FrankJL

Gabelma what you are describing is classical liberalism, which would today be defined as libertarianism. The ideas of of classical liberalism are pretty much 180 degrees out of phase with the modern usage of the word.

As I said on another thread, my uncle is a cardiac surgeon in Erie PA. Called that because its on Lake Erie, very close to Canada. He tells me he treats more Canadians then American's, because they don't want to risk their lives waiting months and months, sometimes even a year or more for simple heart surgeries. Just take that tidbit for what its worth..

Oxycontin abuse is most likely what caused Rush Limbaugh to lose his hearing also.

Openoffice or any of the other free software is good for people that just want to write basic letters and such but it really lacks all the good in depth features of Office. That being said I just bought Office 07 a few weeks ago, wanted to get it and play with it some before next semester begins (this Friday). I must say I really do like it. It's much simpler to use, and way more customizable then Office 03. I wouldn't get it if your not using windows Vista. You need vista to take advantage of a lot of the newer features in Office 07

I read your short posts, but the longer ones get cut and pasted into my text to speech program, and I do other stuff while listening to them.

Jelly beans anyone? :)

or when the voting booth says "DIEBOLD"

I know this is old, but I saw someone reading it and thought I would take a stab at it. ARE YOU A LIBERAL? - Dennis Prager You say you are a liberal. No, I'm a libertarian, but most are too close minded to know anything outside the political realm of liberal and conservative. Do you believe the following? 1. Standards for admissions to universities, fire departments, etc. should be lowered for people of color. Absolutely not. Why should we allow ourselves to suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations. 2. Bilingual education for children of immigrants, rather than immersion in English, is good for them and for America. As an education major this one really strikes me. Immersion programs are too sink or swim mentality. It also does not teach children English in a proper manner. Students can learn a play ground style English in a matter of a few weeks or months, but they will not be learning proper English. Also it forces students to not only try to understand the subject being taught, but to try and just learn the language at the same time. This has been proven over time that is normally accomplishes neither of these tasks. ESL and transition programs have shown much more success in schools in CA, AZ, and TX, states with very high ESL groups. 3. Murderers should never be put to death. I agree (this is perhaps my only point of contention with pure libertarian policy.) However, I do think that something needs to be done to address the seemingly over representation of minorities that receive death verdicts, and I think that conclusive DNA evidence should be required for a death sentence. 4. During the Cold War, America should have adopted a nuclear arms freeze. No, but then again when we started building our SDI program, we should have finished it. Even if the Soviet Union was dissolved, we still should have finished our SDI program. 5. Colleges should not allow ROTC programs. A state funded schools should have ROTC programs, private schools should be able to tell the ROTC people to go play in the traffic. I also seen in a previous answer that all schools receive money (even private schools), because students get federal loans, pell grants, etc. That is the students getting the money not the school. The school gets that money as a result of that student attending that school, but the school is not directly getting the money and should not be confined to the whims of the government for their students to receive aid. 6. It was wrong to wage war against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. I'm assuming you mean the original war to liberate Kuwait. It was not wrong to liberate Kuwait. It was wrong however to quit once we pushed the Iraqi army out of Kuwait. If we would have pushed all the way through and totally removed him from power, we probably would not be in the current debacle we are in over there. 7. Poor parents should not be allowed to have vouchers to send their children to private schools. I'm all for school vouchers, as long as they don't go to sectarian schools. Taxpayers should not be funding religious education. If you want to send you kids to a religous school fine, but don't expect your neighbors to pay for it. 8. It is good that trial lawyers and teachers unions are the two biggest contributors to the Democratic Party. Does it matter, Republicans are surely not above pandering to their own special interest groups. 9. Marriage should be redefined from male-female to any two people. The government has no business in the relations of two consenting adults of legal age. 10. A married couple should not have more of a right to adopt a child than two men or two women. Again the government has no business in deciding what an appropriate couple is. Perhaps if some of these evangelicals would adopt some children themselves they would have more ground to speak on. 11. The Boy Scouts should not be allowed to use parks or any other public places and should be prohibited from using churches and synagogues for their meetings. This question is nonsensical, and I really fail how its relevant to any current major issue. 12. The present high tax rates are good. Our tax rates are fairly low in comparison to some other socialized European countries, but are still much higher then they need to be. 13. Speech codes on college campuses are good and American values are bad. I'm a college student and I'm not even sure what "speech codes" you are referring to. Again another nonsensical question. 14. The Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent. One is nearly a terrorist state, one is a critical ally in the middle east, not even close. 15. The United Nations is a moral force for good in the world, and therefore America should be subservient to it and such international institutions as a world court. The UN is perhaps the most corrupt international organization their is. We give them billions of dollars a year, and yet they have to nerve to call us "stingy". What ingrates. 16. It is good that colleges have dropped hundreds of men's sports teams in order to meet gender-based quotas. Yes I support Title IX programs. 17. No abortions can be labeled immoral. This was such a loaded statement. I'm pro-choice, and I'll leave that at that. 18. Restaurants should be prohibited by law from allowing customers to choose between a smoking and a non-smoking section. No. Government should not restrict smoking in private businesses. If you don't like the atmosphere, then take you money else where. 19. High schools should make condoms available to students and teach them how to use them. Why not? The abstinence education fad did little to curb teen pregnancy rates. It is interesting to note too that of the top 10 states with the highest per capita teenage pregnancy rates that most are red states. 20. Racial profiling for terrorists is wrong -- a white American grandmother should as likely be searched as a Saudi young male. Yes it is. A few names, Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, Eric Rudolph, need I go on? 21. Racism and poverty -- not a lack of fathers and a crisis of values -- are the primary causes of violent crime in the inner city. To deny that poverty is one of the primary causes of inner city crime is to be oblivious to the world. Or to have lived in the rural world for too long to understand to problems of cites and minorities. 22. It is wrong and unconstitutional for students to be told, "God bless you" at their graduation. School is school, Church is Church, lets not combine the two. I bet you same people would be up in arms and pitchforks if it was "Allah bless you" 23. No culture is morally superior to any other. Not really, just different ways of doing things, and solving life's problems. Take a sociology 101 class, it might open your eyes some, that is if you eyes and mind are not all ready glued shut to any other way besides your own. Those are all liberal positions. How many of them do you hold? 13 Agree 8 Disagree 2 Nonsensical Questions Not surprising to me really, those where very blatant partisan questions.

