Artful Dodger:

> Likely the CIA has an insider working for Google. Or Google is a CIA front.

Reputedly, the two main founders of Google used to be NSA employees. Even if they were not, it is in Google's best interests to collaborate with intelligence services to stop possible threats. Can you imagine what it would do to the company if somebody said "Google could have warned everyone because they had network access to the information necessary to prevent this disaster"?

With respect to semi-automatic assault rifles, it is true that psychopaths and insane morons will use them to kill people, but then somebody who is disturbed will kill with or without assault rifles. The real problems is the impact of the attack. I am sure that Japan has just as much violent crime as the USA, the difference is that because guns are illegal in Japan, the death rate is a lot lower.

Three months of gun violence in the USA cause more death than the 9-11 attack did. At the current rates of killing, gun violence in the USA causes about 900 dead people per month, while sectarian violence in Iraq caused about 600 to 1000 dead per month (as of 2008, these days it is lower). Americans don't see it, but more Americans are being killed every month in the USA than Iraqis or Afghans in their respective countries. Even Mexico and Colombia with the drug-driven violence do not have the same rate of killing.

The big question is: is the killing due to easy access to guns or due to some other cultural factors? I think that access to guns is only a small part of the problem. There are economic issues, drug-trade issues, and a culture that has promoted violence as a form of entertainment. I think that if politicians really cared about the problem, not only would they tackle gun control, but they would also curb violent television and video games. Sadly, when they had the chance both democrats and republicans refused to do anything about violent content geared towards children because after all "the parents must choose for their children", but what if the parents have been desensitized to violence too? Then there is the fact that half of the violent military-style games out there have been funded by the Pentagon as a means to "train" America's future patriots and to entice young people to enlist. If the government itself is promoting violence, what good will gun control do?

(V):

> "See Al Gore. He's made millions on his lies."

So did Dick Cheney!

Artful Dodger:

Of course, you realize that global warming is not about daily or seasonal weather events, but rather about the long-term averages of atmospheric temperatures. This winter is actually not that cold, at least not here where the temperature is almost 20 degrees higher than usual. That is not what global warming is about. It is about an increase of almost 2 degrees in average atmospheric temperatures over the last 100 years and the fact that those increases in temperature coincide with the burning of fossil fuels on a massive scale. Are fossil fuels to blame for global warming? Only if one sees a correlation between burning of fossil fuels and the increase in atmospheric long-term averages since the start of the industrial revolution. Just because winter is cold it does not mean that all that carbon dioxide has no effect on the atmosphere. The question is not whether this winter is cold or not, but rather whether average winter temperatures have increased in the last 200 years.

Of course, if global warming does not exist, then it is ok to keep burning fossil fuels and polluting the atmosphere. After all, car and factory exhaust fumes are really harmless!

(V):

> Not sure if it is the first. I've heard of Zoroastrianism some years back, and also of the Corpus Hermeticum. The Latter I've read and dates back to the same sorta period (or so they say now, it might change again!) ... There is a good probability Moses would have been exposed to the teachings if the dates are now right... I fso they date back to 2000BC - 1500BC.

The Hermetica were written in the 2nd or 3rd centuries AD. While some have argued that they date back to the Pharaonic period in Egypt. However, they are more likely to have arisen shortly before Plato's time in the 6th century BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corpus_Hermeticum

It is interesting because scholars believed that the same ideas in the Hermtica influenced Greek philosophers in antiquity. The first book of the Hermetica introduces Poemandres, the shepherd of men who introduces the disciple to the divine. This is an idea that Christianity borrowed 6 centuries later. This comes as no surprise since St. Paul had so much contact with Greeks in the 1st century AD.

http://www.gnosis.org/library/hermet.htm

Although dated to the 6th century BC, the Hermetica is probably based on older ideas. Zarathustra is believed to have lived in northeastern Iran or Southwestern Afghanistan between 200 and 1500 BC. However, it is likely that his ideas descent from something much older.

Before there was Europe or Asia and all the modern divisions of its peoples, there were the Proto-Indo-Europeans, the Bronze-age predecessor culture that shaped the language and religion of our modern world. The Proto-Indo-Europeans lived during the late Neolithic era (4000 BC), but some archaelogists believe that they may have lived in the early Neolithic (7500 BC). Their languages certainly gave rise to many modern language families such as Indo-Iranian, Turkic, Semitic, Slavic, Germanic, Celtic, Latin, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Indo-European religion can be partially reconstructed using comparative mythology and linguistics, and many Gods that might seem unrelated in different cultures suddenly appear to be the same Gods, although their mythologies and names are mutated over the centuries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Indo-European_religion

Looking at the Indo-European religion makes me wonder if a small group of people within it had developed a more abstract concept of God and a concept of the duality of good and evil. This god would be descended from Deiwos, the main deity of the Indo-European pantheon. If that happened, it was probably very late in the development of the Indo-European culture. I suspect that it happened separately in at least two places.

One would be among the Semitic people who founded Chaldea. According to the Old Testament, Abraham was Chaldean, and the Old Testament never claims that Abraham invented monotheism. There are a couple of passages where Abraham is addressed by others who are clearly monotheists like him, they are Semitic like him, but they belong to entirely different clans. So it would seem that Monotheism was there, but it was with Abraham that Judaism finds its first, earliest expression.

The other place would be among the Indo-Iranians who lived further east and were geographically separated from the Semitic people's of Anatolia. The Zoroastrians also developed a monotheist view of the universe, but with a more clearly defined abstract duality of good and evil.

There were others too, such as the partial monotheism of the cult of Aten during the reign of Akenaten (Amenhotep IV) between 1353 and 1336 BC. Atenism was considered a great heresy in Egypt because Akenaten sought to get rid of polytheism and replace it with a single supreme deity. The religion died with Akenathen and the old Egyptian polytheism was restored by his successor Tutankhamun. It is likely that this cult of Aten was the predecessor of the Hermetica that came 7 centuries later. Belief in Aten is truly old, going back to the 18th century BC as evident in the Tale of Sinuhe, a text written some 500 years before the reign of Akenaten. This text is older than the Old Testament. It must be pointed that Atenism was really a politically motivated religion that identified Akenaten with the supreme god Aten. By making himself the supreme god, Akenaten ensured that he had absolute control over all of Egypt, including the powerful priestly class.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atenism

A good question would be whether these forms of monotheism arose separately or whether they had a common predecessor. Scholars cannot agree on this because there is weak archaelogical evidence and because some scholars would probably not want to take the risk of claiming that the Abrahamic religions have a predecessor much older than the Old Testament.

(V):

> Why is there good and evil, why do we perceive those items as such, what causes them... I don't see it in context of some outside demon or DeViL...

I prefer the Zoroastrian version of good and evil. Zoroastrianism is the oldest monotheistic religion and it predates the Abrahamic religions by at least 1000 years. It is still practiced among Persians (Farsi) in India and to some extent Iran.

According to Zoroastrianism, at the moment of creation Ormazd (Ahura Mazda) was manifested as the twins Spenta Mainyu (bounteous mind or spirit) and Angra Mainyu (destructive mind or spirit). It was in the form of Spenta Mainyu that Ahura Mazda conceived creation and life. Angra Mainyu (Ahriman) becomes its antithesis, and hence the originator of death, destruction and evil.

Zoroastrians exist in that duality of good and evil arising as manifestations of a single deity. Yet, according to their religion Ahura Mazda chanted the Ahuna Vairya, a sacred chant that puts Ahriman in a stupor. Zoroastrians recite this chant as the most sacred hymn of their religion.

The point is, Zoroastrianism sees good and evil as arising from the creator itself, with the personification of good (Ormazd) defeating the personification of evil (Ahriman) . Creation on Zoroastrianism is not limited in time (as in 7 days), but a process that has taken aeons. Time is divided into three eras: creation (where good and evil arose), mixture (our present era where good and evil coexist) and separation (Fashokereti).

Ultimately Ormazd is superior to Ahriman and Ahriman will be defeated in the Fashokereti, the time of renovation of the universe when good and evil will be separated and living beings will become one with God.

