We The People

[Byron In Exile]

Obviously, once the majority can vote themselves money out of the Treasury at will, the whole thing collapses. That's the reason that a Constitutional Republic was established for the US, instead of a democracy. Unfortunately, the system is moving toward Jefferson's definition of despotism, and the majority of the people seem in favor of that.

 

[TE999]

Yep. I mean who are you guys going to call names and vilify if everyone who disagrees with you got bored and left the room?

Ummm...wrong! If you read back through this thread you'll find the invective began with the so-called 'Leftist's' or 'Liberals'...although neither label is accurate. The opposing side, the so-called 'Ignorant Republican Fascists'...also inaccurate...only responded in kind after repeated provocations.

They who 'left the room' are, in the main, not bored...rather they are unused to their opinions being contested and are reduced to sputtering rage and viciousness when they are. Likewise, constantly crying "Prove it" is quite disengenuous...much as a squid releases ink to confuse it's attacker...it behooves those who contest a statment or a fact to rebut the premise...as in a real debate...not fall back on playground taunts and insults.

Tolerance of varying points of view, no matter how much one disagrees, is crucial to foster a climate of free speech. Further, intelligible discourse and rational discussion are a mark of intellectual maturity.

 

[Liar]

First of all, it's up to the one presenting a thesis, to defend it. Not the other way round.

Second of all, this discourse goes waaaay further back than to the beginning of this thread.

At this point, I don't see much of a willingness to discuss things rationally at either side. Only thing I have the energy to do anymore is to pick at fallacies when I see them. And that's only because it's within my realm of geekdom, so I'm intellectually amused.

But of course, your shit smells like roses and everone else's stink. Right?

 

[Belegon]

Just to point something out...

Some of us have priorities besides this thread. Have I "quit the field of battle?"

No. Does time with my kids get a higher priority than time talking on this thread?

Absolutely.

Check my posting numbers in the last few weeks. My attention is elsewhere.

 

[Liar]

You don't think "the people" are basically asleep at the wheel?

Here in California, the voters are constantly approving measures that nullify tax increases they supposedly voted for.

I do believe I mentioned something about "in a perfect world".

By the way, if "the people" are asleep at the wheel. Who gonna swoop in and save the day?

 

[amicus]

