HeyBub wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:
I think you're overly optimistic. I think that no matter how
beneficial it was to remove Saddam Hussein, and that no matter how
important it may be to confront terrorism (and its root causes) -
George W. Bush's administration will be remembered for its
intentional polarization of American society, its falsehoods, and its
distain for the ideals and principles of American democracy.

The ideals and principles of American democracy, to coin a phrase, is not a
suicide pact.

Ok - did I suggest that it was?

Here's an example from another realm.

Orthodox Judaism holds that there are 613 Commandments - plus thousands more
regulations based upon these commandments. These rules were handed down
directly from God and God is not fond, to say the least, of anyone violating
them. Still, breaking these rules and commandments is not only permitted but
required and meritorious when a life would be at risk if the rules were
followed.*

From politics to religion? Hmm...

It's occurred to me that God must be a pragmatist /and/ have a sense of
humor.

Would you say a Jewish surgeon called to save a life on the Sabbath was
showing a "disdain" for his religious teachings? Would you complain that a
Jewish soldier firing back at an enemy was not adhering to his "principles?"

I'm generally not much inclined to stand in judgement of another
person's religious beliefs nor their exercise of same.

If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what about God
lying to Abraham?

If you spell "God" with a capital G, then I would suggest that standing
in judgement of Him might not be your best choice.

I will not make that same suggestion when it comes to politicians.

If you assert that "polarization" is a bad thing, how do you explain the
truth: "If you've got two Jews, you automatically have three opinions"?

My explanation: Everybody is opinionated. It's not a big deal - there
are times when I have three opinions all by myself.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Morris Dovey wrote:
SNIP

( Which, by the way, is why I keep encouraging you to involve yourself
in bringing forward /better/ candidates for office! )


I do .. by supporting their candidacy in both spirit and cash. While
I differed with his views on the Iraq war, I thought Ron Paul was the first
terrific choice we've had in decades. I went to his local rally and was
astonished - every demographic was represented (or so it seemed). Yet,
since he was outside the mainstream of the DemoRepublic mafia he got
no play. I too voted in the elections mentioned previously (well, almost
all of them). After a while it gets discouraging to realize: A) You
almost never get a good choice and B) The major political parties sponsor
candidates that vary between terrible and evil.

In truth though, the problem lies not with the candidates but with the
voting public. The politicians are merely canaries in the coal mine
signaling just how morally degenerate the population at large has
become in its incessant demands upon government to keep it safe,
educated, prosperous, healthy, and happy - almost all of which
are things that government manifestly cannot do, or at least not
do well. Shrug IMHO, the republic is doomed. The Sheeple are
electing candidates that are merely rearranging the deck chairs
on the Titanic, not trying to patch the leak and keep the boat
afloat ...
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Lew Hodgett wrote:
Tim Daneliuk's posts

IMHO, it's got to be a slow day around the water cooler when you
respond to them.

Lew



Yet you can't help yourself providing sidebar commentary.
I bet I know why:

It must be a very, very slow day when your only counterpoint is
personal rather than some form of ideas (pro- or con). I love
personal assaults - they demonstrate that the speaker can no longer
rationally defend their ground and have to resort to playground
name calling or the equivalent.


--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Daneliuk
PGP Key: http://www.tundraware.com/PGP/

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:
SNIP

( Which, by the way, is why I keep encouraging you to involve yourself
in bringing forward /better/ candidates for office! )

I do .. by supporting their candidacy in both spirit and cash. While
I differed with his views on the Iraq war, I thought Ron Paul was the first
terrific choice we've had in decades. I went to his local rally and was
astonished - every demographic was represented (or so it seemed). Yet,
since he was outside the mainstream of the DemoRepublic mafia he got
no play. I too voted in the elections mentioned previously (well, almost
all of them). After a while it gets discouraging to realize: A) You
almost never get a good choice and B) The major political parties sponsor
candidates that vary between terrible and evil.

Something we sha I haven't ever managed to find a candidate with whom
I was in agreement on every issue and I probably never will - but I
refuse to let that discourage me from encouraging good people to run for
office or from working to elect whomever I think will do the best job.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

On May 23, 11:30*pm, Tim Daneliuk wrote:




*The Sheeple

Ohhh DRAT!! I forgot to include SHEEPLE in my list of Timbo throw-out
lines.