I find the duality of Zoroastrianism much better than the Christian view because Zoroastrians see good and evil as personifications emanating from the one God, rather than somehow Lucifer suddenly becoming evil out of "free will". If God created everything, then God created evil too, and Zoroaster wisely recognized that in the duality of the twins that arise at the time of creation. Those twins fight the great war of good and evil, even though they both arise from the same God. This is more true to the conflicted nature of human existence where good and evil coexist in the same person, the same society, the same world, etc.

Well, it is obviously more involved than my simple paragraph, but you can read more in Wikipedia, and there you can find links to the Avestas (scriptures):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism
http://www.avesta.org/

The Col:

More like: 'morning Guv'

(V):

> Any Canadians got a view on Mr Mark Carney...

I think there is a lot of hype about him just because he was appointed to the Bank of England. However, I am not entirely sure as to whether he is as good as the hype makes him to be.

Carney spent 13 years at Goldman-Sachs prior to going into public office. About his role there I found the following:

"He worked on South Africa's post-apartheid venture into international bond markets, and was involved in Goldman's work with the 1998 Russian financial crisis ... Goldman's role in the Russian crisis was criticized at the time because while the company was advising Russia it was simultaneously betting against the country's ability to repay its debt."

That makes Carney like most other bankers at the end of the Cold War. They all profitted from the destruction of the Soviet Union and throught the speculation on Russian currency. Nothing new there. It just makes Carney a banker in the same vein as George Soros. It is not surprising since studied at Harvard and Oxford, and the economics that people learn in these places are cutthroat capitalist economics.

From 2004 to 2007 Carney worked for the Department of Finance. "Carney was also the "point man" in the government's profitable sale of its 19 percent stake in Petro-Canada.[" This is in line with his right-wing conservative background, which is also evident in his good relationship with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Carney was appointed Governor of the Bank of Canada in February of 2008, several months before the Sub-prime Mortgage Crisis in the USA. Carney built his reputation because he acted quickly to privide liquidity to the Canadian financial markets as the crisis unfolded.

However, Canada was not exposed to the same degree of risk that other countries were exposed. Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien had refused to follow the American lead and de-regulate the sub-prime mortgage market in the way that George W. Bush did. As a result, the USA put itself in an untenable situation while Canada did not really have a crisis of its own. Carney rpovide liquidity to the market, but that liquidity was probably not needed because Canadian banks were not up to their neck in bad debt.

The Col:
> Nobody has a bad word to say about him

Most Canadians know little about him. I think that he was lucky to be the central banker of Canada. Had he been anywhere else, I am not sure that he would have survived unscathed. Canada has also benefitted from high demand for oil and natural gas. I am not entirely sure that the economic recovery here is the result of his policies or rather from Canada's economy being driven by commodity production.

Carney just attended the 60th Bilderberg Group meeting this year, and shortly thereafter he was named to the Bank of England. That shows Carney to be deeply entrenched on the world's financial elite. His appointment does not come as a surprise.

The real problem for him is that the UK is an entirely different economic beast. The UK is deeply exposed to bad debt across Europe (think Ireland, Iceland), and the regulatory framework is very different from what it is here in Canada. The UK does not benefit from high demand for raw commodities (this is what has saved Canada's economy.) If Carney fails to deliver, he will be torn to pieces by the British banking establishment that traditionally has looked down on "colonnials." If he succeeds he will be a big hero, if he fails he will be torn to pieces. The stakes are very high for him..

(V):

> such hostile countries as said do surround Israel

The truth is that Israel is in trouble. It was in trouble from the start. First, the British Empire made a big cokup of the whole thing. They used to control Palestine and Israel after WW II. They just granted Israel statehood wihtout even considering that there were other people living there too. The British Empire acted in the traditional way that empires do. They made a decision wihtout even considering the local population of their colony.

As soon as Israel was formed, the locals became angry at being displaced. Since all western empires were supporting Israel and doing nothing to rectify a growing problem, all the neighboring countries declared war. Now we have Palestianians displaced and living under an occupation. Israel is isolated in its territory, sturggling as best as they can to protect themselves. Western empires continue to be ineffectual in their efforts to make things better because rather than being fair and impartial, western empires prefer to play a game of geopolitics and strategic alliances.

Watching TV says all about why Israel and Palestine will never get along. A group of Palestinian school children are standing next to the blown-up remais of their school. An Israeli fighter jet blew it up. Then on the other side there is a bus blown up by a Palestinian insurgent in Tel Aviv. I see women and children standing around looking at that wreckage. When children grow up looking at those things, they grow up hating each other. Israeli children grow up afraid of Palestinian attacks. Palestinian children grow up terrified of Israel's military might. That is a recipe for eternal mutual fear and hatred. My heart goes out to those people because I know nothing will get better as long as western empires countinue to favor only one side over the other. Even if western empires could do something, three generations of war have made sure that the old wounds will never heal.

(V):

> Technically.. it's been going on for decades. That's how I look at it.

Technically it has been going on for the last 4,000 years. Genesis is clear on how Abraham went to war with his neighbors as soon as he had left Chaldea. Nobody wants to admit it but this is the product of a war culture that goes back for several thousand years, and belief in religions that turn a blind eye to violence because "god is on our side".

What really strikes me about this conflict is that it is really a fair fight. Obviously Palestians receive as much money and weapons from the West as Israelis do. In fact, those home-made rockets do tilt the balance of power in favor of the Palestinians, who, by all accounts, are a nuclear superpower just like their opponents are!

Iamon lyme:

Oh, I agree with you. The reason why I wrote "I saw a claim" is because seeing a claim and proving it are entirely different matters.

What I am getting at is perception in the public. In our present era a candidate's true record is not reflected in how the media spins that record. Current campaigns are huge advertising campaigns rather than campaigns aimed at discussing real issues or portraying the truth. A candidate made a stupid comment 20 years ago, and his opponent will exploit that as much as he can. Let alone problems in a candidates personal life. Reagan's initial divorce would probably have been used against him, as might have been comments he might have made when he disagreed with left-wing views or some government policies.

We can compare this to Romney's "shipping jobs overseas". That became a weakness in his campaign, regardless of how true or how accurate the situation was, or the fact that Democrat businessmen do the same thing.

Modern democracy is a game of perception. It is popularity contest. It is not about chosing the most capable man for the job, but the most popular man for the job.

With regards to feminism, one must remember that "feminism" as movement was something that never quite captured the public's imagination. Otherwise every woman would be a feminist, and that is not true. Feminism has an important place in history as a reflection of women struggling to gain acceptance and respect as men's equals. We remember that feminists are human beings too and as such they are bound to have biases and prejudices like we all do. If claims of gender discrimination raised during the Reagan administration, it was because more women felt the courage to come forward and lodge complaints. I doubt the Reagan era was any worse for women than any era in the past, or sadly, our modern era. However, these days candidates are judged based on their record with women's issues. In that sense candidates can spin their opponents record to court women voters.

JerNYC:

> A very clear message was sent to the Republicans in this election if they are
> smart enough to take their hands off their ears. "Get the crazies out of your
> party"

> This message didn't come from the liberal establishment in the Northeast. It
> came right out of the heartland.

> Just like Obama was smart enough to never associate himself with the lunatics
> of OWS, so should the Republicans turn their backs on their own lunatics.

To me it was very telling the situation in Colorado. Colorado traditionally voted Republican. Yet it this election (as in 2008) Colorado went Democrat. On TV I hear that the "Latino" vote did it.

The real problem with the Tea Party is that so far it has failed to appeal to the imagination of minorities. Many Hispanics are actually quite conservative people. Traditionally people in Latin America have favored conservative government policies and values deeply influenced by their Catholic thinking.

I found this in one of the Tea Party websites:

"Many people believe that because the Tea Party is a conservative movement, Hispanics do not have a role or interest in it, however this is not true. Hispanics not only are involved, there is a strong effort to reach out, and inform and educate them about conservative issues. The goal of the Tea Party in Texas is to create a strong conservative bloc of voters in the Texas Hispanic communities through out the state.

Hispanics have conservative cultural values which include family and religion. However, liberal Democrats have blinded them with fears and racism. Liberal Democrats have made many of them dependent on the government, while establishing political bosses to control them politically and economically. The political history of south Texas is full of political bosses like George and Archie Parr of Duval County who controlled Hispanics by keeping them dependent on the government. The old Anglo political bosses may be gone, but they have been replaced by Hispanic bosses who are supported by liberal Democrats in Washington DC."

