Another example of Rep idiocy

[MSimon]

I always believed that taxes for social spending should always be payed for by people who support social spending.

I used to be a staunch supporter of that position. A look at history says that BREAD and circuses is a necessary part of governance.

We have plenty of cheap circuses. Some bread is not out of line. The question is: can you keep it in check? None have so far.

If we could tie the amount of bread to the economic health of the country - explicitly - we might be able to get the incentives right. We might get more guys like Joe Lieberman who understand to some extent the connection between a healthy economy and the funding of the welfare state.

[Jccarlton]

So the real headline should be:
"Dem supporters of child porn do not want to play by the rules"

Here's the text that the dems found so objectionable:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR5325:/
None of the funds authorized under this Act may be used to pay the salary of any individual who has been officially disciplined for violations of subpart G of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch for viewing, downloading, or exchanging pornography, including child pornography, on a Federal Government computer or while performing official Federal Government duties.


Seem's like pure common sense to me. For this the Republicans get smeared- again. Frankly I am glad that this bill died. Now I can say without a trace of hipocrisy that want to take a bloody axe to the budget.
Just so people don't think I'm kidding there was this little item in that bill:

(1) an upgrade of the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility to a 12 gigaelectronvolt beam of electrons; and

(2) construction of the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams.

I used to work at that place. I still have friends there. This upgrade has been in planning stages for over ten years. If I can support killing that what should everybody else be willing to put on the table.

[Jccarlton]

Then there's always this to think about:
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... 20_20.html

[Skipjack]

The secret is to have a first rate student and be too poor to pay.

To me it seems like they seem to be more eager to get good footballplayers than good students. And you can be intelligent and still not have the best grades in highschool.

So the real headline should be:
"Dem supporters of child porn do not want to play by the rules"

First, the Dems did not object to that. Why do you think that?
Second that line, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE was added last minute by a republican rep from texas with the sole purpose to discredit the bill. The Dems had nothing to do with that line. Also it is a ridiculous line. It has no place in a bill but should be in work contracts. Child pornography is a crime anyway. So why put that into the bill?
It is this sort of ridiculousy that gives your congress a terrible reputation. It is this sort of republican politicy making that makes the US the loughing stock of the world.

Oh, btw, it was the Reps that voted against it.

[JLawson]

The secret is to have a first rate student and be too poor to pay.

To me it seems like they seem to be more eager to get good footballplayers than good students. And you can be intelligent and still not have the best grades in highschool.

So the real headline should be:
"Dem supporters of child porn do not want to play by the rules"

First, the Dems did not object to that. Why do you think that?
Second that line, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE was added last minute by a republican rep from texas with the sole purpose to discredit the bill. The Dems had nothing to do with that line. Also it is a ridiculous line. It has no place in a bill but should be in work contracts. Child pornography is a crime anyway. So why put that into the bill?
It is this sort of ridiculousy that gives your congress a terrible reputation. It is this sort of republican politicy making that makes the US the loughing stock of the world.

Oh, btw, it was the Reps that voted against it.

That really seems to be the practice with our legislators any more. Take a bill, cram in all sorts of amendments that have little or nothing to do with the actual substance of the bill, and then complain mightily when the bill fails because nobody's going to vote for all the crap that got shoved into it.

I'd love to see a nice little provision enacted which limits the contents of a bills amendments to items directly relevant to the bill - not funding for this library and that arena and this park and that waste disposal facility.

It'd make it a lot harder to hide stuff - which is why they'd never seriously consider it.

[JLawson]

I've read several articles which point out that the quality of education in America is inversely proportional to the quantity of money spent on it.

Hmm, so according to your logic, ivy league universities (which are very expensive) would be worse than a community colleges. Now, there may be quite good community colleges somewhere in the US, but they are not really a match....

I don't know, most of the economic debacles we've had in the last few years have been instigated, aided, or abetted by Ivy League alumni. At least the cow college folks understand that 2+2 always equals 4, and that money borrowed needs to be repaid because the interest is a killer.

I don't think they could have done worse, except perhaps sartorially.

I went to an Ivy of The Midwest. And I have to tell you I am a proud traitor to my class. I have had other alum ask me "how could I?" My answer is "I studied economics and history."

