very confusing, lol.

What they have already passed is still trying to be figured out, I "BELIEVE" (not 100% sure because the details are still not released) that most basic healthcare would be covered but not dental or optometry unless you had one of those high dollar policies that are to be heavily taxed under this law. Each person making below 150k will get some kind of tax credits or payments to try and help them pay for the policies. Each person can get their own insurance or join an insurance "pool" but still only those allowed in each State because Obama refused to open up competition accross State lines. One of the things I do know for sure is Obama has ended the education loan market and taken it over to make money to help pay for this program. More private sector jobs were just erased by this administration. I said when he first got elected that Obama will go down in history as the Presidetn who killed the most private sector jobs during his Presidency, this one law alone is going to kill about 200,000 private sector jobs and add almost the same number of Government jobs (maybe more). Only private sector jobs help the economy, Government jobs are recycling the same tax dollars so when we lose private sector jobs and gain Government jobs to take their place we have lost in effect 4 times the tax revenue in the level of harm it causes.

Because of things like malpractice insurance a huge amount of the money a doctor makes goes to that, not in their pocket, in fact that was the one thing the doctor mentioned as a great kind of insurance for the Government to take over because once the Government had to start paying out claims, you bet they would figure out how to end the BS lawsuits. As far as what is considered a 'decent living' I am sure that is up to the beholder but when you consider the level of education and risk a doctor must face you surely can't expect them to like being paid a low wage. According to the latest "The Taming of the Queue" annual meeting in Canada about the long medical waiting lists, the beginning doctor in Canada starts out at $100,000 and the top earners are anesthesiologists with over ten years experience who make around $260,000. The low wages are considered to be the number one reason Canada is severely short on doctors, but then again most of these doctors run to the united states to make more money, as soon as the money is taken out of the American system Canada might be able to retain their doctors because there is no financial draw for them to leave. I can say this, I would not work as a doctor for that kind of money, as you said a low skilled dental hygienist can make 100k so why be a doctor? My brother-in-law who is a doctor is already looking into retiring early because he says there is no way he will work that hard for close to nothing. I saw a recent story about Canada considering making a doctor education only three years to try and fill the shortages, I wonder if rushing kids through their training will have any negative results?

Last evening I told you guys I had to break out early because I had company comming over and we needed a few things. Well the dinner party served as a kind of round table between me and severl friends and what we had on our minds concerning the recent events in healthcare and we were fortunate enough to have a Doctor and a nursing director there along with one of my County commissioners and a school teacher, everyone else was either a spouse or a person involved in construction. Each of us took turns talking about our hopes and fears for how things are going from this point and I was surprised at how even the school teacher agreed that there is no way this bill will be paid for using the existing numbers, there will be a required increase in funding from some other source. A couple people did say that the bill was worth it even with new and higher taxes because "something" had to be done. Some time was spent on various other things that could have been done but we got that was not really the point so we got the discussion back on track on what we do now with this new law. The doctor made a point he made to me long ago but added more at the end and I would like to share that with you guys. Like my first conversation with him long ago, he related how each practice must keep a balance of patients, some with higher paying insurance, and some with low paying government payments. The balance allows a doctor to keep a possition in the middle once the low payments and the higher payments meet. His new point was that under this new law, it seems like this will be a "government option" because they have taken control of all insurance companies. The Government through the HHS will dictate how much insurance companies can charge, and how much they will reimburse for services. At first the two teirs will allow that balance of payments but as costs rise because insurance companies will be forced to pay out more in claims, and they will not be allowed to raise rates, the last thing they will be able to do is match the payouts the Government pays, essentially making all insurance companies exactly like Medicare. What does this mean? Well it means the 'middle ground' most doctors need to stay in business will be gone, they will all have to either go out of business or transform into a kind of 'health department' style of business where it is all low end clinic style of treatments, long waiting lines and minimum wage workers. Now some people may think there is nothing wrong with that but he warned us that the real harm will come down the road as young people who are able to be doctors see how little money there is to be made and choose other careers. Why would someone choose to work 12 or more hours a day and have to maintain constant education if there is no way to make a good living? Then he mentioned how quality of care would be lost because all incentive to excell would have been eliminated. A great doctor and a crappy doctor will be paid the same money with few exceptions, those who will make the most money will be the doctors who can create the fastest 'cattle call' medical service, less time per patient means more patients each day, and more payments so the incentive will be for the doctor to make up his mind quickly on the diagnosis and move on to the next person. The rest of the night was us talking about other issues like the mandate for business to provide insurance or pay penalties, or individuals being forced to get insurance or have their income tax returns taken away to pay their fines. And what of the mistakes? Put simply we all agreed that new taxes are on the way, and the medical services we know now are going to change. Not right away because most of this does not happen for a few years but planning now is certainly a wise decision.