Obviously the Tea party is aware that they need to appeal to minorities if they are to change the course of politics in the USA. However, I am yet to see any prominent Hispanics or African Americans who support the Tea Party. This is made worse by the Arizona immigration legislation that was pushed forth and supported by some members of the Tea Party. The idea that Hispanics have been made dependant on the government by "liberals" is not going to help Tea Party hopes in Texas (or anywhere else).

If Republicans are to rebuild their voter base, they must balance the values of fiscal conservatism, religious conservatism, and the appeal to minorities and women. This is not easy to do because the religious views of Tea Party members are more in line with the 10% of the Hispanic population that believe in protestantism and evangelism. Some of the values of the Tea Party can appeal only to a small segment of the minority population. It will be interesting to see how Republicans balance that approach. I am not sure if there will be a backlash against the Tea Party or some of its values. I think we are more likely to see a further radicalization in their direction. I think Republicans will not take a har look at their values until they receive a real beating at the polls.

Artful Dodger:

For 100 % you are: Liberal!
44.2173 % of 1712 Quiz participants had this profile!

That really comes as news to me!

Iamon lyme:

I was away a couple of days. I can finally sit down and reply.

> So here's an interesting question... In light of those stats (I believe they are
> accurate) how popular do you believe Reagan would be today compared to how
> popular he was with voters during his tenure? It seems to me he would have
> been no more popular among voters today than Romney was.


This is a very interesting question. Reagan's era was very different. Reagan first attempted to be president in 1976. He lost the Republican primaries to Gerald Ford, but 1976 set him up to become the main Republican candidate in 1980.

In 1980 he won with 51% of the vote compares to Jimmy Carter's 41%. Voter turnout was really low that year, only 53% of the electorate voted. Reagan was helped by the Iran hostage crisis, rising interest rates that were crippling the economy, and the perception that he could be a Republican capable of mending the rift caused by the aftermath of the Watergate scandal. During his tenure Reagan became very popular with both Republicans and Democrats. In 1984 Reagan was reelected with 58.8 % of the vote copared to Walter Mondale's 40.6% (voter turnout was again only 53%). This clearly shows Reagan's appeal across the aisle and across party lines.

In our modern era Reagan probably would not have suceeded during the primaries. Reagan has the distinction of being the only American president to be divorced. In 1948 his first wife, Jane Wyman, divorced him. Four years later he married actress Nancy Davis (born Anne Frances Robbins), who became the first lady. There was nothing inappropriate about his divorce and second marriage, but in our present era it is quite possible that he would have been taken apart and his private life would have been used to sink him. Such is the nasty nature of politics in the mass media era. I don't think that religion would have affected his chances. He was raised a Catholic, but was baptized into the Disciples of Christ (a protestant church with a Congregational and Presbyterian polity).

We must also look at the nature of the modern electorate. These days minorites have gained a lot of political clout, as have women. The general perception is that Reagan used veiled allusion to race and state's rights as a way to court the seggregationist vote in the South (the so-called Dixiecrats). Reagan also attempted to dismantle government programs aimed at ensuring civil rights and welfare for the poor. Reagan was accused of policies that contributed to racism and increasing racial tensions. Whether those accusation are warranted is a matter of debate, but in our modern era Reagan would have been taken apart on racial issues and that 28% of the vote represented by minorities would not have gone his way. Regan has also been the called the "most anti-women president of the 20th century". I saw a claim that said that sexual discrimination claims increased 25% in the 1980s. I think Reagan would have failed to garner the female vote.

All in all I think that his great appeal and political qualities would have made him as popular as Romney, but he would have lost the election too because the demographics of the vote have changed so much.

JerNYC:

> When the Republicans finally wise up and run a candidate that has crossover appeal and who outright rejects the far right-wing, they will have a chance again.

I think that this election will force many Republicans to do some soul searching and to see why it was that President Obama won in spite of problems with the economy, unpopular domestic policies and unpopular foreign policies. I agree that Mitt Romney did very well, in fact, better than I expected him to do. His political career (at least as presidential candiadte) is over. However, the loss is due to Romney's inability to clearly define his political stance. He won the nomination by portraying himself as somebody who could defend conservative values. Yet as the campaign wore on he became more "liberal" and that disenchanted many voters. The true picture is given more clearly by some statistics that were released by CNN. O stands for Obama's share of the vote. R stand for Romney.

Voting by Age

18-24: 60% O, 36% R
25-29: 60% O, 36% R
30-39: 55% O, 42% R
40-49: 48% O, 50% R
50-64: 47% O, 51% R
> 65: 44% O, 55% R

This clearly shows that the Democrats are much more popular among young people (under 40). This demographic should really worry Republicans because these young people will age and as they grow older support for the Democrats among the older age groups will increase. If Republicans are to win (and indeed survive) then they must find a way to appeal to young voters and then retain that support as those young voters age.

Vote by Gender and Race:

White men: 36% O, 61% R
White women: 43% O, 55% R
Black men: 88% O, 11% R
Black women: 96% O, 3% R
Latino men: 63% O, 35% R
Latino women: 75% O, 24% R
All others: 67% O, 31% R

Minorities (Hispanics, African Americans, Asians, etc) made up 28% of the electorate.

Looking at that distribution we see that the Democrats really attracted women voters. Undoubtedly some of the positions of Republican candidates hurt Romney's chances to attract women voters. Romney tried to distance himself from some of the controversial candidates in his party but women voters in the end did not ignore those elementary mistakes.

The issue of minorities is a serious one too. At 28% of the voting population (and growing) minorities can now swing an election. The Republicans were hurt by some of their policies on immigration, civil rights, women's rights, etc.

From these demographics it seems that the Republicans are becoming a party for "older white males". Such a perception has to change if the Republicans are to continue into the future. Republicans have to find a candidate that appeals to women and minorities. The current Tea Party stance is likely to fail unless it can be modified to address the issues that affect that 28% of the population that can now swing an election.

Taking into account these observations, did any of the candidates that ran for the Republican nomination (Ron Paul, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, etc.) possess the qualities that would swing the minority and female vote? The answer is no. They all represented an old, established elite within the Republican Party. The Tea Party might be offering some new faces, but with values that will never be acceptable to that 28% of the vote. It will be interesting to see how Republicans adapt to these challenges.

Iamon lyme:

> There is absolutely no intel to confirm the Benghazi attack was a peaceful protest
> (inspired by a video) that somehow erupted into violence. The Libyan leaders knew it
> was a planned attack and our state department knew it was a planned attack.

The Benghazi attack is the result of a foreign policy which follows a failed principle: "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". The Obama administration is using a foreign policy principle which had its birth during the Cold War and which was refined during the Reagan administration.

If "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", then I can give this "friend" money, weapons and training to attack my enemy so that I may achieve my foreign policy objectives.

Some 15,000 posts ago I mentioned that at the time the government in Chad had claimed that western intelligence agencies were recruiting mercenaries out of Chad's insurgency, a paramilitary group organized by Al Qaeda to overthrown governments in North Africa. Al Qaeda in the Magreb had been trying to overthrow the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Lybia and Chad for the better part of 8 years. At the time nobody paid heed to Chad's claim and my post went for the most part unnoticed.

I also posted something alarming that had happened in Lybia. The opposition claimed that a lot of weapons were disappearing. Nato was supplying the oppositiong with weapons and those weapons were vanishing into thin air.

I also posted another thing that said that there had been two incidents of "friendly fire" in which Nato forces bombed opposition forces "mistakenly" thinking that they were part of Gaddafi's army.

Adding two and two together it is obvious that Al Qaeda had infiltrated the Lybian opposition, it had stolen weapons from them, and in an attempt to solve the problem Nato decided to bomb the culprits. Obviously Nato failed.