How could i have forgotten SHEEPLE!!

Obamessiah fomenting Bush hate SHEEPLE!!


Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

"Morris Dovey" wrote:
=====================================
Something we sha I haven't ever managed to find a candidate with
whom I was in agreement on every issue and I probably never will -
but I refuse to let that discourage me from encouraging good people
to run for office or from working to elect whomever I think will do
the best job.
======================================
In many endeavors in life, being correct 51% of the time lets you keep
your job; however, politics isn't one of them.

Stop and think about it.

A congressman gets paid about $180K + expenses.

Most of them can earn significantly more outside gov't.

Out of that $180K, they are expected to maintain two (2) residences,
come back to their home district at least every two (2) weeks.

In addition, the must survive the "rubber chicken" circuit attending
an endless series of campaign fund raisers.

Yes, congressmen enjoy some nice benefits, but you don't invest the
time and energy needed to get elected just for benefits.

It takes someone who wants to make a difference to run the gauntlet of
seeking office, then serving in public service.

Lew

President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish someone
would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick can this guy
be? At least Bush crawled back under his rock and hopefully will stay
there. If the average person wants to do something, boycotting fox
"news" and its advertisers is a good place to start. They are dangerous
to the health of this country, spreading lies, fear and hatred in
support of far right extremists and corporate greed.

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
...
"Morris Dovey" wrote:
=====================================
Something we sha I haven't ever managed to find a candidate with
whom I was in agreement on every issue and I probably never will -
but I refuse to let that discourage me from encouraging good people
to run for office or from working to elect whomever I think will do
the best job.
======================================
In many endeavors in life, being correct 51% of the time lets you keep
your job; however, politics isn't one of them.

Stop and think about it.

A congressman gets paid about $180K + expenses.

Most of them can earn significantly more outside gov't.

Out of that $180K, they are expected to maintain two (2) residences,
come back to their home district at least every two (2) weeks.

In addition, the must survive the "rubber chicken" circuit attending
an endless series of campaign fund raisers.

Yes, congressmen enjoy some nice benefits, but you don't invest the time
and energy needed to get elected just for benefits.

It takes someone who wants to make a difference to run the gauntlet of
seeking office, then serving in public service.

Lew


Power is its own Currency.

tom tom wrote:
President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish someone
would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick can this guy
be? At least Bush crawled back under his rock and hopefully will stay
there. If the average person wants to do something, boycotting fox
"news" and its advertisers is a good place to start. They are dangerous
to the health of this country, spreading lies, fear and hatred in
support of far right extremists and corporate greed.


Good point. We can all watch MSNBC. We all know that they are never
opinionated. They would never be one sided.

Also, good point about Cheney. We can't have private citizens speaking
their minds. It's that damned 1st Amendment thing. Can't permit that.
We can't disagree with the leaders in power. That, of course, would
be treason.

LD wrote:
"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
...
"Morris Dovey" wrote:
=====================================
Something we sha I haven't ever managed to find a candidate with
whom I was in agreement on every issue and I probably never will -
but I refuse to let that discourage me from encouraging good people
to run for office or from working to elect whomever I think will do
the best job.
======================================
In many endeavors in life, being correct 51% of the time lets you
keep your job; however, politics isn't one of them.

Stop and think about it.

A congressman gets paid about $180K + expenses.

Most of them can earn significantly more outside gov't.

Out of that $180K, they are expected to maintain two (2) residences,
come back to their home district at least every two (2) weeks.

In addition, the must survive the "rubber chicken" circuit attending
an endless series of campaign fund raisers.

Yes, congressmen enjoy some nice benefits, but you don't invest the
time and energy needed to get elected just for benefits.

It takes someone who wants to make a difference to run the gauntlet
of seeking office, then serving in public service.

Lew


Power is its own Currency.

Bingo. We need to figure out how to tweak the system so that people who
aren't about power get elected.

On Sat, 23 May 2009 22:37:02 -0500, Tim Daneliuk
wrote:

Lew Hodgett wrote:
Tim Daneliuk's posts

IMHO, it's got to be a slow day around the water cooler when you
respond to them.

