[QUOTE=cheesehead;140764]What I said was that you were apparently ignorant of the repeated reports about abstinence-only's ineffectiveness, ...

... that the attack [U]was[/U] fair, for the reasons I gave, and that [U]you wouldn't have characterized the attacks as being unfair if you had been knowledgeable about the frequent reports of studies showing that abstinence-only is ineffective[/U].[/QUOTE]

I'm stunned that you, champion of logical thinking, could come to these conclusions. You've [b]so[/b] missed the point I don't even know where to begin. Either I have failed miserably in my communications, or you have a big ol' blind spot that cannot be fixed.

Folks,

What we have here is a re-run of the thread ([URL]http://mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=6926[/URL]) in which George repeatedly accused me of saying that the Lancet report about deaths in Iraq was scientifically valid only because it suited my political views.

He repeatedly attacked me, ascribing political motives to me. I kept asking him to switch from emotional attack mode to thinking scientifically. Soon after I mentioned "Caltech vs. MIT", he snapped out of attacking me politically and actually discussed scientific merits (though denying that my comment about tech school rivalry was responsible).

Let's see if he can do the same here -- stop hurling false accusations of political motivation, and start responding to the actual arguments I was making.

- - -

George,

Cool off, carefully re-read my postings about Palin, and stop looking foolish in public.

Ok how about George and cheesehead stop making any more posts to this thread for 24 hours starting now?

[quote]Now personally, I don't care. What I do care about is the hyprocrisy
of Palin. She's had 5 kids (which I think is disgusting in this day and age;
how can one give proper care to your children when you have 5 of them?)
Indeed, this pregnancy shows, that Palin FAILED to properly care for
her daughter. She failed to teach her that one doesn't get pregnant
when 17 and unmarried. [/quote]

Cheesehead, I'll make one last attempt. The above quote by R.D.Silverman started this discussion.

1) She was not a hypocrite because she believes in abstinence-only and (we have no reason to believe otherwise) taught her daughter the benefits of an abstinence-only lifestyle. This was the hypocrite slander.

2) Who are we to judge whether she can give proper care to 5 kids? Or as Bob more crassly put it, "disgusting" and "Can't these Palin women keep their legs crossed on occasion?". This was the slander about her poor procreation choices.

3) The slander about her poor parenting: "Palin FAILED to properly care for her daughter". How many times in growing up did you fail to live up to your parents teachings? For me, it was too many to count. Does this mean I had poor parents or that the failed to give proper care? Absolutely not. The daughter's pregnancy proves NOTHING about her parents.

Bob slung the mud, I defended the target. This does not mean I agree or disagree with her choices. They were her choices to make, not yours, not mine, and certainly not the governments.

Obama agrees that these lines of attack are wrong. Attacks based on her experience or stated goals - such as preference to teach abstinence-only sex-ed in school - are, in my opinion, proper.

On the personal side, you've accused me of being ignorant and foolish, I've accused you of political leanings clouding your judgment. It's all good. This is the soap box - home of thick skins.

I'll now follow garo's advice and not talk about Palin for 24 hours.

How about this as a factual basis for hypocrisy [or outright lying - take your pick]: In the past week Palin has publicly bragged about [and been lauded for} allegedly opposing the public-financial boondoggle that was to be the half-billion-dollar causeway bridge to Ketchikan, Alaska, a.k.a. "the bridge to nowhere." Now it has been proven [see my link to a recent week's Anchorage Daily News article] that she in fact was a proponent of the bridge, promised the people of Ketchikan that she was committed to helping their community, then when the project became too much of a hot potato and was nixed, diverted the federal monies to other things, while continuing to spend a smaller multimillion-dollar federal grant [which was of a type that would have had to be returned if not used as intended] to finish the building of a "road to the bridge to nowhere."