Now Al Qaeda is free to roam Lybia since Gaddafi is not there to stop them. People forget things easily. Not long ago (3 years?) Prince Andrew was havily criticized for going to Lybia and signing business deals with the Lybian government. Both France and the UK were eager to do business in Lybia and to buy Lybian oil from Gaddafi. Why would they have been willing to do so when Gaddafi was the enemy? The reason is that Gaddafi was not the enemy. He was an ally in the War on Terror. Part of extraordinary rendition was sending detainees to third countries to be tortured and interrogated. Two of the main destinations were Lybia and Syria. Gaddafi was quite happy to crush Al Qaeda because Gaddafi wanted to maintain his secular government.

So we see the great intelligence failure: the enemy (Al Qaeda) of my enemy (Gaddafi) is my friend. Now that Gaddafi is gone, Al Qaeda sees an opportunity to attain their objective and destabilize the Lybian government until it collapses.

The attack in Benghazi was carefully planned. It is impossible to attack an American diplomatic mission without a plan because American diplomatic missions are heavily guarded.

It is not the first time that Western intelligence agencies completely fail in using this style of foreign policy. The Moujahaideen were America's allies against the Soviet Union. Now they are the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The US used opposition groups in Iraq against Saddam Hussain. Now Al Qaeda is alive and well in Iraq, even though it had never been Iraq prior to the war. In Lybia Al Qaeda is now armed and dangerous and the Benghazi attack is probably not the last. The Syrian and Lebanese governments are now claiming that the Syrian opposition has been infiltrated by Al Qaeda. In spite of that western intelligence agencies are giving money and weapons to the opposition.

The pattern is clear, and the Obama administrations failure is in repeating the same pattern that started with Ronald Reagan, continued in full with George W. Bush, and now is turning the Middle East into an even bigger mess under the Obama administration. The question is whether Obama will change his approach or whether Romney would do any better.

Bwild:

> are you saying the US government purchases all the oil and commodities..then resells it to suppliers who in turn sell to the public?

I was getting tot he fact that Romney has been castigating China and saying that the USA "borrows" money from China to pay for the dificit. In reality the debt to China is the result of massive consumption of goods manufactured in China, rahter than the government borrowing money directly from the Chinese government.

Then I drew a parallel to the consumption of oil and natural gas. Romney says nothing about how the foreign debt is increasing as a result of oil and gas consumption from places like Saudi Arabia and Canada.

In answer to your questions, yes and no. The American government does not profit from buying and selling oil, but it controls the supply of oil through what is called the strategic reserve. This is a reserve of crude oil, distillates and gasoline that are kept in inventory in case there is ever scarcity of those products. It was created during the Opec crisis in the 1970s. IN practice, the profits remain in the hands of oil companies. If the American government was profitting from oil, there would be no soverign debt!

Watching the debate two days ago, I was struck by some things. First, Americans have turned the entire electoral process into a reality TV show like American idol. All that is missing is a panel of judges to give criticism and pointers to the contestants. Well, media spinners fill that role.

Second thing I noticed, both candidates are incapable of offering anything new. They keep flogging the same dead horses. Tax breaks for the rich, Obamacare, a burgeoning deficit (for which they blame each other when in reality decades of rule by both political parties are to blame for it), etc.

However, the third thing, and most alarming thing, is how economically inept the candidates are. Both are incapable of addressing the real root causes of the economic problems affecting the United States. The candidates were incapable of mentioning the simple fact that the American economy is in trouble because the United States consumes a lot more than it produces and satisfying that hunger for consumption means that the USA must manufacture products and produce commodities overseas.

Among the more stupid comments I heard was this Romney quote:

"But I'm not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for."

This kind of quote is a reflection of the economic ineptitude of Romney and those who advise him on econmic matters. To say that the USA "borrows" from China to pay for the deficit is ludicrous. The real reason why the USA owes money to China is because American consumers buy 50 billion dollars of Chinese-made goods per month, while China barely buys any American-made goods. In order to balance the trade accounts, the American government is forced to issue billions of dollars in treasury bills to China. It is either that or hard currency (such as gold). Consequently, why would China buy American-made goods when they manufucture cheaply everything themselves? This is not about market protectionism, but about a simple economic reality that the manufacturer of goods has the economic power in his hands as opposed to the consumer of goods.

Mitt Romney is disingenous in playing the fear-mongering game. He never told the public that what they should really do is to stop buying Chinese-made goods. He also never told the public that the real problem is that American manufacturers continue to manufacture in cheap labour markets with lax legislation.

By Romney's logic, the USA is also borrowing money from Canada and Saudi Arabia to pay for the deficit. After all, those two are America's largest suppliers of oil and natural gas and every American is consuming those commodities. Should Romney tell people that the USA should stop borrowing from Saudi Arabia or Canada? There are other countries that sell commodities to the USA too.

Obama's ineptitude is evident in the fact that he was incapable of rebutting to Romney's comment. The closes Obama came to that was saying that tax breaks should go to companies that create jobs in America and not overseas, and this comment was largely ignored by the Media and dismissed by Romney as something that would hurt businesses.

This is not surprising since Romney himself "outsourced" production from his companies to overseas in the past and at least part of his multimillion dollar fortune came from profits derived by dismissing American workers and producing in cheap labour markets. Romney the hypocrite fear-mongers about China and makes a killing producing cheap over there. Why is it that Democrats say little about it? Because they are just as guilty of the same and nobody wants to kill the hen that laid the golden egg of maximum profits though cheap labour, and subsequent American unemployment.

Like I said before, this election (like most elections after Kennedy's death) is a choice between bad and worse, and politicians count on an apathetic and uninformed public to make the worst possible choice.

Iamon lyme:

The reason why I drew a comparison between war and abortion is because there is an interesting thing that came to my mind.

I noticed that some of the people who detest abortion (pro-life) sometimes also defend the right to own guns, the right to fight pre-emptive wars, and the use of the death penalty. This is more prevalent among what we call the "right wing ".

By the same token, among the "left wing" you will find the "pro-choice" argument among people who want gun control, who protest against pre-emptive wars, and who want to put an end to the death penalty.

It is interesting that on both sides we see people wanting to defend life, whether it be an unborn child, victims of violent crime or both civilians and military involved in a war.

"I believe that we should protect the life of an unborn child, just as much as I believe that the constitution guarantees people's rights to own potentially lethal weapons, and that our nation has the right to fight pre-emptive wars in which thousands of people will die. Furthermore, the state has the right to put an end to the life of a dangerous criminal."

"I believe that we should limit the ownership of lethal weapons only to law enforcement agencies, I believe that we should never fight pre-emptive wars that kill thousands, I believe that it is wrong to kill a criminal regardless of his crimes; but I also believe that a woman's choice takes precendence over the life of her unborn child."

To me this is an interesting contradiction. As with many other aspects of human nature, we are riled by contradictions.

> If you want to draw comparisons between war and abortion you are not
> helping the pro abortionist argument.

Of course it does not help the argument. From my point of view, if you believe in pretecting human life, should you not protect ALL human life? Unborn children, victims of crime, victims of war, prisoners on death row, etc. The truth is tht the situation is never simple and each case is so different.

> Wars are usually fought for one of two reasons. Depending on which side you
> are looking at, wars are fought to get something or to defend something.
> Sometimes both sides are aggressors who are out to get something, but you'll
> never see two defenders going at it... why would they?

Since our mind finds a contradiction between our beliefs and our actions, we must justify ourselves in how we act. We tell ourselves that we are defending something. I am defending an unborn child, I am defending my family from a criminal who broke into my home, I am defending my nation from hostile forces external to my nation, I am defending society from a dangerous criminal, etc. It is the only way that we can justify our actions. To me the contradiction just lies in how we defend one human life, and yet have no problem taking another (or letting somebody else take another on our behalf).

> And since you are comparing abortion to war then let me ask you who you
> believe the aggressor is. Is it the baby, or the adult(s)? What are adults who kill
> babies defending, their right to not take care of a defenseless little person, or
> maybe the abortionist's right to earn a living?

One can make the same argument about a war. When a plane drops a 2,000-pound bomb, can the people on the ground defend themselves? The military might if they have guns aimed at the planes, but what about the thousands who die under the bombs? Can civilians really defend themselves? What about a baby who dies in war because of either bombs, or the destruction of infrastructure such as hospitals, water treatment plants, etc.? In the Gulf War 500,000 civilians died, plus 250,000 Iraqi military. In the aftermath of the war the United nations estimated that a further 1,000,000 prople died because of lack of clean water, hospitals, medicines, etc. War is a terrible thing, and most of the people who die are defenseless, even when the military claims to have "smart bombs" and "satellite guided missiles". The only reason why the military always claims to try to protect civilians is because public opinion forces them to say so.