I don't see why though an automaker would intentionally try to inhibit development of more fuel efficient vehicles, that are also practical and affordable. Even the usable hybrids right now are way over priced. If an automaker could create a practical hybrid they could take such a large share of the market that it just doesn't make sense for them to not go for it. Especially US automakers, who are greatly lagging behind foreign competitors in terms of sales, quality, and durability of their vehicles. Also our automakers have huge union pension problems that German, Japanese, and Korean automakers don't have to deal with, but that I whole different topic that could span several pages. Markets are always going to be mercurial, especially on high end goods that are in such a competitive market. In relation to trusting markets over government, I will take markets every time. I'm a firm believer in the laissez-fair economic theories of Adam Smith, Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. In case you couldn't tell my icon

Deal. Thats obvious with most of our elected so called "conservative Republicans". I still have yet to see a good explanation as to why Bush can call himself a conservative, when he grew government more in his first term then Clinton did in two terms. You don't make people do anything. Let the market handle it. The tax idea to me is has four big flaws. 1. A lot of lower income people don't drive these big vehicles for the fun of it. They need them for work related purposes, or in the case of larger SUVs and cars, they need them to haul around their huge families. Now you could counter this by saying that large families would be better suited with something like a minivan. Though this really isn't a solution as some minivans now are coming with such large v6's that they nearly match the gas miliege and emmisons of most v6 SUVs 2. Higher income buyers (by that I mean much higher income), won't be bothered by the tax much. These are the people that go out and buy cars that don't car about a price tag at all, and they could care less if this vehicle gets 8mpg and takes premium fuel. 3. Safety. Larger vehicles are safer, period. Many are willing to pay a premium price, and get 10-15mpg for a safer vehicle. 4. What defines these vehicles? All sports cars? Is a 4cyl Mitsubishi Eclipse that gets almost 40mpg still a sports car? Do we let someone just arbitrarily decide what vehicles to tax and which one not to? The only constant value you could use is EPA MPG estimates, which are known to horribly inaccurate. Our current gas guzzler tax is based on EPA MPG, but vehicles over 6,000 lbs are exempt from EPA MPG testing, so they are not even counted. The solution lies somewhere in the private market place to produce vehicles that can meet peoples needs and be efficient. The government should not be trying to solve anything. Most of the time when the government tries to solve something, they only exacerbate the problem. If someone could produce a 300+ hp v8 that gets 30 or 40mpg, they would make bill gates look like a panhandler. CAFE standards are set to get even higher in the next few years, though that will just force the automakers to make little cars that few people will drive in order to produce their bigger vehicles. Overall though engines have been getting more efficient. I just got my new Focus a few months ago compared to my older focus: My 02: 110hp, 28-32 mpg 2.4L My 07: 136hp, 34-38 mpg 2.0L The 07 also red lines at a lot higher rpms (important to those of us that like to drive manuals)