Not working on that link, normally you do it the same way you do a quote but use the word media instead of quote.....or you click on the tiny button that is all the way to the right on the same line as the smiley button that says media when your cursor is over it....but this link does not seem to work right, might not be a kind of media it can use directly. But that was very funny, lol.

I know you saw my point, now your just flooding the topic with a lot of empty words to try and take attention away from that point. My comment teken in context as a reply to hugo is clear. Hugo contends that no conservative vote was wasted on alternative canidates because every sane person in America knew there was no way Obama could lose. If we are to believe that concept is valid we should stop playing football games because all we need to do is award the win to the team "expected" to win and not waste any time actually playing it...........right? My example was based on the fact that nobody knows for sure what the outcome of a contest is going to be..............unless they give up before the end, as he evidently did. The quote is relivent reguardless of party, Most should understand that voting is a concept for all Americans, not just conservatives.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/03/24/protest-cancels-coulter-speech-ottawa/ OTTAWA -- A protest by hundreds of students led organizers to cancel a Tuesday night speech by American conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa. A spokesman for the organizers said Coulter was advised against appearing after about 2,000 "threatening" students crowded the entrance to Marion Hall, posing a security threat. "It would be physically dangerous for Ann Coulter to proceed with this event," said conservative political activist Ezra Levant inside the hall. "This is an embarrassing day for the University of Ottawa and their student body . . . who chose to silence her through threats and intimidation." A protest organizer, international studies student Mike Fancie, said he was pleased they were able to stop Coulter from speaking. "What Ann Coulter is practicing is not free speech, it's hate speech," he said. "She's targeted the Jews, she's targeted the Muslims, she's targeted Canadians, homosexuals, women, almost everybody you could imagine." The announcement of the cancelation was greeted with shouts of "Shame" and "We want Ann" from about 100 people inside the hall. Outside protesters mockingly chanted "Goodbye Ann Coulter." About 10 Ottawa police cars were called to the scene, but there were no incidents. Coulter expressed her outrage, calling the University of Ottawa a "bush league" institution in an interview for The Washington Times. "This has never happened before," she told the newspaper. "I go to the best schools, Harvard, the Ivy League and those kids are too intellectually proud" to threaten speakers. Levant blamed the bedlam on university academic vice-president Francois Houle, who had written Coulter to warn her that Canadian laws make provisions for hate speech. "Promoting hatred against any identifiable group would not only be considered inappropriate, but could in fact lead to criminal charges," he warned her in the letter, which Coulter quickly leaked to the media. The university has refused to comment since. Levant said Houle's advice to Coulter had emboldened students to block her appearance. Coulter, a best-selling author and syndicated columnist, was in the middle of a three-city tour of Canada, which began at the University of Western Ontario in London on Monday, and ends in Calgary on Thursday. The event in London went without incident, but not without controversy. When answering questions from students, Coulter told a 17-year-old Muslim student to "take a camel" instead of the flying carpet she has previously suggested Muslims use for transportation. Coulter later told CTV that the "camel" remark was a joke. The bullies can't allow opposing points of view, violence is a reasonable course of action in their minds to stop someone who does not believe what they believe from speaking their beliefs. They say she is conducting 'hate speach' but they think they made things better will threats of 'hate violence'?

So Ren, were you able to fix your problems?