Also - and this here is strictly my opinion - If it had been Michelle Obama who had given birth to a child with Down's syndrome earlier this year and [b]three days later[/b] been back at work and were now running for the second-highest office in the land with a disabled infant at home, you can bet that the religious right would be absolutely crucifying her in the media. Instead, they're jumping through hoops to justify it as somehow being indicative of "staunch family values" because it's their candidate. That is hypocrisy of the worst kind.

Morew hate speech - sorry...
 

How about some more worrisome facts about Gov. Palin's alleged qualifications? I know, it's only an editorial in that liberal rag, the [i[New York times[/i]...

[url=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/opinion/03wed1.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin]Candidate McCain’s Big Decision[/url]: [i]Choosing Sarah Palin raises serious questions about John McCain’s qualifications.[/i]
[quote]If John McCain wants voters to conclude, as he argues, that he has more independence and experience and better judgment than Barack Obama, he made a bad start by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

Mr. McCain’s supporters are valiantly trying to argue that the selection was a bold stroke that shows their candidate is a risk-taking maverick who — we can believe — will change Washington. (Mr. Obama’s call for change — now “the change we need” — has become all the rage in St. Paul.)

To us, it says the opposite. Mr. McCain’s snap choice of Ms. Palin reflects his impulsive streak: a wild play that he made after conservative activists warned him that he would face an all-out revolt in the party if he chose who he really wanted — Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.

Why Mr. McCain would want to pander to right-wing activists — who helped George W. Bush kill off his candidacy in the 2000 primaries in a particularly ugly way — is baffling. Frankly, they have no place to go. Mr. McCain would have a lot more success demonstrating his independence, and his courage, if he stood up to them the way he did in 2000.

As far as we can tell, Mr. McCain and his aides did almost no due diligence before choosing Ms. Palin, raising serious questions about his management skills. The fact that Ms. Palin’s 17-year-old daughter is pregnant is irrelevant to her candidacy. There are, however, very serious questions about her political past and her ideology.

...
[b]
Before she was elected governor, she was mayor of a tiny Anchorage suburb, where her greatest accomplishment was raising the sales tax to build a hockey rink. According to Time magazine, she also sought to have books banned from the local library and threatened to fire the librarian.
[/b]
For Mr. McCain to go on claiming that Mr. Obama has too little experience to be president after almost three years in the United States Senate is laughable now that he has announced that someone with no national or foreign policy experience is qualified to replace him, if necessary.

...

Some of the things Ms. Palin has had to say in the recent past about foreign policy are especially worrisome. [b]In a speech last June to her former church in Wasilla, Ms. Palin said the war in Iraq was “a task that is from God.”[/b] Mr. Bush made similar claims as he rejected all sound mortal advice on how to conduct the war.

...

Mayor Palin gathered up $27 million in subsidies from Washington, $15 million of it for a railroad from her town to the ski resort hometown of Senator Ted Stevens, now under indictment for failing to report gifts.

The Republicans are presenting Ms. Palin as a crusader against Mr. Stevens’s infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” The record says otherwise; she initially supported Mr. Stevens’s boondoggle, diverting the money to other projects when the bridge became a political disaster. [b]In her speech to the Wasilla Assembly of God in June, Ms. Palin said it was “God’s will” that the federal government contribute to a $30 billion gas pipeline she wants built in Alaska.[/b][/quote]
I apologize for inflicting more of my "hate speech" on the forum. Seems I just can't help myself.

[quote=R.D. Silverman;140748]No. You are blaming the messenger. Lawyers, by themeselves do not
have standing to sue. Lawyers are just the messengers of those who
HIRE them.[/quote]
Doesn't matter.

[quote=R.D. Silverman;140748]What is "raising insurance"???[/quote]
Ultimately what we want to do is make medical treatment more affordable, and we should look for ways to do that. I'm not convinced that requiring everyone to buy more insurance by law will do it. The democrats want to force everyone to pay for more coverage they can't afford or otherwise don't want to buy. It can't lead to anything but a disaster if it actually passes.