> Adults can defend themselves if they need to. Babies can't. If you can convince
> me that babies are not completely defenseless and have done something
> (anything) to deserve being killed, then you might have a valid argument.

Of course babies are defenseless, as are many vicitims of violent gun crime. At the time of execution, the prisoner is defenseless. Yes, he has committed terrible crimes and he is being executed for them, but can he really fight the lethal injection and the gas chamber? Somehow we tell ourselves that he is not defenseless and that he deserves to die.

Then does anyone really DESERVE to be killed? If that is the case, who decides? A serial killer is easy to justify. A terrorist is easy to justify so long as we ignore some of the motivations behind his actions (such as western empires invading their countries for the last 400 years.) What about a political prisoner? Is it justifiable to kill a communist? Western empries certaily thought it was justifiable during the Cold War. We all find certain forms of killing justifiable. It is human nature, and our nature is conflicted.

Something that the pro-life people sometimes forget is that the pro-choice people do not go around killing babies willy nilly. Most pro-choice people I have met actually hate abortion, but they justify it in terms of somehow saving a woman's life, and sparing an unwanted child what otherwise would be a bad life. To the pro-life people that is weak argument, but then, if society is going to ban abortion, then society has to provide every tool possible to avoid unwanted pregnancies. That means solid sexual education since childhood and easy availability of contraceptives. Will all pro-life people accept easily available contraceptives to teenagers and adults alike? Probably not.

Iamon lyme:

> If you support abortion then yes, at least indirectly if not directly, you have blood on your hands. You are not only responsible for what you do, but also responsible for what you encourage other people to do.

Does that apply to wars too? I mean, the USA and its allies killed 300,000 people in Afghanistan; 750,000 in the Gulf War; 400,000 more in the Iraq war; 6,000,000 in Vietnam; 3,000,000 in Korea, etc.

If people voted for those governments that went to war, do those people have blood in their hands? If you are a person who supported any of these wars, do you have blood in your hands? Is believing in war different from believing in abortion?

Iamon lyme:

> There's load of evidence verifying Old Testament people and events as well.

If that were true, we would be hearing it to the four winds. The reality is that there is archelogocal data, as you say, clay tablets, etc. Yet none of them prove conclusively that any of the main people in the Old Testament existed. Scholars can't agree on the interpretation of that data because the data is weak and in many cases not concrete enough.

> It's been convenient to say in the absence of any evidence that something didn't happen or a place didn't exist, until that place or some recorded history is found. And then after evidence is found, ignoring it is what it is... willful ignorance.

But where is the evidence? To me it is not willful ignorance, it is lack of evidence plain and simple.

> By the way, the word "ignorant" is another one of those magic words liberals love to toss out... it's intended to have the same effect as words like "birther" or "conspiracy nut". Personally, I like the term "double standard"... that pretty much says it all.

This has nothing to do with "liberals", it has to do with backing your claims with concrete evidence.

> Life is too short to spend trying to convince someone of something they don't want to know.

But I WANT to know. I want to see the evidence, rather than have you make excuses for presenting none. I love to read the evidence. It is interesting and important. So why say that we don't want to know?

It seems to me that you are making a lot of excuses since you are unable to back up your claims that there is "loads" of evidence out there.

Artful Dodger:

> read this book then make your points. As it is, you speak out of ignorance. http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Testament-Documents-Reliable/dp/0802822193

I am not asking for a book written by a Christian scholar.

'Frederick Fyvie Bruce (12 October 1910 – 11 September 1990) was a Biblical scholar and one of the founders of the modern evangelical understanding of the Bible. His first book, New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (1943), was voted by the American evangelical periodical Christianity Today in 2006 as one of the top 50 books "which had shaped evangelicals".'

I am asking for a direct literary source contemporary to Jesus that states unequivocally that he existed. There is no such source. The earliest mention outside the New testament is in a brief paragraph in Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, and that as written in 93-94 AD. Many scholars disagree on the interpretation of a brief paragraph written by a rather obscure Jewish scholar in the Roman empire.

The Gospels themselves are based on one, possibly two documents written at around 75 AD. That leaves us with no contemporary sources.

Was Jesus a historical figure? Most scholars think that Jesus did exist and see sources as Josephus and Tacitus as either brief mentions of the historical Jesus, or reflections of events that those historians heard among early Christians. However, the mythology around Jesus (the virgin birth, the miracles, etc.) are considered to be non-historical (in other words, they have no concrete historical proof of their having occurred.)

Do we really believe that a man would do all those miracles and go unnoticed by all the Roman and Greek historians of the era? If somebody did all those miracles, that person would not have gone unnoticed, specially when those miracles gave rise to the dominant religion in the Roman empire. Matthew clearly states that Jesus was followed by "multitudes", and yet nobody in the Roman world noticed him enough to write anything of him? Romans noted inconsequential people, but ignored Jesus in spite of his miracles?

Artful Dodger:

> duh! He lives in my heart!

Exactly! The ONLY way one can see Jesus as a historical figure is if one has faith. Without faith the New Testament could never be considered a historical document. It is faith that makes people see the New Testament as a document that reflects true historical events. Without faith other historical sources would fail to corroborate any events described there.

Iamon lyme:

> LOL (selective ignorance?) There is an abundance of historical documentation to prove otherwise. And please don't insult my intelligence by asking where... you have the same access to information as I do.

Can you please supply such documentation or links to it? Is there documentation proving the existence of Jesus outside the New Testament? Are there any Roman or Greek (or other) sources contemporary to the life of Jesus that corroborate his existence? Note that I mean contemporary and not 200 years later. If they existed, I would be the first to put them here.

Iamon lyme:

> I can't assume the third Abrahamic religion he refers to is Islam, because there is no connection between Abraham and that religion except through the son of the woman who was not his wife. But it probably is the religion he is refering to.

Of course he is referring to Islam. No offense but denying that Islam is an Abrahamic religion is rather ignorant. All of the prophets of the Old Testament are also prophets to moslems, as is Jesus Christ. Scholars believe that the Old Testament refers to the descendants of Lot and his daughters as the ancestors of Arabs. More accurately, Arabs and Jews are Semitic peoples. If one goes back in time far enough, both people descend from migrations that occurred in Asia minor during the last ice age (between 25,000 and 11,000 years ago). Of course, that is older than the Old Testament's age of the world according to Genesis.

Historically, before Mohammad founded Islam, most Arabs were Christians and Jews. The religious change came with Mohammad, just as Christianity had its origins in Judaism as it existed at the time of Christ. People today look at Islamic law and think it is somehow different, but much of Islamic law is a reinstatement of laws in the Torah, plus the interpretations that Islamic scholars made of them.

One thing is certain, Mohammad was a historical figure whose existence can be proven. All of the main characters of the Old Testament have no historicity to them. In other words, nobody can prove their existence beyond what is stated in the Old Testament. The same is true of Jesus. There is no proof of Jesus' existence outside the New Testament, and the Gospels date to about 75 to 120 AD depending on what scholars intepret as the original documents and oral tradition that they were based upon.

In that sense Islam is more "historical". The person who originated the religion wrote his own book, and there is historical proof outside the religious books that form the basis of the religion. The Koran clearly states the Abrahamic origin of the religion. Some Christians refute that because they want to see themselves as entirely different from Moslems. This is not surprising considering the conflictive history between Christians and Moslems.

Artful Dodger:

> But to be clear, the God of the universe is not the god of Islam. Islam's god is Satan. Sad but it's true.


Assumption #1: Satan exists
Assumption #2: God exists
Assumption #3: You can prove assumptions 1 and 2 above.
Assumption #4: God and Satan are different entities.

Of course, what happens if these assumptions are wrong. I would challenge both Christians and Moslems to prove scientifically and without a doubt that their gods exist and that Satan exists.

Of course, Christians and Moslems want to see their gods as being different, even though both religions have their origins in the Judaism of Abraham, which is predated by the monotheism of the Zoroastrians, and that in turn is predated by the cult of Theus Pater among the Protoindoeuropeans.

