Y2HH

QUOTE (GoSox05 @ Dec 9, 2009 -> 09:04 AM) So Beck thinks that Obama is being controlled being Robert Creamer, because they are both from IL and were at the same party. They are also working together to turn America into some kinda progressive wonderland. Side note on Beck. I think it's funny that he uses a picture of Martin Luther King in his little opening segment. MLK was a socialist and really didn't hide it. Shouldn't Beck be attacking his evil ways? So Beck uses a picture of MLK in his opening. Move on. Beck never said Obama is being controlled by Creamer, he simply said that the entire plan of action from the start in regard to Health care Reform has been almost identical to the plan laid out in Creamers book. And it is.

...to add to this. I say this because they outright show it. They run on Platform A, which says if X happens, we need to do Y. The people agree...the people vote for that person, but then when that persons in office and X happens, they do Z instead. There is no accountability in the government anymore. There was a time that if you ran on Platform A but got elected and enacted Platform B, there would have been hell to pay...now it doesn't even matter. People have such short term memories, you can say whatever you want while campaigning and just do whatever you want after you win.

QUOTE (bmags @ Dec 9, 2009 -> 08:50 AM) it sounds like Y2HH is actually describing pretty accurately what those wonderful founding fathers hoped for in our republic. Two chambers to prevent populist outrage of people screaming what they want, at the expense of what's actually good for them. A lot of people wanted the U.S. currency to move to the silver standard, luckily william jennings bryan didn't win. Has to work both ways. The people cannot outright be ignored just because they don't agree with you, but they can't be listened too without reason. Our government doesn't even bother listening anymore, and that's the problem.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 9, 2009 -> 08:39 AM) I read Polis's "Freshman Year" articles on CNN. He seems like a pretty cool guy actually. He is cool, very cool, but that has nothing to do with his politics nor his opinion that he knows whats best for his people, despite what they want.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 9, 2009 -> 08:25 AM) I was addressing BigSqwert's complaint about kap saying Harry Reid had s*** for brains or whatever it was. Personally I don't care and I let a lot of stuff like that slide. That's just how kap talks. I agree that people like Harry Reid have s*** for brains -- and for one specific reason -- people like him have forgotten their place. I'm friends with a Congressmen, his name is Jared Polis from Colorado. He's amongst this type, much to my dismay. They no longer carry out the word of their people, but instead make choices for them, because, in his own words, "we know whats best for them". Beyond arrogant. Reid, Pelosi, and I'm sure many on the republican side feel this way...and I feel this is a BIG problem in our government.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Dec 8, 2009 -> 08:13 PM) Thought this was pretty interesting.... http://www.therightscoop.com/watch-the-gle...ecember-7-2009/ Beck is usually interesting, but I think he hurts his credibility by being such a sensationalist. The one thing he has going for him is that he's anti big government, whether that be democrat or republican. I constantly see him attacking both sides...so as much as I find him annoying, at least he's consistent.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Dec 8, 2009 -> 10:50 PM) OHHHHHHH COMPROMISE! Good grief. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091209/ap_on_...h_care_overhaul Instead of a public option, we will now have an option for the public. I love how everyone feels Kap's statements are "ridiculous" because they disagree with him. Isn't the mantra/catch phrase of the Liberal people to be "open minded"? So much for that. More like, be open minded -- and as long as you agree with everything I say -- then I'll consider you open minded. If this issue was so cut and dried as many claim -- it wouldn't be an issue, now would it. Argue on.

My father was exposed to AO many times while he was in Vietnam, though, while he suffers from hypertension/high blood pressure/etc, he refuses to look into the matter in terms of treatment/compensation...he says he's fine and doesn't blame the government for these types of things. That said, this shows you how awesome the VA is while they have thousands upon thousands of denied, pending/delayed or otherwise ignored/backlogged claims in relation to AO.

Still no RUSH. Dumb.

You are both so witty.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 7, 2009 -> 12:52 PM) I set my argument up terribly and allowed myself to get smacked down here. I could change up and pretend I was saying something else and act like you misunderstood me but that'd be dishonest. lol. My overall point was trying to tie into what NSS is saying. AIG's been badly mismanaged, so they can go cry me a river about 500k not being enough. And I have a hard time believing they will have such a hard time filling these positions and there aren't non-incompetent employees ready to step up. I agree. And using double negatives to create a positive always leads to confusion. Or in your case, a triple negative. "aren't non-incompetent" I had to read that 300,543 times before I understood.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Dec 2, 2009 -> 06:16 PM) What do you know, I agree completely with you. You agreed with me...completely? I believe you just created a paradox which will inevitably lead to the end of life on Earth.

