fletch
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Posts posted by fletch
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Do you think a national healthcare system will be bad for the person who is having a heart attack and won't call 911 because they don't have the money to pay the hospital bills? Do you really think people that cannot support themselves deserve to die?
Do you think individual rights are a good idea, or do you think they should only kick in when everyone elses needs and wants are first met?
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Doesn't a place like Israel need restrictions on immigration?
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I didn't say he was participating. I can only repeat what I already said to answer what I think you're asking: He replied that he did not say a single good thing about my painting because I "posted it as art and not as an exercise" - those are the exact words I used in that thread. This, very straight forwardly, implies that his first post took its form because of the other thread.
No. Myself acknowledges reading the other thread after you made it known to him. His first post mentions nothing of the other thread, only critiques of your new drawing. His second post was written with knowledge of the other thread.
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My evidence is the definition of God. A supernatural being. We can't have evidence for or against it. We never will have evidence for or against it.
I can tell you that you aren't going to have much success convincing anyone around here of anything if you cant go four words without contradicting yourself. I think you have to start by asking yourself: Why do I believe? Since you have ruled out any evidentiary basis for your belief, there isn't much reason for any rational person to buy into it then, is there?
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The leader of the free world is practicing what he preaches. He tells us that America is hypocritical because, while we preach freedom and individual rights, we have failed to perfectly reach those ideals. Those nations which do not promote freedom, but also fail to reach the ideals are pragmatic, "consistent in word and action." America, no better than Iran, in this view, because neither has reached perfection, is actually worse than Iran because we pretend to stand for freedom.
I think you are right, but I also get the impression that Obama is also of the view that things like individual rights, liberty, democracy are Western ideals and the West has no right to impose its ideals on others. When he says things like "the world is watching'' I get the idea that he is really saying "go ahead and get these unruly masses under control, but just dont kill too many of them in the process." I dont know if he is afraid to stand up for democracy for fear of being compared to Bush or what, but it hard to imagine that his administration cannot see the benefit to the US that a change in the leadership of Iran would mean.
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You started off by arguing that "Letterman doesn't do statutory rape jokes, in fact he makes a point out of not allowing any allusions to sex with a minor, and has been doing so for 30 years." Now you say this:
Also, it is ridiculous to assume that Letterman or his writers would have any idea what daughter Palin brought along, or care. They saw the headline : Plain and daughter at the Yankees game. So Letterman repeated the headline, and told the joke. The audience laughed at the joke, never caring about Palin or facts.So which is it? Does Letterman have a 30 year history of scupulously avoiding sex jokes that involve a minor? Or does he just run with a joke without research? It cant be both. If you are going to do a joke about a woman and her daughters visit to New York, wouldnt someone with a 30 year history of avoiding sexual jokes involving minors at least do a little reaserch into which daughter it was? A staff with the standards you claim they have would. But in this case they didnt so Letterman owes the woman an apology.
Jokes are not based on facts, they are based on whatever setup the joke-teller chooses:Total nonsense. You clearly dont know what a joke is or how they are constructed. Virtually any good joke has some basis in fact, reality or the way one views reality. Use your own joke about two Jews as an example. Would it make sense if instead of Jews you used two Christians? Two rednecks? Why do you think that is? Are you also claiming that there were no facts involved in the Palin joke? His whole monologue is basically current events (facts) that are infused with non-factsor other non related facts to make them funny. The Palin joke fused many facts together to create fiction in the form of humor. Trouble was, this one was not all that funny or very well thought out.
My words: the one which has a habit of getting pregnant and then preaching abstinenceNothing more dishonest or irrational than cutting off a sentence to claim a superficial victory in a disagreement. You are a superficial hothead.
More nonsense. Adding the second half of the sentence doesnt change anything, which is why I left it off.
She is in the habit of preaching abstinence, despite learning first hand that it does not work: young girls should be told about condoms and pills instead, if their parents wish to avoid pregnancy.Had you written it this way the first time I wouldnt have said anything. But since you took the time to re-write the sentence, you already knew that.
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From my experience with Christians, they are more advocates for what they see as tradition and traditional values. Any support they show for capitalism is based more upon how they see it related to traditional America, than as a value itself.
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This is, in my opinion, the most disgraceful part of the Obama presidency thus far. It really shows his cowardice and desire to appease both sides.
Its almost as if Obama has made the calculation that the protesters will ultimately lose out and if he sides with them now it will make it that much more difficult to deal with the Iranian govt in the future. He seems more interested appeasing the current regime than in the Iranian people liberating themselves from it. It is a rather disgraceful position for an American president to take.
