Huge study about safety can be misinterpreted by SUV drivers

Maybe because the US Constitution says so?

"General Welfare" and "welfare" are not the same.
But you knew that, and are just trying to obfuscate (for you, that
means lie).

 

This is typical for you, Lloyd.
You've changed the subject.

Another subject change.
It's irrelevant what the employer *might* do if circumstances were
changed. Reality intrudes; this isn't a hypothetical situation, it's
reality.
Try to stick with reality, here, Lloyd.

 

Approximately 11/6/03 11:29, The Ancient One uttered for posterity:

Do you like being laughed at Lloyd?

It beats being ignored apparently.

 

You changed the subject again.
Do you ramble like this in class?

 

And *AGAIN*!
Your mind is pretty unravelled, isn't it? Loose ends all over the
place.

 

Who brought God into this?
Oh, right: Lloyd.
Another change of subject.
Do you really think we don't notice?
Why not try staying on topic?

 

And there are those who will say that the one is an overpowering
reason to ban all guns.
Did you know there are people who use knives to assault other people,
and to commit suicide with?

 

An "honest recounting"??
I remember the photos of vote counters actually holding a ballot up to
the light to see if there was a small amount of light passing around a
"dented" chad; if there was, the vote would be counted (for Gore, of
course).
The concept of a voter actually being capable of making a positive
vote was thrown out, and Gore's people wanted to determine a voter's
mind for them.
Yeah, that's "honest", all right.

The SCOTUS.
Of course, when they vote *your* way, they are only being reasonable.

 

In trying to actually convince Lloyd, yes.
But there are a lot of people who don't know the truth, and will
accept what people like Lloyd put out as the truth, simply because
they use their position to imply that they know what they are talking
about.
There is a hope that such people will see that there is indeed more to
most things than what egotists like Lloyd say.

 

Thanks, Ed, well stated.

 

This is simply not true. In fact it is wrong my many orders of magnitude.
According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, natural emission
are at least 700 billion tons. Emissions related to human activity are only about
24 billion tons.

Regards,

Ed White

 

If so, and CO2 is the reason for our current warming trend, then what
caused all the other warming trends?

 

Approximately 11/6/03 12:02, Gerald G. McGeorge uttered for posterity:

First things first. Reading for comprehension class.

 

I don't think there's any question that global warming is happening.
But there are a lot of questions about that:

*Why* is it happening? Truth is, we don't know. We can *model*
scenarios that say we are at fault, but those models don't admit that
it's happened in the past, without the possibility of us interfering
at all.
*How long* will it last? Again, we don't know.
Will reducing the CO2 output from our manufacturing/transportation
slow/reverse the warming? Again, we don't know. And, we have
absolutely no idea of what would happen if we were to reverse it.
Would we enter another ice age? We simply don't know.

Models can be made to say anything the people making the models want
to hear. That's reality.
It's stupid to say that CO2 that we are putting out is the cause of
global; warming, then push something like Kyoto, which merely shifts
the location of the CO2 production. Yet, that's what the tree-huggers
want.

Maybe if we had more facts about what the problem is, we could come up
with some workable answers.

 

let this damn thread die already, please? it's cross-posted to 6
different newsgroups, and you're flooding networks.

 

Your post is interesting -

OK, but would you then agree that a government that tries to take away
women's right to choose is being fascist? After all, it does take away
a right according to its value system. Please let us not start a
discussion here about such a emotionally charged question as abortion;
I am only trying to point out that in the real world governments do
try and do succeed in imposing laws according to the prevalent value
system and not only according to the welfare of the people, as they
probably should.

I agree. Income disparity is one of the worse signs about the health
of a society. A perfectly fair society is an utopia, but the current
situation is clearly unfair and getting worse. Over the last decades
the real income of the poorest Americans has gotten worse, middle
class is stuck (actually it is earning a little less - in 1973,
private-sector workers in the US were paid on average $9.08 an hour,
today, in real terms, they are paid $8.33). The rich are only slightly
better off, and only the very rich are doing significantly better.

Inequality in America is mind-boggling. It is fair to say that 95% of
the American public is not getting a fair deal; after all the richest
1% owns more than the poorest 95%! The top 400 families made in 2002
on average 174 million each, way up from "only" 47 million each in
1992 - even so their tax burden has gone down from 26.4% to 22.3%, and
this before Bush's huge tax cuts skewed towards the very rich; if Bush
tax cut were in effect their tax burden in 2002 would be only 17.5%.
(See: http://www.xent.com/pipermail/fork/2003-June/022679.html)

You may be right, but then again what would you suggest government
should do in order to "reject the unfairness of there being a large
disparity between rich and poor"? What would you do if you were
President?

I think this is a very good right: we all lose if people just sit
around doing nothing. After all unproductive people will not really
wither away, they will turn to crime or will survive by consuming
social services your tax dollar will pay. A good government should
make it possible for almost everybody to be employed. Surely this is a
no-brainer.