Artful Dodger:

> Vote for Obama bumper stickers are proof that you can't fix stupid.

That is because Mitt Romney is really a looooot better than Obama and he is really, really going to change Washington for the better. With Romney in the White House, the lobbying and special interest groups will have no clout, and the era of big money politics is really going to come to an end. Romney really represents how Washington will change for the better and he will really work for the benefit of the working man rather than the benefit of the rich and powerful.

The Col:

> I'm proud of Harper and my govt in this one.Our Liberal party would never have the stones

The question is: what has been accomplished by closing the Iranian embassy? Will Iran stop its nuclear ambitions? Will Iran even be embarrassed by it?

The only reason why this is happened is because Stephen Harper is a blind fool.

Need proof? Why is it that they never broke relations with Pakistan? After all, no other country has sold more nuclear technoilogy in the black market than Pakistan. Pakistan is one of the main supporters of terrorism, and it has been proven that Pakistan's military and intelligence protected Osama bin Laden.

Stephen is playing a stupid political game. Since Americans are in the middle of an election, foreign policy decisions will affect the election. By doling this Stephen Harper wants to put pressure on Obama to follow suit. Since Obama can't really do that as stupidly as Harper did, then Republicans can accuse of Obama of being weak.

Western powers are hypocrites. they want smaller nations to have no nuclear weapons, yet they make no effort to get rid of their own. They point the finger to countires pursuing nuclear weapons, while saying nothing about their own nuclear programs. How many of you know about the recent American research on bunker busting nuclear missiles? And what about the Russian threat to develop yet more sophisticated missiles to counteract the recent American research? While our governments condemn others, they continue to develop more deadly nuclear weapons and they continue to pursue a weapons race. Stephen Harper is the least charismatic prime minister in recent memory. Since his foreign policy decisions carry little weight internationally, he is constantly trying to make some sort of name for himself.

Artful Dodger:

> Obama was boring tonight. Long on promises and short on delivering.

I thought both Obama and Romney are boring. Both are really long on promises and incapable of delivering on anything. This election (like all elections in living memory) is a choice between mediocre and mediocre-er. That is the curse of modern politics. Candidates come in promising the world and screaming of change, only to face the reality that representative democracy is incapable of improvement or change. Representative democracy will continue to be a failure as long as the rich can buy power with their money, and in capitalism the rich buy power so that they can make themselves richer. It is why democracy and capitalism go together so well!

Iamon lyme:

> By the way, what do you mean by religious? What is a 'religious' atheist, and how is he different from other atheists?

Some atheists come from a religious background, the most common being Buddhism. A good example is Stephen Batchelor who was ordained as a Buddhist monk and who later arrived at the conclusion that there is no god. He is still a Buddhist, and he can be both a Buddhist and an Atheist because Buddhism is a non-theistic religion (that is, a religion without a god.)

With respect to atheists and aliens, I imagine that it depends on the person. Those who believe in aliens might assume that aliens could be more intelligent than humans. I am an atheists who will believe in aliens only on the day when I actually see them. In the meantime, they make nothing more than nice materials for movies and books. We can't even prove that there is life outside this planet. It is a big leap from there to superintelligent aliens. Of course, there could be aliens and they all turn out to be really stupid, or at least as stupid as we humans can be.

Artful Dodger:

I see we are still flogging the old dead horse!

Artful Dodger:

> Ha! Good question. Perhaps the flood was local. Water, especially violent flood waters, can be very destructive. I remember studying the young earth view of the flood and didn't find it particularly convincing.

There is a theory that tries to explain the origin of the flood myth. I saw it in a documentary some 20 years ago.

The theory is that the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles were blocked. The Bosphorus is the straight narrow passage that connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The Dardanelles connect the Sea of Marmara to the Mediterranean. These straits are located in modern day Turkey. Because the area was formed of a solid landmass, it was blocked and the waters of the Mediterranean could not enter what is our modern Sea of Marmara. This created a plain that sat below sea level. Then an earthquake happened several thousand years ago and the landmasses of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles collapsed. The waters of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea came pouring in and flooded what today is the Sea of Marmara. The inhabitants in the area perished as their settlements were engulfed by the rushing waters.

Both western and Soviet archaelogists tried to find remnants of settlements under the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov. However, no solid evidence was found to support this theory. There were settlements on the shores, but they did not go back far enough in time to prove the theory.

To me it was very interesting. It would show a cataclismic flood that gave origin to the myth, but would also be on a scale that is more logical than what is portrayed in the Old Testament and in other myths outside the Abrahamic religious tradition.

In reality, I think that flood myths are merely a reflection of our fear of water and our fear of the destructive power of nature. Flood myths exist everywhere, not just in the Old Testament.

The Popol Vuh of the Maya Quiche natives of Guatemala has a flood myth too. The Gods had created men made of wood, but these men were mute. They could not speak and thank their Gods for having created them. The Gods became angry and send a great flood that destroyed most of the men of wood. Those that survived ran away into the jungle and became monkeys. This flood myth has no relationship to any of the Old World myths. It merely represents two things: floods sent by the Gods destroy things, thank your Gods or they will send a flood to destroy you. The teaching in the myth is much the same as in the Old Testament. It is meant to have a didactical effect and not to be taken as some fundamental truth of what really happened.

I have no problem believing Noah's ark story except that there is a couple of things I don't quite get. How did kangaroos get from Australia to the ark? And then how did they get from the ark back to Australia? I suppose Noah could have done dropoffs. Take a bit of a long ark trip to Australia, drop off kangaroos, dingoes and koalas. Then head over to the Americas and drop off spider monkeys, grizzly bears and moose. Then head back to the old world. If that were the case, Noah discovered America!

The Col:

> Aside from Watergate , he was a pretty good President IMO. I would love to hear his thoughts of the current Republican party

I heard an interesting comment in the radio today. A political commentator quoted George H.W. Bush as saying that with the current ideological current in the Republican Party it would have been impossible for himself (Bush) or Ronald Reagan to be nominated for the Republican ticket. The reason is that the Republican Party has become radicalized to the right to such an extent that more "moderate" vies such as those of Republican presidents of the past would have been unacceptable to the Party caucuses.

I see Mitt Romney as a sort of compromise. On the one hand he represents the entrenched, powerful, traditional Republicans of the Reagan era. However, he also has to satisfy the extreme right wing views of the Tea Party and the likes of Newt Gingrich. Mitt Romney is stuck in between and the potential nomination of Ron Paul as VP is a symptom of that.

When I said that Romney reminds me of Nixon, it is because of certain inflexions of speech and his way of projecting himself politically. However, Mitt Romney is in many ways a polar opposite of Nixon.

Reading a little about Nixon, it is obvious that he would be labelled a "liberal" by today's Republicans. Consider these snippets of his career as a president:

"After he won reelection, Nixon found inflation returning. He reimposed price controls in June 1973. The price controls became unpopular with the public and businesspeople, who saw powerful labor unions as preferable to the price board bureaucracy."

Obviously the Price Control Board was an example of "big government".

"Nixon was a late convert to the conservation movement. Environmental policy had not been a significant issue in the 1968 election; the candidates were rarely asked for their views on the subject. He saw that the first Earth Day in April 1970 presaged a wave of voter interest on the subject, and sought to use that to his benefit; in June he announced the formation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)."

Nixon created the EPA, which is now seen as an "enemy" by those who call for indescriminate drilling withint the USA.

"In 1971, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts proposed a plan for universal federally run health insurance, partly motivated by dramatic rises in public and private health care expenditures. In response, Nixon proposed a health care plan which would provide insurance for low-income families, and require that all employees be provided with health care. As this still would have left some forty million people uncovered, Kennedy and the other Democrats declined to support it, and the measure failed, though a Nixon proposal for increased use of health maintenance organizations passed Congress in 1973."

Is it just me or did Nixon propose something akin to Obamacare?

Well, the true right wing nature of Nixon was more evident in his foreign policy in Asia, Africa and Latin America where he supported fascist dictators in an effort to fight Communism. It as the pursuit of fascist imperialist foregin policy that identifies Nixon as a right winger, otherwise his domestic poilicy was quite liberal in nature.