Lew



Yet you can't help yourself providing sidebar commentary.
I bet I know why:

It must be a very, very slow day when your only counterpoint is
personal rather than some form of ideas (pro- or con). I love
personal assaults - they demonstrate that the speaker can no longer
rationally defend their ground and have to resort to playground
name calling or the equivalent.

Tim someday you might replace Ann Coulter, if you go to Thailand for
sexual reassignment.

Now that is a personal attack.

Mark
(sixoneeight) = 618

Tim Daneliuk wrote:
In truth though, the problem lies not with the candidates but with the
voting public. The politicians are merely canaries in the coal mine
signaling just how morally degenerate the population at large has
become in its incessant demands upon government to keep it safe,
educated, prosperous, healthy, and happy - almost all of which
are things that government manifestly cannot do, or at least not
do well. Shrug IMHO, the republic is doomed. The Sheeple are
electing candidates that are merely rearranging the deck chairs
on the Titanic, not trying to patch the leak and keep the boat
afloat ...

I blame the campaign finance laws.

Special interests, lobbyists, and the like were a foil for the great
unwashed masses. Sometimes the monied interests won, sometimes the mob won.
It was a balancing act.

When the special interests won, the mob would get all exercised and vote out
the crooks. When the mob won, those financially affected would pour money
into the next election.

It evened out.

Now, with the special interest mostly emasculated, the rabble wins more
often.

Robatoy wrote:

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

God, or god, are you boring!
--
Jack
Go Penns!
http://jbstein.com

Dave Balderstone wrote:
In article , Morris Dovey
wrote:

[ Clearly, there is a need for a sniley type icon to indicate sarcasm
(where a "snile" is a facial expression about midway between a sneer and
a smile). ]

I use

:-\

Amazing - Thunderbird even has an emoticon (Tho I think charlieb's is an
improvement).

Thanks!

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Morris Dovey wrote:

If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what
about God lying to Abraham?

If you spell "God" with a capital G, then I would suggest that
standing in judgement of Him might not be your best choice.


Why not? There are no commandments against it. I had a (Jewish) pathologist
tell me: "You don't think God makes mistakes? Just look at the Gall Bladder!
He should have asked me..."

You make a good point, though. To the Christian, God/Jesus is without
imperfection. To the Jew, God sometimes ****s up. Here's an example:

Adam and Eve, and all who came after them, were vegetarians. By the time of
Noah, the world was so hoplessly depraved, wicked, and corrupt that God had
to destroy it and start over. God, having learned from his mistake,
permitted Noah and his descendants to eat meat. Many are of the opinion that
God is, right now, re-designing the gall bladder.

So, if you think things are bad now, just imagine how tough things would be
if everybody was a vegetarian!

To get back to the point, it is sometimes necessary to deliberately miss the
mark when attempting to follow ideals.

The Catholic Church takes the position that "No good can come from an
immoral act," yet they (sometimes reluctantly) absolve the penitent if he
makes his regrets, as in: "But officer, I HAD to hit him. He spit on my Ol'
Miss button!"

tom tom wrote:
President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish
someone would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick
can this guy be? At least Bush crawled back under his rock and
hopefully will stay there. If the average person wants to do
something, boycotting fox "news" and its advertisers is a good place
to start. They are dangerous to the health of this country, spreading
lies, fear and hatred in support of far right extremists and
corporate greed.

Say what you will, Bush is and was a class act. I do not recall him ever
saying once that any of the then-current problems stemmed from failings of
the Clinton administration. Obama, in his speech Thursday, made reference to
the problems he inherited, by one count, twenty-eight times.

As time goes on, Obama will continue to experience "reality-checks" and
concede that, in many cases, the Bush policies were actually as good as
could be expected. We've already seen reversals from Obama's campaign
rhetoric when faced with some intractable problems.

* Military tribunals
* Closing Gitmo
* Gays in the military
* Detainee pictures
* Retain large troop presence in Iraq

He HAS kept his campaign promises on:

* Stem cell research

"tom tom" wrote:

President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish
someone
would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick can this
guy
be?

I must take exception, using "prick" to describe Cheney does a
disservice to the word.

Lew

HeyBub wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:
If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what
about God lying to Abraham?
If you spell "God" with a capital G, then I would suggest that
standing in judgement of Him might not be your best choice.