I do think it is right that people should get a fair minimum wage for
their honest day's work. Surely you wouldn't like employers to be able
to exploit desperate people by paying them, say, 50 cents an hour. So
the only question is how high the minimum wage should be. If too high,
then it would end up hurting the very people it meant to help.

Health is the single greatest good. People in almost all civilized
countries, including Canada, Europe, Australia, etc., enjoy universal
health care. Sure Americans living in the richest country of all can
afford it too.

Well, I too get mad sometimes when people who are not really trying
get subsidized housing. On the other hand I would not like to be in a
country with poor people living in the streets. So here too, the
question is how to strike the right balance. Maybe the weakest members
of society, the ones who really cannot look after themselves, should
get shelter for free.

right to education,

Here I disagree completely. There is nothing as important for the
future of society as a good education. Everybody wins when people are
better educated. Even candidate Bush proclaimed he was going to be the
"Education President".

In a way I do agree with your sentiment. I hate it when people just
exclaim "this is my right". People should earn whatever they get -
unless they suffer of some infirmity. But in order to earn it they do
require education and employment and health, they require a fair
chance. Unfortunately the current administration prefers to blow
hundreds of billions of tax dollars on Iraq, and also to make sure
that the super-rich pay hundreds of billions less taxes in the future.
I don't see how these policies help the average American.

BTW the mega-billions spent on Iraq do not really go to Iraq or to the
American soldiers who risk their lives there, but mostly go to the
military industrial complex. Let us not forget that before 9/11 what
Rumsfield was trying to do was to spend mega-billions on the "missile
shield" in order to counter that other supposedly major security risk
to America. I can't help but think that what the current
administration is about is to shift more wealth to the already
wealthiest Americans using bogus threats to deceive the population at
large. This may sound simplistic, it may sound extremist, President
Bush might honestly be unaware of it, still I think this is basically
what is happening: a huge social engineering in inverse distribution
of wealth.

One last point - and I promise I am about to finish this post.
Precisely because I believe that "people should earn whatever they
get" I am in favor of estate taxes (what conservatives rather stupidly
have recently called "death taxes": it is not the dead who pay these
taxes but rather their offspring who get the dough). Why should the
ones who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, who grew up in
comfort, got the best possible education and the best connections, why
should they not have to pay taxes for daddy's (or mommy's) fortune
they are about to get? Small estates have always been tax free, but,
as far as I am concerned rich offspring should pay 80% on estates
larger than 10 million dollars and 90% on estates larger than 50
million; this would still give them several million dollars of
unearned money. Also nobody should get more than 10 million dollars
out of the fruits of his or her parents work - even Bill Gates claims
he will give his children no more than that.

 

Approximately 11/6/03 12:22, Gerald G. McGeorge uttered for posterity:

About as much sport as a Raiders game...

 

This was a great response. One I have believed in for years. One
that will never satisfy those that have an agenda that the "global
warming" myth supports. Too bad too.

Matt
99 V-10 Super Duty, Super Cab 4x4

 

Let's hold off on the spin and call a carrot a carrot, OK? Regardless of
where you stand on the issue, the issue is *abortion*, not
"awomansrighttochoose".

That's because too many people childishly refuse to accept that absolutist
or extreme positions on any side of any issue are seldom workable. In
other words, there are too many people who aren't content to live as they
choose, and wish to impose their wishes on others. With such a mindset,
compromise becomes impossible and society lurches from one extreme to the
other and back again.

We can scarcely afford the crapmess we've got now. Study after study after
study finds that Americans pay more for health care and get less for their
dollar than citizens of virtually every other first-world country.

Suppose a particular group of people -- people over 6-foot-2 tall, for
instance -- are systematically and pervasively discriminated against. They
get fired for no reason other than being over 6-foot-2, they get rejected
when applying to buy or rent housing because they're over 6-foot-2, they
are blamed for crime and violence, they are the frequent target of street
violence.

How would you propose people over 6-foot-2 "earn" the right to be free of
these sorts of tyrranies?

Because the money's already been taxed, often several times. Estate taxes
constitute double-dipping.

DS

 

Yeah, I've heard that over and over again. But I believe that anarchy is
what resides on the very extreme right... the lack of any government at all.
What is it about Fascism and Nazism that makes them right of center? To me
it's where power resides: in government or with people. It's about who owns
or controls the means of production. To the exteme left, government owns or
controls the means of producton and to the right, private enterprise owns or
controls the means of production. Communism, Fascism, Nazism and to a
lesser degree Socialism all have one thing in common: Government control of
the means of production and power to control the distribution of wealth
where it sees fit.

This is in conflict with the distinctly American value of limited government
and free enterprise.

I can play this game. How's this: Democrats believe in outlawing religion,
the murder of innocent life and removing prohibitions of incest, child sex,
prostitution, polygamy, etc. How's that?

Conservatives are for none of the things you list... certainly not the way
you list them. But I am happy that you seem to agree with what I said
above, given you started your paragrapth with the word "And". That's a good
sign Lloyd! You're coming along!