As for Ronald Reagan, it is interesting that he was divorced in 1948, leaving Janet Wyman and their to children, then remarrying in 1949 to Nancy Reagan (nee Davis) with who he had to children. In today's environment he would probably have failed to attract many voters because of his divorce, although some candiadates have been divorced and remarried.

Regan is known for lowering taxes, particularly for the higher income brackets of American society; however, we have the following:

"Conversely, Congress passed and Reagan signed into law tax increases of some nature in every year from 1981 to 1987 to continue funding such government programs as Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 (TEFRA), Social Security, and the Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 (DEFRA). Despite the fact that TEFRA was the "largest peacetime tax increase in American history", Reagan is better known for his tax cuts and lower-taxes philosophy."

If a candidate had proposed those tax increases to offset tax cuts, he would be labelled a liberal.

Of course, if we look at Democrat presidents, we will find actions which would contradict their "liberal" ideology. The reason is that presidents work within the limitations of the bipartisan system.

I was watching TV the other day. Why does Mitt Romney remind me so much of Richard Nixon? I think I am going senile. Help!

Artful Dodger:

> yet here we have a President who has had his lawyers early on seal ALL his college records. Why is that? No one asks that question because he's a liberal. Had Bush had private records sealed, you left wing nuts would have lost your shorts over it!

Just to remind ourselves, George W. Bush did keep his college records confidential during his first term. His records were released in June of 2005 after he was reelected. In fact, most presidents have done that while they were presidents. Obama's records are not "selad" by a court order but rather, they remain confidential.

"Obama’s college records are not “sealed” by a court order, as this graphic would have you believe. It would be illegal under federal law (the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) for Occidental, Columbia or Harvard Law School to give any former student’s records to reporters or members of the public without that person’s specific, written permission. Obama hasn’t released them, but neither have other presidential candidates released their college records. George W. Bush’s grades at Yale eventually became public, but only because somebody leaked them to the New Yorker magazine. Bush himself refused to release them, according to a 1999 profile in the Washington Post."

> I'm SURE there is something to the story. You don't get into Harvard with bad grades and Obama was NOT a good student. Something is amiss and denying it won't change that fact.

George W. Bush was by his on admission (and as his records show) an average student. Obama has never claimed to be a genius. If there is anything amiss with Obama being admitted to Harvard, isn't that a problem with Harvard's admission procedures rather than Obama's manipulating the situation? We have to remember that Obama was not born with power and influence.

As for the stupid claims that Obama got foreign student aid, that started as an April's Fool's day joke:

http://www.factcheck.org/2009/05/was-obama-born-in-the-usa/

Well, ultimately it is all immaterial. Obama is the president and running for reelection, whether right wingers like it or not. Likewise Mitt Romney (with all his qualities and potential shortcomings) is the Republican candidate.

Both sides will sling mud at each other. It is how American politics works these days. To date, both candiadates are eak in what really matters: issues that truly affect American society. Who cares about who the candidates are or where they were born when American sociaty faces urgen issues like the economy, health care, education, rising violence, etc.?

The worst thing of all is that regardless of who is elected, Washington will stay the same. Washington will continue in its culture of secrecy, lack of transparency, lobbyism, and the subversion of democracy by big, powerful money.

Artful Dodger:

> If that's true, even though Obama may have been born in the USA, he was no longer a citizen and still isn't.

Still flogging that dead horse. If Republicans keep the "birther" foolishness going, they look more desperate to win than anything else!

A foreigner or a tax evader and job killer. Come November the American public is in for a tought choice. Either way, I am sure Washington will really change for the better!

Looking at Art's cartoons. The funny thing is that Romney is really, really better than Obama. Romney is really, really going to change Washington for the better. Romney really represents the working man and not some big corporate interests like other presidents have done since the end of WW I.

Iamon lyme:

> we can worship a God who created us in His image

The question is: are we really created in God's image?

What does that mean? Physically? Intellectually? Spiritually?

And who represent's God's image? Mother Teresa? Adolf Gegenueber aka Hitler? Joseph Stalin? St. Francis of Asisi? Bill Gates? Barrack Obama? George W. Bush? etc. etc.

Are ALL human beings created in God's image? And how do we know what God's image is? We keep regurgitating what Genesis said, but considering the actions of human beings in history, can we justified in saying we are a reflection of God?

If ALL human beings are made in God's image, then Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein are God's image too.

I refuse to believe that we were made in God's image. Is God cruel, selfish, greedy, opinionated, inflexible, intolerant, racist, jealous, vengeful, murderous, etc.? It would be nice to say that God is all the good things that humanity has, and then conveniently say that "the Devil made us bad". But then, is the Devil not God's creation too? If human beings do evil, did God not make humans with the capacity and the potential for evil? Then that capacity and potential for evil would be a reflection of God too.

So I think that did not make human beings in his image. God made blank slates reflection nothing of God itself. God has to be nothing like we human beings are, otherwise God is both all the good and all the bad things we are.

(V):

Sorry, I suppose it is difficult to put a sarcastic tone on a post! I meant my last post to be sarcastic.

Artful Dodger:

> a series of mass shootings prompted the government to toughen its gun laws last June

Let's see. After decades of no gun control, Finland now introduces them. I suppose that in less than one year the law is suppossed to work and be accepted by everybody, even psychopaths. Is it that the law is wrong, or that an act by a psychopath can be used to justify saying that the law is wrong?

Artful Dodger:

> Obama's current practice is much better: Just kill them wherever you find them. Assassinate them.

And Bush never did that? No, Bush did better. Just put them all in Abu Graib.

The nice thing about waterboarding is that anyone can do it. Sooner or later western intelligence agents will get caught and waterboarded too. It will be OK, because is not "torture".

Of course, defenders of it will prove to me that it is harmless when I see them put their own children through the treatment. If their kids puke and scream, we can all say "poor babies". But then, it is perfectly Christian to waterboard somebody until they puke and scream.

Artful Dodger:

> Need a condom? Not a problem. Here, take two!

Here is a good question: Has the teaching of Christianity reduced the number of unintended pregnancies, transmission of STDs, or abortions?

The answer is that it has not. Neither have contraceptive devices.

The reason is that there is a lack of education in schools. Sex is seen as a "bad" thing to teach children. The general thinking is that if children learn about sex, they will become sexually active themselves.

In reality, becoming sexually active has nothing to do with sexual education, religious education, or contraceptive use. It has to do with human physiology.

If religious education and "abstinence" worked, Christianity would have suceeded in stamping out sex out of wedlock centuries ago. For 2000 years Chistianity has been preaching abstinence and sex only in the context of reproduction and marriage.

After 2000 years of thrying the results are: Good? So so? Bad?

If teaching Chirstianity worked automatically, there would be no Bristol Palins in this world.

If abstinence and religious education have failed for 2000 years, what should people do then? Keep repeating the same failed educational pattern for another 2000 years?

Artful Dodger:

> Obeying the government is a Christian principle.

Where in the Bible does it say that? "To Caesar what is of caesar. To God what is of God." It is about as close as I see Jesus make a statement between the big divide of the Roman State and the reformed Judaism Jesus was preaching. Barrack obama is asking you to accept healthcare reform. Are you obeying his wishes as the head of your government?

> Being a good citizen is a Christian principle.

How so? What does a "good citizen" mean? Good citizens go to war when called to do so and they will kill on behalf of the state when called to do so. They will also apply the death penalty when called to do so by a court of law. Good citizens have the right to own lethal weapons because the constitution protects that right. Good citizens can also get rich at other good citizen's expense even though "It is easier for a camel to go through a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

> It doesn't make one a Christian just becuase they follow the principles. But there is no escaping the influence of the Judeo/Christian ethic.

But here is the thing, the "Christian ethic" existed before Jesus was born. The Christian ethic is the stoicist ethic of the Greeks as assimilated by the early church. Buddha was preaching what is essentially the same ethic a good 500 years before Christ. Christianity does not hold a monopoly on good and evil. If anything, Christianity is a "late comer" when compared to Greek and indian philosophers.

>> "Everybody is required to pay for Defense Insurance"

> I won't even bother with a statement like this. It's false on the face of it. Please don't post this again. It hurts when I fall on the floor and laugh my @$$ off.