Why not? There are no commandments against it. I had a (Jewish) pathologist
tell me: "You don't think God makes mistakes? Just look at the Gall Bladder!
He should have asked me..."

You make a good point, though. To the Christian, God/Jesus is without
imperfection. To the Jew, God sometimes ****s up. Here's an example:

Adam and Eve, and all who came after them, were vegetarians. By the time of
Noah, the world was so hoplessly depraved, wicked, and corrupt that God had
to destroy it and start over. God, having learned from his mistake,
permitted Noah and his descendants to eat meat. Many are of the opinion that
God is, right now, re-designing the gall bladder.

So, if you think things are bad now, just imagine how tough things would be
if everybody was a vegetarian!

To get back to the point, it is sometimes necessary to deliberately miss the
mark when attempting to follow ideals.

The Catholic Church takes the position that "No good can come from an
immoral act," yet they (sometimes reluctantly) absolve the penitent if he
makes his regrets, as in: "But officer, I HAD to hit him. He spit on my Ol'
Miss button!"



Gall bladder? What gall bladder? I ain't got no stinkin' gall bladder...

HeyBub wrote:
Morris Dovey wrote:
If a leaders "falsehoods" are considered evidence of evil, what
about God lying to Abraham?
If you spell "God" with a capital G, then I would suggest that
standing in judgment of Him might not be your best choice.

Why not? There are no commandments against it. I had a (Jewish) pathologist
tell me: "You don't think God makes mistakes? Just look at the Gall Bladder!
He should have asked me..."

Who's to say He hasn't? It may have been left as a challenging puzzle
for some bright pathologist to redesign so that some geneticist could
develop the required DNA modification for implementation.

You make a good point, though. To the Christian, God/Jesus is without
imperfection. To the Jew, God sometimes ****s up. Here's an example:

Adam and Eve, and all who came after them, were vegetarians. By the time of
Noah, the world was so hoplessly depraved, wicked, and corrupt that God had
to destroy it and start over. God, having learned from his mistake,
permitted Noah and his descendants to eat meat. Many are of the opinion that
God is, right now, re-designing the gall bladder.

And perhaps he's outsourcing the job...

So, if you think things are bad now, just imagine how tough things would be
if everybody was a vegetarian!

Only if you subtract one from "everybody" !

To get back to the point, it is sometimes necessary to deliberately miss the
mark when attempting to follow ideals.

I suspect that most folks miss their mark more often then they like even
without deliberate efforts.

The Catholic Church takes the position that "No good can come from an
immoral act," yet they (sometimes reluctantly) absolve the penitent if he
makes his regrets, as in: "But officer, I HAD to hit him. He spit on my Ol'
Miss button!"



--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in news:bzeSl.316$Cc1.251
@nwrddc01.gnilink.net:

"tom tom" wrote:

President Obama looking forward isn't a bad thing...I just wish
someone
would shut Cheney up....how much more of an arrogant prick can this
guy
be?

I must take exception, using "prick" to describe Cheney does a
disservice to the word.

Lew

LOL, but I agree.


--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On May 24, 9:29*am, Jack Stein wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.

God, or god, are you boring!

Jack
Go Penis!
http://jbstein.com

J. Clarke wrote:

LD wrote:
.... snip


Power is its own Currency.

Bingo. We need to figure out how to tweak the system so that people who
aren't about power get elected.

No need to tweak the system, we need to go back to the founders' original
intent. They set up the system for that express purpose. However, during
the 20'th century, we became much more "enlightened" and did multiple
things to go around that original intent. Creative interpretation of the
Constitution such that a person raising wheat on his own land to feed his
chickens was engaged in "interstate commerce" so that the federal
government could prohibit that activity, popular election of Senators
rather than the original state government selection of Senators and popular
election of Representatives provided the opportunity for statists to appeal
to the base instincts of voters, and the interpretation of "promote the
general welfare" to now mean "to provide general welfare" are all examples
of how the Constitution's original intent to curb the power of government
and thus curb the power-hungry have been usurped to allow the power hungry
to manipulate popular opinion by getting the people to vote themselves the
treasury while the statists wield the power to get those funds.