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No, you're claiming that he did it about a minor. The fact is that he never named which daughter he's talking about, but anyone with a sense of humor understands that the joke can only work if it is about the one which has a habit of getting pregnant and then preaching abstinence, to the amusement of the viewing public.
You can't use your baseless claim to prove your baseless claim. That's not how proving things works.
Ok. Lets start form the beginning. Here is the 'joke' that started the whole thing:
“One awkward moment for Sarah Palin at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”
Now, Palin was in New York with her daughter, Willow, the 14 yr old, not Bristol, the 18 yr old. Why would I or anyone else assume that Letterman was talking about the daughter that was not in New York and was probably home in Alaska, and not the one that was actually in New York? No, he didnt name the daughter he was referring to, but perhaps he should have if wanted his meaning to be clear.
For example, lets say you have two brothers, Ed and Joe. Ed is a drunk and Joe is not. You and your brother Joe come to New York and I say something humorous like: One awkward moment for Jake Ellison at the Yankee game, during the seventh inning, his brother passed out drunk and fell out of the bleachers. Would you assume I was talking about the brother, Ed, who was not in New York or the brother, Joe, who was?
Even if I grant that Lettermen intended the joke to be aimed at the older daughter, that doesnt mean that an honest person could not conclude that he was talking about the other daughter. As for your other claim that Bristol has "a habit of getting pregnant," does doing something one time constitute a habit in your mind?
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The claim that a nework show doesn't have standards is ridiculously uninformed. Plus, it could easily be backed up with a few examples of sexual jokes about a minor, if there were any. In this setting, I can't prove a negative going back 30 years, you're supposed to come up with evidence of those type of jokes.
Dont look now, but that joke he told the other night about Palins daughter was a sexual joke about a minor. While you are obviously impressed by his supposed 30 year streak of not telling such jokes, well, he just blew it. But look on the bright side, he can always start a new streak. He's already got about a week under his belt.
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Actually the reason you would assume Letterman was referring to Bristol is because she is the one who got knocked up by an athlete a year ago.
Was Bristol at the Yankee game, which was the basis for the 'joke?'
Was Letterman's first statement really an apology? Or a snotty monologue?And that was Letterman's second statement on the matter, not the first which Ellison was discussing. -
This strikes me as a bit arrogant.
Barbara Boxer doesnt like being called ma'am:
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The joke wasn't about the 14 year old daughter. (it was a pregnancy joke, about the one that got pregnant before, the 18y.o.) There is proof of intent on that, because Letterman doesn't do statutory rape jokes, in fact he makes a point out of not allowing any allusions to sex with a minor, and has been doing so for 30 years.
That constitutes proof to you? The proof of who he was talking about lies in the fact that there was one Palin daughter at the Yankee game--the 14 year old. So like it or not, the joke (if you can even call it that) was aimed at a minor. I dont see why Palin should have assumed Letterman was talking about the daugher that wasnt at the game just because Letterman wants to backpedal or pretend he has some standards. I see no reason to cut this asswipe any slack. It was a stupid and obviously ignorant thing to say and he should have been man enough to immeidately apoligize for his own and his writers' stupidity.
You mean the way they ignored his apology in thisThe 14y.o. thing is just a misunderstanding(not really his fault) he cleared up the next day, and Fox chose to ignore it and lie.story from the Fox News website on June 16?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,526525,00.html
As for Mr. Palin, he should not be upset at jokes directed to his adult wife or his adult daughter, any more than they themselves should be upset with it.Actually, Mr. Palin stayed completely out of the news while his wife has routinely attacked and mocked for the past year. He didnt step forward until Letterman attacked his 14 yr old daughter. He had every right to be upset and would have been justified as a father to punch that clown Letterman in the face. I wonder if Letterman would find that funny.
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If every restaurant owner defines gender by the presence or absence of a penis
Do you have another way of defining gender? If my putting on a wig and some lipstick makes me a woman, then you wont mind me loitering about the "ladies room" or "womens locker room" while you are in there changing.
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Does anyone have any specific theories as to what will happen when the central planners' actions come to fruition in reality?
Well, you could always take a look at how well central planning has gone in North Korea. Unless, of course, starvation was the central plan, then it has been a smashing success.
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The latest polls showed that around 50% thought that Hamas was leading them in the wrong direction. That doesn't mean the other 50% thought Hamas was leading them in the right direction......
Let's do some math. So, at a maximum, you have 750,000 Gazan Islamists and 750,000 Gazan non-Islamists.