But you said you would also be happy if we stopped giving care to people without sufficient coverage, which I agree wtih. (Though we still should look at ways to make treatment more affordable, but we can't do it by forcing more insurance on everyone).

When the Republicans slam the Dems for "wanting to raise your taxes", they are being - you guessed it - hypocrites. The Republican president and legislators over the past 8 years have ballooned Federal spending more than any administration in history, and beyond not having the guts to raise the necessary taxes to actually PAY FOR IT, have done the most reckless thing possible, namely to cut taxes, moreover in a way that disproportionately favors those who least need their taxes cut. The result? The first trillion-dollar yearly account deficit in our nation's history, and an increase in the total account deficit so large that it will either saddle multiple future generations with high taxes, or require a drastic Weimar-like hyperinflationary episode, or an outright default on the Federal debt, or some combination of those things in order to pay it off.

Even in advance of the aforementioned debt endgame scenarios, the current yearly interest payments required on the Federal debt [roughly $300 Billion, last time I checked] would be enough to provide health care to every U.S. citizen, even at the current usury-level prices of healthcare from for-profit providers and pharmacy companies. Throw in the money we're wasting on a bungled war in Iraq [while the Iraqis are accumulating a nice account surplus of their own due to high oil prices] and you'd have enough to cover all of Mexico, too.

But at least the Repugnicans "didn't raise your taxes".

[quote=ewmayer;140789]Even in advance of the aforementioned debt endgame scenarios, the current yearly interest payments required on the Federal debt [roughly $300 Billion, last time I checked] would be enough to provide health care to every U.S. citizen, even at the current usury-level prices of healthcare from for-profit providers and pharmacy companies.[/quote]
But as long as the federal banks are in business, that money won't be available to do anything except make profits for the banks. In fact it is in their interest (no pun intended) to keep us and the government in debt forever. Because the money itself is not valuable unless it is intricately tied to debt. No debt, no money.

[quote=ewmayer;140789]But at least the Repugnicans "didn't raise your taxes".[/quote]
And if you believe a word of the democrats, they don't want to raise taxes, either. :yawn:

[QUOTE=ewmayer;140789]When the Republicans slam the Dems for "wanting to raise your taxes", they are being - you guessed it - hypocrites.[/QUOTE]

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh. You are intentionally trying to get my goat! Stop making me defend the indefensible.

They are not hypocrites. To be a hypocrite they would have to accuse the Dems of "wanting to raise your taxes" when then they secretly want to raise your taxes too.

No, the Republicans are guilty of being irresponsible, big-spending, economy-ruining, clueless, reckless, war-mongering idiots. But they are not hypocrites (at least in this particular case).

Aaaah, and I got that out of my system without violating the 24-hour rule. No mention of the Republican V.P. candidate :)

[QUOTE=Prime95;140792]Aaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh. You are intentionally trying to get my goat! Stop making me defend the indefensible.[/QUOTE]
Works every time - here, Billygoat, here Billygoat...

[QUOTE]They are not hypocrites. To be a hypocrite they would have to accuse the Dems of "wanting to raise your taxes" when then they secretly want to raise your taxes too.[/QUOTE]
As far as I am concerned, saddling untold future generations with a monstrous account deficit is a form of deferred "stealth" taxation. A federal budget analog of the negative-amortization, pay-option-ARM in the mortgage business.

Your "non-hypocrisy" characterization of the GOP's reckless fiscal policies strikes me as similar to a husband saying "my wife isn't spending any of *my* money" because she's not taking his cash or writing checks, but instead is furiously running up their shared credit card and using the wages from her part-time job at the hair salon to make minimum monthly payments on it, while the amount owed continues to balloon. In both cases [GOP and spendthrift wife] the parties doing the spending know full well that one day the real bill will come due, they just choose to ignore the fact, perhaps figuring that by that time they'll be long gone from the scene of the crime.

BTW, are you sure there are only seven g's in "Aaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh"? My spell checker indicates that there should be eight. :)