I think large forums like JU tend to be the warzones because everyone's a stranger to each other. In smaller forums you build up relationships with people, which makes you respect them and their opinions more. Also, in small forums, you get to know who's a nutjob you should ignore, whereas in big public forums, the nutjobs are hard to pick out.
Satire can be good if it also informs or analyzes. Coulter's piece does neither--it's just a long "ugly" joke.
Afrter a cursory glance through the site, I didn't see any evidence that "overwhelmingly, they reject him," merely that the members of this particular organization reject him. What in particular were you thinking of when you said that? From what I've read, of the people that served under him in his swift boat, all but one thought highly of him. That last one disliked him intensely. I don't know what his fellow officers thought.
For reference, here's the full question: — You also said in 2000 that you trust Americans to spend their own money more than you trust the government. But during your first term, with your party in control of both houses of Congress, you’ve spent more taxpayer dollars (adjusted for inflation) than Bill Clinton (search),
This is a nice summary: http://www.snopes.com/politics/kerry/service.asp The first and second Purple Hearts were minor wounds during brief firefights. He won his Silver Star for chasing down a guerrila who was (presumably) trying to get into position to launch a rocket at his boat. He won his Bronze Star and his third Purple Heart when he was rescuing a man overboard while unde
The UK government was the first to make the 45 minute claim. Google it.
We've got to make the distinction between weapons programs that we should worry about--ie if Hussein was a year away from having the bomb--and weapons programs we shouldn't worry about, ie development of a rail gun technology that was decades away from fruition and may never have worked anyway, which is typical of his actual programs. And look Draginol, many people still believe in those WMD. There are
I think if limiting spending is your priority, Kerry is your man. Not because he is instinctively a deficit hawk--he's not, though he'd arguably be better on that score than Bush--but he'd be faced with a Republican Congress, and gridlock would ensue. It's harder to push spending through a divided government. Didn't the
If there was enough WMD, or sufficiently advanced weapons programs, to show that sanctions were not stopping Hussein from developing and/or manufacturing weapons, then I would say the war was justified. The complete absence of weapons and the primitiveness of Hussein's weapons programs means (to me) that the old Clinton/Bush I policy of containment was sufficient to keep Hussein from becoming a thr
There were only two significant contributors (US and UK). Sure you could count 30 countries or whatever as nominal coalition members, but it's pretty pathetic when Bush counts countries that send a dozen policemen, or who allow the US limited use of their airspace after receiving multibillion dollar bribes. I'd say it would be a "significant" coalition if 50% or more of the cost was borne by other countries--it's not really a coalition if one
what happens when someone rebuilding Iraq finds an underground bunker with hundreds of tons of anthrax BakerStreet, when, if ever, will we have waited long enough to be sure that Iraq had no WMD? We've interviewed just about all of Iraq's top scientists, and military, and political officials. We've offe
I thought comment 18 contained plausible reasons, personally. I'm not sure if you're ignoring it because you don't have an answer, or you didn't see it, or because you think it was an idiotic comment. I must confess that I get the same feeling arguing with right-wingers that you claim to be getting arguing with left-wingers. Where the person you're arguing with is completely missing the point, wher
You might also argue that in the early years of the conflict, the American casualty rate was quite low. It's only in the later years that so many people died. Therefore, Iraq is on track to be worse than Vietnam! Or better yet, you might abandon this silly line of argument entirely.
This was a really well-done post. Thanks!
I'm thrilled that vincible chimed in Thanks. I was worried that you'd be mad about thread-jacking!
Poll interpretation is difficult. The question asked is typically something of the form, "have the benefits of war outweighed the costs?" If we'd found out that Hussein had three tons of anthrax, a dozen mobile biological warfare labs working on weaponizing smallpox, and fifty pounds of highly enriched uranium, I think the American people would still answer an enthusiastic "yes!" in spit
Draginol, you're right that I have no personal experience with small businesses. While I do personally know several people earning over $200K, none are small business owners. (They're mainly investment bankers--this colors my view of what the "typical" person with high income is like.) So I am indeed relying solely on third-party sources, and you undoubtably have more personal expertise on the subject than I
all the big businesses I have been involved with have used small businesses as vendors. Most big businesses are corporations, who aren't directly affected by a potential Kerry tax hike on income taxes. They're affected by the corporate tax rate. (Kerry's actually proposed a small cut in that rate, along
Well, since only a quarter of the people earning over $200,000 get the majority of their income from small business, it seems safe to say that most of the money gained from the tax hike won't come from small businesses. And since just 3.8 percent of small business filers earn over $200,000, according to that article, it seems like this tax hike will hardly be devastating to--or even noticed by--"sm
Most people in the top 1% of income among "individual" tax payers are business owners who reported business income. Many of those businesses are small businesses. It's actually rather more complicated... http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4
George Will recently wrote a relevant column. The money quote: "The economic problem, as understood during two centuries of industrialization, has been solved. We can reliably produce economic growth and have moderated business cycles. Hence many people, emancipated from material concerns, can pour political passions into other -- some would say higher -- concerns. These include the condition of the culture, as measured by such indexes as the content o
Reminds me of the words of our dear friend Osama. All fundies have something in common, I suppose: It is saddening to tell you that you are the worst civilization witnessed by the history of mankind: (i) You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to i
The British mathematician Hoyle Hoyle did superb work when he was young. But in his later years he went senile. Among other things, he believed that influenza was caused by microbes from space. The stat cited has been *very* throroughly debunked, if you look around on google.
statistics show that more gay people have and transmit it than straight people do It would be more precise to say that gay men have and transmit it at a higher *rate* than straight people do. But women tend to get it through heterosexual sex. (All else equal, it's *far* easier to get HIV from having sex
18. I'm suprised to be seen as that moderate. My opinion of myself is that I'm very socially liberal, fiscally all over the place (I think *some* government programs should be axed, others cut, and still others greatly expanded--but generally I believe government can be a force for good), and center-right on foreign policy. I usually vote Democrat. <TABLE cellpadding=8 width="95%" align=center bgColor=#FFF394 class="mb-Body-Quote-Tabl
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