--
If you're going to be dumb, you better be tough

LD wrote:


Power is its own Currency.

Yep. A good example is a chap who's short, looks like a stepped-on toad,
speaks with a heavy accent, and, while comfortable, is not by any means
rich. In spite of these disadvantages, he was the most sought-after bachelor
in town. During his years, he dated spectacular women: Jill St. John,
Barbara Walters, and others.

His most memorable line: "Power is the only true aphrodisiac."

Of course being awarded the Nobel Prize added a certain cachet to Henry
Kissinger's pickup lines.

Dave Balderstone wrote:
In article , Morris Dovey
wrote:

[ Clearly, there is a need for a sniley type icon to indicate sarcasm
(where a "snile" is a facial expression about midway between a sneer
and a smile). ]

I use

:-\

I've never used an emoticon. What I write either hits 'em in the grin box or
sails over their head. In the latter case, the readers generally get so
exercised they commence stabbing each other.

No, emoticons are for inarticulate ****ers.

Morris Dovey wrote:

I agree with the first two points, invite you to provide verifiable,
detailed specifics of the third point (excluding after the fact
compensation to families), and to present a clear definition of "WMD"
as you use it in terms of killing range, number of expected
casualties, etc.

Here's an example of a "WMD" with which everyone can agree:

Sadaam Hussein.

Decommissioning this particular WMD turned out okay.

Robatoy wrote:
On May 24, 9:29 am, Jack Stein wrote:
Robatoy wrote:
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.
God, or god, are you boring!

Jack
Go Penis!
http://jbstein.com

Yeah, that really helped you out...

--
Jack
Go Penns!
http://jbstein.com

On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
scrawled the following:

Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.

....and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...

--
The only reason I would take up exercising is
so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

Larry Jaques wrote:

On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
scrawled the following:

Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.

...and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...


Gach! That last one there was a visual I could have done without. Thanks
Larry, now I've gotta go find the brain bleach.


--

There is never a situation where having more rounds is a disadvantage

Rob Leatham

Larry Jaques wrote:

On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
scrawled the following:

Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.

...and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...


You mean instead of taking 250 days of vacation in his first three years like
GWB did (most americans would have had about 39 days of paid vacation in the
same timeframe, Carter only took 79 days in his entire term, while BC took 152 days
in two terms). Cite: http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html

"Ignoring Afghanistan" is flat out wrong, by the way.

"Allah-knows-where" is pure inflamatory nonsense, designed to elicit hatred and
you should be ashamed of yourself.

On Sun, 25 Oct 2009 14:25:47 -0700, the infamous Mark & Juanita
scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques wrote:

On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
scrawled the following:

Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.

...and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...


Gach! That last one there was a visual I could have done without. Thanks
Larry, now I've gotta go find the brain bleach.

Sprinkle some on the backroom Pelosi while you're at it.

I needed to share to diffuse it from my own brain. Eeeeek!

---
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight
very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands.
It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.
--John Wayne (1907 - 1979)

On 26 Oct 2009 15:38:47 GMT, the infamous (Scott
Lurndal) scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques wrote:

On Tue, 19 May 2009 07:23:40 -0700, the infamous Doug Winterburn
scrawled the following:

Barak's too busy looking for his birth certificate.

...and ignoring Afghanistan, and flying Allah-knows-where in Air Force
One, and giving fund-raising dinners, and oogling Hillary...


You mean instead of taking 250 days of vacation in his first three years like
GWB did (most americans would have had about 39 days of paid vacation in the
same timeframe, Carter only took 79 days in his entire term, while BC took 152 days
in two terms). Cite: http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html

I never said I liked Shrub. Hell, I haven't been happy with any
President since _Reagan_.


"Ignoring Afghanistan" is flat out wrong, by the way.

Tell that to McChrystal and the troops.


"Allah-knows-where" is pure inflamatory nonsense, designed to elicit hatred and
you should be ashamed of yourself.

He tried to shake the Queen of England's hand. He kissed the Saudi
King Abdullah's hand. What are we to think? If Obama had spent (in
Afghanistan) the gas money he's blown in Air Force One this year, the
war might be won and the boys heading home by now.

---
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight
very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands.
It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.
--John Wayne (1907 - 1979)