You are missing the point. It is an analogy. If people who did not pay "Defense Insurance" were not protected, they would be forced to go to war to defend themselves; just as those without healthcare are forced to fend for themselves when they have no money.

Thinking a little about my previous post, it occurred to me that we could extend the health care model to other government branches. Here is the model:

If you have money, you buy insurance and pay for treatment with the insurance funds.

If you have more money, you buy better insurance or pay directly to your doctor out of pocket.

If you have no insurance, you fall back on the government programs (state paid meaning paid by tax payers.)

Now, let's imagine that we applied the same model to the Department of Defense:

Everybody is required to pay for Defense Insurance.
If there is a war or a conflict of some sort, you pay for the war from the insurance funds.
If there are more wars, then your isnurance premiums go up.
If you don't have money for insurance, you fall back on a government program of some sort, or you are not entitled to be defended, meaning that the state would have no obligation to save your life.
Since there are a lot of poor people without money, how would they be defended from war?

Obviously the model fails for other goverment branches. We could send those without money to fight in the war since they are not entitled to be defended.

It seems stupid, but if healthcare was like the defense sector, American (and others) defense would be in serious trouble. Poor people would end up dead in the battlefield, while those with money would stay home safe. Sounds familiar?

It is interesting that those that hate the idea of full state-provided healthcare have no problem at all with Defense being the largest branch of the goverment and sucking up the largest amount of tax payer dollars. Those who preach small government are often those that preach an inflated Defense budget. I suppose war planes are more important than hospitals.

Artful Dodger:

"You're like so many misguided on the Left. Jesus never said that the government should take care of people. And not everyone believes in Jesus anyway. Besides, there's this little inconvenient thing called separation of church and state."

If there is a separation of church and state, then why are some politicians selling their perceived Chistian values as potential government policy? To be fair, it happens on both Repuiblican and Democrat Candiadates. In the United States it is impossible for a candidate to win an election if he does not profess himself/herself to be a Christian.

From George W. Bush: "We are in a crusade against the axis of evil." George W. Bush used his return to Christianity as a big selling point in his political campaigns. Obama repeated so many times that he was a Christian until his religious associations got him into some minor trouble.

I think a more accurate description is that we have a separation of "Clergy and the State" rather than "Religion and the State"

Jesus never said that the State should be involved in .taking care of the people, but then in Jesus' time such a concept did not even exist. The idea that the state should take care of the people is a product of the early 20th century. As such it has nothing to do with Jesus.

Having said that, the question is: "Is there a contradiction between the state taking care of people and the values expounded by Jesus?" Jesus clearly believed in helping the poor, as his miracles attest. A person could easily interpret the role of the state as an extension of those values.

Ultimately it comes to selfishness and individualism. The state taking care of people is a form of collective action that requires those who pay taxes to put aside some selfishness and accept that the state has a role in helping the poor. It is part of the modern social contract. We surrender the power to the decide to the state. The reason why we can't agree on how is because each politician pretends to represent the values of his/her constituency. If the politician is selfish and individualistic, he/she will put forward his/her personal values as if they were those of everyone he/she represents.

Well, I think most people agree that everyone needs healthcare. The question then is "Should the state provide it or should the private sector provide it?"

If the state provides it, then the cost is deferred to tax payers. If the private sector provides it, then the cost is deferred to individual insurance buyers and the profit goes to all those companies involved in providing insurance and healthcare services. Either way, people have to pay for it no matter what. It is a matter of belief on whether tax dollars or personal wealth should determine the cost and quality of care.

This last Sunday it was reported that 11 US secret service agents and 5 military personnel were expelled from Cartagena, Colombia following a scandal at a local hotel. The security personnel were there to arrange for security pending the arrival of Barrack Obama who was scheduled to address an OAS Summit. The local police started an investigation following allegations that the security personnel brought prostitutes to the hotel and engaged in inappropriate behaviour.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/scandal-mars-obamas-wooing-latin-america-002413253.html

The sex scandal has put a damper on the Obama administrations efforts to engage Latin America in dialogue leading to control of drug trafficking, trade liberalization and a re-establishment of long term alliances that were neglected during both the Bush and Obama administrations.

The scandal has overshadowed the fact that the United States and Canada are politically isolated in Latin America and that all other Latin American countries have refused to attend the next summit unless Cuba is also allowed to attend. In an unprecedent politcal rebellion against the United States, all Latin American member states of the OAS unanimously supported an end to Cuba's ostricization by the United States and Canada. Latin American countries also strongly opposed the current financial policy of the United States that seeks to inflate its own trade surplus by forcing an over-valuation of Latin American currencies.

I suppose the old days of Latin Americans lowering their heads are coming to an end. No longer can American intelligence agencies do whatever they want in Latin America and never be questioned or held accountable.</a>

rod03801:

> The pledge would require candidates to promise they have not had premarital sex, will be faithful to their spouses and will not watch pornography.

> The pledge endorsed by Laurens County Republicans last month also requires candidates to protect gun rights, oppose abortion under any circumstances, endorse balanced budgets and oppose same-sex marriage.

They forgot to promise to eat their greens and cut back on cholesterol!

Bwild:

From that article, it was the first time in 15 years that the average size of homes had decreased:

"To be precise, the median square footage of newly built homes fell to 2,065 square feet in the first three months of this year, compared with the same period last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau."

For the first three months of 2008. The question is: Is it a trend, or merely a one time occurrence in 15 years?

I found an interesting set of data from the United States Census Bureau:

http://www.census.gov/const/C25Ann/sftotalmedavgsqft.pdf

If we look at that table, there are some interesting things we can notice.

From 1973 to 2007 the mean and average square areas increased. Then 2007, 2008 and 2009 saw a decrease in the areas. The most likely explanation is the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 which continues into the present.

The areas also depend on which part of the USA we look at. The northeast actually saw an increase in areas, in spite of a decrease in areas in other parts of the country.

Nevertheless the trend is clear. In 1973 the average area for a single family home was 1660 sq. ft. By 2007 the areas peaked to 2521 sq. ft. That is an increase of 861 sq. ft. or 52% increase over a 34 year period. In essence the average home added the area equivalent to that of an extra 2 bedroom apartment.

The last 3 years saw a modest decrease from 2521 to 2392 sq. ft. That is 129 sq. ft. Obviously financing for mortgages has become more difficult, and that means that people can borrow less and are forced to build slightly smaller homes.

We can only hope that the trend will continue so that the market place can add some moderation to the ever increasing house sizes.

ScarletRose:

> I like a home around 2500 to 3000 sq ft.. 4 bed rooms and 2 1/2 baths.. 2 car garage.. with a nice big yard to make into a garden and room for a greenhouse and a studio.. that is my dream..

That is precisely the current "North American" dream. I say North American because Canada is the same. The point I am trying to make is this. We want big homes. That's fine. However, where does all the concrete, lumber, metal and plastic come from? Is the environment affected more by a bigger or a smaller home? Obviously yes. Lumber comes from cutting down the forest. Metal and concrete from open pit mining. Plastics from processing of oil products. To produce all these things e need to run refineries, smelters, factories, power plants, etc. That means carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Heating, air conditioning, cleaning a bigger home, removing more garbage from a bigger home. All these things mean more environmental impact.

Bernice pointed that in the UK the average home is 800 sq. ft. In the USA it is 2200 sq. ft. One in relation ot the other means about 3 times as much environmental impact for a home in the USA.

So people face two choices. Keep building large homes, or scale back. Since people always want bigger, the USA will continue to consume a lot of energy, until the price of oil is so high that people are forced to consume less. I suspect that in 30 years, it will be impossible for Americans to keep building like they are. We already see signs of that. In many places there is already a crisis in the collapse of home values. Since building bigger homes means that properties are more expensive, the market place is forcing a loss in the sale of those big homes.

The future probably will be such that people will see themselves forced to live in tiny, very expensive apartments. How long before rising house and energy prices forces people to build small, energy efficient homes? Only the rich will be able to afford the 2,200 sq. ft. I already see it here. Little houses worth 500,000 USD. Nobody can afford to buy those homes any more. Hence the short-term price collapse, followed by massive inflation as energy goes up in price.