These approval ratings mean a load of nothing. The American people, by and large, aren't keen on viewing an overall body of work to judge. What I mean is, the general attitude of these ratings is not what have you done, but what have you done lately. Another way of putting it is what event have you responded too lately and how did you respond. In October of 2001, GW's approval rating was around 53%. Just two weeks later, after responding to the 9/11 attacks, his approval rating was an astounding 90%+. Think of that. Now take approval ratings, whether they agree with your favorite candidate or not, and throw them in the trash. I'm not an Obama fan as many of you know, but Obama deserves to be judge on his overall body of work over 4 years, not on 12 months. The same applies to every former and future President.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 11:08 AM) At least IMO, we have the technology right now (or at worst within 5 years) to get ourselves nearly independent of oil and coal and let you keep your jeep at the same time, we just have to make it economically feasible to use it. I'm all for that, so long as the technology you speak of is mature and doesn't need to be replaced again 5 years down the road because it was infantile and inefficient. This is my problem with jumping the gun and implementing renewable infrastructure before the technology is mature enough to make a difference.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 11:03 AM) Big issue though...if you count only the U.S., I'm sure you're right. If you count the whole world, I'll guarantee you're wrong. A lot of what has been done is to simply outsource that resource destruction. I can only speak for us -- what the rest of the world is doing while it may be a shared issue there isn't anything we can do about it. Standing in front of a steam roller about to plow down the rain forests doesn't work...all it gets you is dead. We can try to reason with them, but there isn't much we can force them to do.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 11:00 AM) Actually no we're not. There really is very, very little economic incentive to cut down on waste at the levels at which we could. We could quite literally meet the Kyoto goals and catch up with Europe based solely on energy efficency. But what you're missing is...there's one big constituency who benefits from people using more energy; energy companies. With all due respect -- which means with no due respect -- I like my Jeep, and f*** Europe and they're stupid little cars.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 10:51 AM) I agree that water bottles are stupid. Especially when people buy new ones and leave the old ones laying around or just toss them outside somewhere. It's just so unnecessary, and wasteful. At least use the same bottle a few times. God damn. But as far as recycling paper, there's no reason not to do that. At the risk of sounding like a superliberal hippie, we kill lots of trees for no reason, just so we can have a mailbox full of circulars we won't even read, so at least we could put that trash to use somehow. I think recycling electronics is really underrated though. The material is already there, already harvested and refined, etc. and it's really easy to just use it again in some new product. Whenever I can, I sign up for email correspondence so I don't get paper mail. I do my part in that...but you're a super liberal hippy who I despise so STFU. Seriously, though, we have farms of paper mill pulp trees...we have more trees now than we did 50 years ago...we've been improving on this aspect.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 09:53 AM) I know they have recycling bins but I have no idea where to get them. Some of my neighbors do it and I put some of my stuff in there sometimes. I did find this though. I've never thrown any of my old electronics hardware away, ever, it just accumulates in crates when it gets obsolete because it's extremely wasteful and so easy to re-use in something newer. I'm going to drop it off this Saturday. See, this is also an issue. Recycling doesn't necessarily mean good. There ARE things that actually use more energy to recycle than to create new...blindly recycling because the name "recycle" is synonymous with good isn't the answer to our pollution woes. I get that it prevents the creation of more wasteful raw material, but it's still not the way go to. How about we stop using plastic when possible and move back to glass? We won't do that, because it makes things too expensive...but it's the REAL answer...where as recycling plastic is NOT the answer...as it creates more pollution than to just create more plastic. Instead of recycling this garbage, we need to stop making it and abusing it. I prefer my milk and soda in glass anyway...and I'd be willing to move back to the deposit format to get off of wasteful plastic. Water bottle people are some of the most wasteful polluters on the planet. At least they're healthy, though. They get to live longer breathing bad air...oh, wait...no they don't, since the bad air is killing them...so the benefits of drinking the water instead of the sugared sodas are negated anyway.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 09:25 AM) That's not really true. First off, the behavioral steps being encouraged about energy use, are small but could have a nice positive effect. Second, a major push to renewable energy is certainly expensive in the short run, but much, much cheaper for us in the long run, when you look at the complete picture. I said the small things are things we are all already doing -- like cutting down needless waste. Here is my issue with the current renewable energy sources we've thought up. At the current time they're expensive in the short run and they're still expensive in the long run...and it's not yet been proven they aren't, simply because it's the nature of infant tech. All of these renewable techs are in their infancy and they'll all need to be replaced in a few short years for being inefficient and wasteful. I liken it to AT&T's crappy network, it was implemented a long time ago with infant cellular technologies, and now there infrastructures full of outdated towers and older technologies and they're lagging behind everyone else who waited and implemented more mature, better thought out ideas...so now AT&T is spending billions MORE on top of the billions they already spent to REINSTALL the same infrastructure in order to catch up with modern technology. And it became no cheaper, as a matter of fact, it wound up costing them even more because they jumped the gun and bought into the hype and installed crappy gear just to get it done. Implementing these infant renewable energy technologies will lead us down the same path. Solar panels of today will do 5% of what they will do just a few years from now, so then we get to tear down everything we built and rebuild it, because the stuff we built before was sub par crap and we hurried to install it all because of the hysteria/panic, we then hand these costs down to the consumer, and end up with billions of unintended costs simply because we didn't stop and think...we created a crappy infrastructure off of a knee jerk reaction. I get it, we need to do something -- but waiting a few years and doing it right the first time won't make much of a difference is all I'm saying. Just racing to get some crappy idea implemented only to have to go back and redo it all isn't the answer.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 25, 2009 -> 08:05 AM) My point being, fixing the budget takes total unity of effort across the board, something which nobody in power or nobody even talking about wanting to be in power is willing to do right now. Quoted for truth. I 100% agree. They're continuing to play the same game as always -- they show you something expensive with their left hand and hide something just as expensive with their right. Right now we're blaming our nations budget woes on health care and wars, because it's convenient and fresh in the medias spotlight, and mark my words, even if we fix health care 100%, flawlessly, the budget woes will continue on almost every level because everything they saved will simply get wasted on other over budget programs. I'd actually like to see a list of under budget government programs. I bet there are none.