I dont think you can necessarily draw that conclusion from the poll you cited. There is no way of knowing, for instance, how many of those who feel that Hamas is leading them in the wrong direction feel that way because they see Hamas as not being militant enough, or oppose the current leadership or tactics but not the ideological movement. Either way, this poll cannot be used to measure the level extremism in Gaza...except to say that is still quite large.
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For the past 6 months, neither religion nor the religious right has been driving the agenda. The left has total control over than now. If there is a religious issue that needs to be addressed and hasn't been, I cant think of it.I did say "for the past half year" – none of the op-eds and press releases you listed were published during that period. -
This clip at 6:20 gives the movie credits and lists the songs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snr8fLYWAwQ...feature=related
It might be one of those.
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Do you deny America had an even strong religious bent in those days? It was thankfully not as relevant in politics with exceptions like Woodrow Wilson until probably Reagan, but the country itself was still very much religious.
More religious than the 1850's? The 1750's? I doubt it. Somehow Christianity and Capitalism co-existed just fine throughout the freest most productive years of US history. It is the secular left that seeks to enslave us, not the Christian right.
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Correct. 1930's America didn't have the benefit of hindsight that we have either. We now know the real causes of the Depression and that FDR's actions only lengthened it. Despite that, we seem willing to repeat the same mistakes today. Plus, we were a producer nation back then and a consumer nation now; we were a creditor nation back then and a debtor nation now. We still have all FDR's programs hanging around our necks as well as those of LBJ's Great Society and everything since.FDR was awful, but we're a lot further along a downward spiral than we were then. Environmentalism wasn't around back then, anyway. Yes, there was conservation, and a few fringe anti-civilization types, but not the full blown postmodernist movement we have today. Another thing to look at is the entertainment culture then and now.There is a big difference, I think, between the first nail in the coffin and the last.
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Foreigner--Waiting for a girl like you
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I think you are going to have to fill in that blank since, if you rule out political or regulatory figures, for what purpose would it be necessary for CEO Johnson to buy allies and influence? Are there advantages to being a $100 billion company over a guy working out of a storage unit? Of course. Wealth has its advantages. That is why people pursue it. You seem to want to change that, however. You want political power to weigh in on the side of Miller to make up for the disparity in wealth that he has with Johnson. It is that mentality that ultimately ruins it for Miller. Because once you open the door for political influence to enter the market, you make it possible for that influence to be influenced; usually by the party with the most cash. In other words, the very thing you decry in your post, you make possible.I wouldn't have thought money=power concept would be controversial either. If CEO Johnson of corporation X worth $100 billion is vying with small business owner Miller over (fill in the blank), who do you think has the money to buy allies and influence people in order to get his way? There are billions of examples of money equating with power that have nothing to do with politics. That's just the reality that has to be accepted, losers get stomped. Survival of the fittest.
Maybe you have some evidence as to which particular regulations Bush eased to cause the current economic problems. I will agree with you in one respect: deregulation is very dangerous. When you have a market already distorted by mountains of government regulation, removing certain regulations while leaving others in place can cause just as many negative and unforeseen consequences as enacting new regulations.Maybe you have some evidence to show that the conventional wisdom is wrong and that the Bush Administration was actually more regulatory-minded than the Clinton Administration. -
Is he really a pragmatist or does he just play one on TV? I, for one, dont believe a word of this:
"... if we can fix this problem [healthcare] entirely through the market, I'm happy to do it that way."
If he really believed that, why would he have set aside $600,000,000,000 as a health care 'down payment' in his first budget? He has no intention of turning to the free market for a solution to health care or anything else. All these summits and task forces are to select the best possible government solution to the problem. From what I can tell, the market, in his mind, is the cause of the problems. So I dont expect him to seek solutions there.
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Does the Rand Method imply making BS and baseless accusations and expecting someone to defend them? Why do you spend 75% of your disposable income on chocolate sundaes, fletch?
Given your previous posts on the subject, I dont know that assuming you support Obama could be classified as 'baseless.' As for your original question: Who is better than Barack Obama? I suppose if your goal was to expand the size of government, socialize medicine, balloon the debt, punish achievement, reward failure, redistribute wealth, and extinguish the remaining embers of smokestack-capitalism, then there might well be no one better than Barack Obama.
US President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
in Current Events
Posted
More good news for Obama. The Baseball Hall of Fame Committee will present him with The Cy Young Award during his induction ceremony next year for his performance at this years All-Star Game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRGK3QfcEqw