Do they even teach those in the Ivy League colleges any more?

Couldn't tell it from the graduates... they seem to be operating on the "I can't be broke, I still have checks!" method of governmental money management...

[MSimon]

To me it seems like they seem to be more eager to get good footballplayers than good students.

Think of the one Midwest Ivy that had no football team for something like 40 years and yet was a football powerhouse in the 30s.

There are still a few schools committed to academic excellence. Mostly.

[MSimon]

The secret is to have a first rate student and be too poor to pay.

To me it seems like they seem to be more eager to get good footballplayers than good students. And you can be intelligent and still not have the best grades in highschool.

So the real headline should be:
"Dem supporters of child porn do not want to play by the rules"

First, the Dems did not object to that. Why do you think that?
Second that line, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE was added last minute by a republican rep from texas with the sole purpose to discredit the bill. The Dems had nothing to do with that line. Also it is a ridiculous line. It has no place in a bill but should be in work contracts. Child pornography is a crime anyway. So why put that into the bill?
It is this sort of ridiculousy that gives your congress a terrible reputation. It is this sort of republican politicy making that makes the US the loughing stock of the world.

Oh, btw, it was the Reps that voted against it.

That really seems to be the practice with our legislators any more. Take a bill, cram in all sorts of amendments that have little or nothing to do with the actual substance of the bill, and then complain mightily when the bill fails because nobody's going to vote for all the crap that got shoved into it.

I'd love to see a nice little provision enacted which limits the contents of a bills amendments to items directly relevant to the bill - not funding for this library and that arena and this park and that waste disposal facility.

It'd make it a lot harder to hide stuff - which is why they'd never seriously consider it.

There are some advantages. Think of all the crap laws avoided.

[JLawson]

To me it seems like they seem to be more eager to get good footballplayers than good students. And you can be intelligent and still not have the best grades in highschool.
First, the Dems did not object to that. Why do you think that?
Second that line, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE was added last minute by a republican rep from texas with the sole purpose to discredit the bill. The Dems had nothing to do with that line. Also it is a ridiculous line. It has no place in a bill but should be in work contracts. Child pornography is a crime anyway. So why put that into the bill?
It is this sort of ridiculousy that gives your congress a terrible reputation. It is this sort of republican politicy making that makes the US the loughing stock of the world.

Oh, btw, it was the Reps that voted against it.

That really seems to be the practice with our legislators any more. Take a bill, cram in all sorts of amendments that have little or nothing to do with the actual substance of the bill, and then complain mightily when the bill fails because nobody's going to vote for all the crap that got shoved into it.

I'd love to see a nice little provision enacted which limits the contents of a bills amendments to items directly relevant to the bill - not funding for this library and that arena and this park and that waste disposal facility.

It'd make it a lot harder to hide stuff - which is why they'd never seriously consider it.

There are some advantages. Think of all the crap laws avoided.

But the crap would be out in the open - WE think of that as a feature. THEY see that as a bug.

[Diogenes]

If you believe this, then please explain why any conceivable experiment cannot be performed on the existing lines.

Because there is not enough of them?

You do comprehend we are talking about cells, right? You do know that cells divide, right? I'm really beginning to think you do not understand this subject.

As I have mentioned before, China is uninhibited with any ethical concerns regarding humans and research.

Shallow excuse. You screwed it up, period.

Since you don't seem to understand about a stem cell line being theoretically infinite, i'm pretty sure your judgment about this is ill informed.

New York

Giuliani was a Rep. Bloomberg is also a Rep. So what are you talking about again?

Two points.

1. There is only one Giuliani.

2. Bloomberg, and everybody else in New York share the same political mindset, and it is the opposite of that of Giuliani.


The fact that Bloomberg has an "R" in front of his name means nothing. He doesn't even remotely resemble a Republican. None of his positions on issues agree with the Republican Platform, and every decision he makes is that of a Democrat mindset.

You want to see a Republican mindset? Check out New Jersey Govenor Chris Christie. (at least fiscally) Look at how Giuliani ran things when he was mayor of New York. THAT is how a Republicans should behave!

Strangely enough, the lessons of History seem to be that it takes an Ivy league education to make a real mess of things.