QUOTE (KipWellsFan @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 05:15 PM) Well for one, some people think that scientists somehow need to be 100% certain about the issue before taking even the most anemic steps. Of course it's impossible to be certain about climate change as it is about most things. You either take political action or not. Two, any government intervention is bad to some people. Hence, only the invisible hand of the market should control this. Of course these people ignore that government intervention reduced ozone damaging emissions. Successfully and with little economic disturbance. Three, some complete idiots think that scientists are somehow acting in a conspiratorial way with an end to transferring large amounts of money from business to government. These people are bonkers in general. I think it's normal to be skeptical. I am skeptical. I'm skeptical about most things. I'm not a scientist and I'm not a climate scientist. I've got to make common sense decisions. Pumping endlessly increasing amounts of crap into the air is bad. It may have helped give us a quality of living unseen before, but everything comes to an end. I think in some cases I'd agree, but when it comes to Global Warming (or Climate Change as it's now known), there is a lot of hysteria/hype backing this, and we all know what happens when hysteria meets hype and people begin to worry. They start spending other peoples money like it's water, because we all know that if there is a problem, throwing money at it fixes everything, even before we fully understand what's going on. Both sides have a case in this debate, but neither side is 100% correct, so instead of either side calling the other stupid and ignorant, we need to have serious scientific study continue, ignoring the political motivation/hype and figure out some REAL steps we can take. Now, I don't feel anyone would be against anemic steps to curb this and I think everyone here has already begun to scale back waste where we can...HOWEVER, and this is the rub for me, almost none of the steps being offered are anemic in any way, they're all way over the top expensive, not only to implement, but to sustain and to actually use.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 05:33 PM) Its not a great secret that the greatest outlays we have are security and social programs. You mean entitlements, which were once designed to help people when they were down and in their greatest need. You know, to get them back on the feet when the rest of the world would have let them die...today, they're designed to allow them to stay down.

QUOTE (bmags @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 02:39 PM) we should pay them $20,000! then special interest money surely wouldn´t be a problem! What´s that pining about trying to attract the best talent? I think they should be paid something fair, and 20,000$ isnt it, either. But neither is 130+ considering their benefits package alone is probably worth 70k a year.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 02:23 PM) $174k, although with the cushy benefit package you mentioned, but we're talking about some pretty senior positions here. That's in the range of an SES (a GS-15 in DC probably makes around $130k). That's a nice salary especially for a single person, but you'll never get rich working for the government. Well-compensated sure, but not rich. I'm married and if I made 130k + benefits I'd be very well off. Depending on how you define rich, I could be rich making that money. In comparison to the richest people in the world...no, but 130k+ for me, I'd be rich, yes. But being rich had nothing to do with my point. They're paid a lot for what they do. And I'm friends with a congressmen, so I know what they do and what they consider "work".

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Nov 24, 2009 -> 02:03 PM) So you say we should perhaps make Congress's health care plan more like that of the rest of America's? Since the Senate bill requires Congress to enroll in the health care exchange system they're setting up, I assume we now have your support? Forcing them onto private exchanges isn't the same as forcing them onto the government option. You know damn well the senate/congress wants no part of that bill so long as the public plan applies to them, which is why it doesn't...and why they would have to be on "exchanges", which means exactly nothing. And you will never have my support of any kind of government run option. And I find it funny they don't say they have to be on the public plan -- but on an exchange -- which could be exactly what they have now. That exchange system will have all levels of plans, some more affordable than others. Do note they want no part of their government run plan.