What typical lib environmentalist solution..tax it. It will do nothing substantial to solve the problem, but hey we can raise more money and use it grow government even more If you want to drive a 4 door electric lawn mower (aka a prius)....fine...but keep your filthy hands off other peoples vehicles and wallets. And before you write me off as some big SUV owning nut, please know that my 2007 Focus SES, has a PZEV engine, and has less emissions then even some hybrids out there.

The point I was getting at was how Perot splintered the conservative vote, and allowed slick Willie to slide into office with mere 43% plurality.

Why is is always only the liberals on the SCOTUS, that get attacked for judicial activism? The conservatives on the SCOTUS are also guilty of their own version of judicial jujitsu. Lest we not forget that that two of the most liberal judges where put on the bench by Republicans.

If you don't think 3rd parties effect elections you need to go back and study the presidential election of 1992, or how many votes 3rd party candidates received in Florida in 2000 and its effect on Bush's razor thin victory.

After the whole fiasco with Terri Shievo (sp?), people should have learned they need to have an AMD and a living will. That should have been a huge wakeup call to everyone. An AMD, DNR, and Living will are all different documents you should have.

Hillary is even more of a hypocrite. Not only did she own stock in wal-mart, which she did sell off later, only after attacks for the liberal blogoshpere, and the ilks of DailyKos, and others. But to make matters worse she had an upper level advisory board position (I forget the exact title), but do remember she was pulling a healthy six-figure salary from this part-time gig.

Denny is my new hero. I'm a short guy too, and I've always wanted to marry a taller redhead...lucky guy..

This is hitting people here in Western PA pretty hard too. We still have a lot of coal mining out here too. It was just 3 years ago we had the Quecreek mine collapse.

Leave it to Buchanan to use this tragedy to launch into a diatribe of his familiar isolationist talking points. Typical beltway hypocrite, while bashing China and our trade policy, he personally owns several thousand shares of stock in wal-mart, target and various other companies that are highly dependent of cheap foreign imports. According to his own FEC fillings in 1996 and 2000. Also don't be quick to want to pass new "temporary" taxes to fix our infrastructures. Google "Johnstown Flood Tax", if you want to see an example of a "temporary" tax to raise money for a disaster.

"stage 1 building" ?

hmm...then how did Fred Thompson end up with his wife?

Lets just get past all the non-sense and really modernize the church. If we are going to do it, lets do it right. Skin implanted RF ID chips....

Having connections can help you get in, but it won't help you pass your classes, it won't help you with your SAT/ACT's, and it surely will not help with the work ethic required to succeed in that rigorous of an academic environment. Just money doesn't get you into these schools either. I know two people I went to high school with that went ivy league schools, and neither one of their parents had much money. The one's parent is a state cop, and the others was an EMT. I figured it would take less then 10 replies, before we got a "he stole the election" type response, I see I was not disappointed there...

What the parents of these 12-15 y/o boys? Am I missing something here, or where are these boys coming up with the money for these things? They most likely don't have a job, so they are mooching off their parents. Are the parents just not taking any accountably to what they are giving their kids money for?

Perhaps Russia should worry more about taking care those it already has. I mean it doesn't make much sense to try create artificial population growth when your country barely caps a 10k per capita GPD (Even less if you factor in PPP).