I am not too sure about that, but I guess that we agree on the point that education at a reputable US university is too expensive for what you get for it?

It IS extremely expensive. I guess whether or not it is worth it is entirely up to whatever the individual does with it. For some it is most definitely worth it, for others, not so much.

[Diogenes]

The fault in your thinking is that government programs = more scientists

ITER

The government program that is ITER employees scientists. It does not create them. Perhaps it stimulates demand for them in the future, but it does not in and of it self CAUSE scientists.


The government program being discussed is called "Compete" or something. It's supposedly an education funding program. This is what we were discussing.

[Diogenes]

I always believed that taxes for social spending should always be payed for by people who support social spending.

I used to be a staunch supporter of that position. A look at history says that BREAD and circuses is a necessary part of governance.

We have plenty of cheap circuses. Some bread is not out of line. The question is: can you keep it in check? None have so far.

If we could tie the amount of bread to the economic health of the country - explicitly - we might be able to get the incentives right. We might get more guys like Joe Lieberman who understand to some extent the connection between a healthy economy and the funding of the welfare state.

My position is very simple. If it's not in the constitution, we shouldn't be doing it. That being said, we have to accept the fact that a whole lot of things the government is doing that is unconstitutional it is going to do anyway, so I propose that the proponents of these notions should have to pay for them exclusively.

I don't mind a reasonable percentage of my yearly income being used to do those things a government is absolutely obligated to do. (Defend the nation, enforce the laws. ) I absolutely disagree that it should go for anything outside of the government's official mandate.

As Davy Crockett said about charity, (paraphrasing) "If you all want to take up a collection for the poor, then we'll pass the hat. But we absolutely should not use the money entrusted to us by the citizens of this state for charity. "

[Diogenes]

The secret is to have a first rate student and be too poor to pay.

To me it seems like they seem to be more eager to get good footballplayers than good students. And you can be intelligent and still not have the best grades in highschool.

So the real headline should be:
"Dem supporters of child porn do not want to play by the rules"

First, the Dems did not object to that. Why do you think that?
Second that line, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SCIENCE

I guess you don't understand this. Yeah, we'd all like them to make their bills about one single issue, but that is NOT how they do it. They always add a host of non-related crap to bills. That is one of the things WRONG with congress. You are just objecting because the Republicans did it this time.

was added last minute by a republican rep from texas with the sole purpose to discredit the bill. The Dems had nothing to do with that line.

That's the issue. They refused to vote for it. It is something that everyone should agree on, and the Democrats balked. Republicans are constantly trying to demonstrate how out of touch the Democrats are with normal people. This was one of those efforts that proved fruitful.

Also it is a ridiculous line. It has no place in a bill but should be in work contracts. Child pornography is a crime anyway. So why put that into the bill?

Because they knew Democrats would balk at it. I assure you that this will be used against the Democrats in their districts come election time. They are killing us with reckless spending. If this gets some of them unelected, it may very well save the nation.

It is this sort of ridiculousy that gives your congress a terrible reputation. It is this sort of republican politicy making that makes the US the loughing stock of the world.

We don't care what the World thinks of us. I don't see anything from the rest of the "World" to be proud about versus U.S. As a matter of fact, every place we go wrong in this country is when we try to emulate what the rest of the world thinks.

From the rest of the world, We have seen socialist collapses and mass murders since the ideas were conceived. We have seen bungles and reckless incompetence, coups and civil strife, starvation and corruption, one hubristic failure after another, and you think we give a flying rat's @ss that these folk are laughing at us?

Again, every place we are going wrong in this nation is where we deviate from the Founders original intent by trying to ape the latest silliness popular in the rest of the world.

That notion might be popular in the "Rest of the world", but fortunately, it is Americans that run this nation. (Well, except for the President.)

[Skipjack]

That's the issue. They refused to vote for it. It is something that everyone should agree on, and the Democrats balked.

Uhm, from what I read, it was actually the Reps who voted against it, not the Dems...

You do comprehend we are talking about cells, right? You do know that cells divide, right? I'm really beginning to think you do not understand this subject.

NO, YOU DO CLEARLY NOT UNDERSTAND HOW STEM CELLS WORK!

[TallDave]

If we want better education, we need a voucher system, not paying teachers ever more for doing the same crappy job.