I read something recently about how nuke waste can be recycled too...can I remember where and any details? No. That's the problem with info overload and having a mind like a sieve. :(

~~~

I too had to search to find the documentation:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414115101.htm

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2008)

— Advanced gas reactors offer more efficient operation, less waste disposal and other benefits over water-cooled reactor designs used in U.S. nuclear power plants...

Just listened to a T. Boone Pickens interview, during which it was stated that there is enough Natural Gas in America to fuel everything for the next 100 years and that it is a 'cheap' source of energy that will fuel cars, trucks and electric generating plants.

But no one wants to utilize the resources as it is considered a 'fossil' fuel, non renewable and thus an anathema to the left wing ecologists and environmentalists.

Amusing, eh?

Amicus

Edited to add:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.html

Over the last 50 years the principal reason for reprocessing used fuel has been to recover unused uranium and plutonium in the used fuel elements and thereby close the fuel cycle, gaining some 25% more energy from the original uranium in the process and thus contributing to energy security. A secondary reason is to reduce the volume of material to be disposed of as high-level waste to about one fifth. In addition, the level of radioactivity in the waste from reprocessing is much smaller and after about 100 years falls much more rapidly than in used fuel itself.

 

[Boxlicker101]

You don't think "the people" are basically asleep at the wheel?

Here in California, the voters are constantly approving measures that nullify tax increases they supposedly voted for.

When have Californians ever voted for tax increases? Do you mean bond issues that raise property taxes? Prop 13 required a 2/3 vote to increase taxes, but the legislature and various other governments have done an end run around that.

 

[TE999]

First of all, it's up to the one presenting a thesis, to defend it. Not the other way round.

Second of all, this discourse goes waaaay further back than to the beginning of this thread.

At this point, I don't see much of a willingness to discuss things rationally at either side. Only thing I have the energy to do anymore is to pick at fallacies when I see them. And that's only because it's within my realm of geekdom, so I'm intellectually amused.

But of course, your shit smells like roses and everone else's stink. Right?

Congratulations are in order...only one snide remark in an otherwise reasonable post...things are improving after all.

 

[trysail]

A Layman’s Explanation of Why Global Warming Predictions by Climate Models are Wrong
by: Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.

I occasionally hear the complaint that some of what I write is too technical to understand, which I’m sure is true. The climate system is complex, and discussing the scientific issues associated with global warming (aka “climate change”) can get pretty technical pretty fast.

Fortunately, the most serious problem the climate models have (in my view) is one which is easily understood by the public. So, I’m going to make yet another attempt at explaining why the computerized climate models tracked by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – all 23 of them – predict too much warming for our future. The basic problem I am talking about has been peer reviewed and published by us, and so cannot be dismissed lightly.

But this time I will use no graphs (!), and I will use only a single number (!!) which I promise will be a small one.

I will do this in three steps. First, I will use the example of a pot of water on the stove to demonstrate why the temperature of things (like the Earth) rises or falls.

Secondly, I will describe why so many climate model “experts” believe that adding CO2 to the atmosphere will cause the climate system to warm by a large, possibly catastrophic amount.

Finally, I will show how Mother Nature has fooled those climate experts into programming climate models to behave incorrectly.

Some of this material can be found scattered through other web pages of mine, but here I have tried to create a logical progression of the most important concepts, and minimized the technical details. It might be edited over time as questions arise and I find better ways of phrasing things.

The Earth’s Climate System Compared to a Pot of Water on the Stove
Before we discuss what can alter the global-average temperature, let’s start with the simple example of a pot of water placed on a stove. Imagine it’s a gas stove, and the flame is set on its lowest setting, so the water will become warm but will not boil. To begin with, the pot does not have a lid.

Obviously, the heat from the flame will warm the water and the pot, but after about 10 minutes the temperature will stop rising. The pot stops warming when it reaches a point of equilibrium where the rate of heat loss by the pot to its cooler surroundings equals the rate of heat gained from the stove. The pot warmed as long as an imbalance in those two flows of energy existed, but once the magnitude of heat loss from the hot pot reached the same magnitude as the heat gain from the stove, the temperature stopped changing.

Now let’s imagine we turn the flame up slightly. This will result in a temporary imbalance once again between the rate of energy gain and energy loss, which will then cause the pot to warm still further. As the pot warms, it loses energy even more rapidly to its surroundings. Finally, a new, higher temperature is reached where the rate of energy loss and energy gain are once again in balance.

But there’s another way to cause the pot to warm other than to add more heat: We can reduce its ability to cool. If next we place a lid on the pot, the pot will warm still more because the rate of heat loss is then reduced below the rate of heat gain from the stove. In this case, loosely speaking, the increased temperature of the pot is not because more heat is added, but because less heat is being allowed to escape.

Global Warming
The example of what causes a pot of water on a stove to warm is the same fundamental situation that exists with climate change in general, and global warming theory in particular. A change in the energy flows in or out of the climate system will, in general, cause a temperature change. The average temperature of the climate system (atmosphere, ocean, and land) will remain about the same only as long as the rate of energy gain from sunlight equals the rate of heat loss by infrared radiation to outer space...

Again, the average temperature of the Earth (like a pot of water on the stove) will only change when there is an imbalance between the rates of energy gained and energy lost.

What this means is that anything that can change the rates of energy flow illustrated above — in or out of the climate system — can cause global warming or global cooling.

In the case of manmade global warming, the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is believed to be reducing the rate at which the Earth cools to outer space. This already occurs naturally through the so-called “greenhouse effect” of the atmosphere, a process in which water vapor, clouds, carbon dioxide and methane act as a ‘radiative blanket’, insulating the lower atmosphere and the surface, and raising the Earth’s average surface temperature by an average of 33 deg. C (close to 60 deg. F).

The Earth’s natural greenhouse effect is like the lid on our pot of water on the stove. The lid reduces the pot’s ability to cool and so makes the pot of water, on average, warmer than it would be without the lid. (I don’t think you will find the greenhouse effect described elsewhere in terms of an insulator — like a blanket — but I believe that is the most accurate analogy.) Similarly, the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect keeps the lower atmosphere and surface warmer than if there was no greenhouse effect. So, more CO2 in the atmosphere slightly enhances that effect.

And also like the pot of water, the other basic way to cause warming is to increase the rate of energy input — in the case of the Earth, sunlight. Note that this does not necessarily require an increase in the output of the sun. A change in any of the myriad processes that control the Earth’s average cloud cover can also do this. For instance, the IPCC talks about manmade particulate pollution (”aerosols”) causing a change in global cloudiness…but they never mention the possibility that the climate system can change its own cloud cover!

If the amount of cloud cover reflecting sunlight back to space decreases from, say, a change in oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns, then more sunlight will be absorbed by the ocean. As a result, there will then be an imbalance between the infrared energy lost and solar energy gained by the Earth. The ocean will warm as a result of this imbalance, causing warmer and more humid air masses to form and flow over the continents, which would then cause the land to warm, too.

The $64 Trillion Question: By How Much Will the Earth Warm from More CO2?
Now for a magic number that we will be referring to later, which is how much more energy is lost to outer space as the Earth warms. It can be calculated theoretically that for every 1 deg C the Earth warms, it gives off an average of about 3.3 Watts per square meter more infrared energy to space. Just as you feel more infrared (heat) radiation coming from a hot stove than from a warm stove, the Earth gives off more infrared energy to space the warmer it gets.

This is part of the climate system’s natural cooling mechanism, and all climate scientists agree with this basic fact. What we don’t agree on is how the climate system responds to warming by either enhancing, or reducing, this natural cooling mechanism. The magic number — 3.3 Watts per sq. meter — represents how much extra energy the Earth loses if ONLY the temperature is increased, by 1 deg. C, and nothing else is changed. In the real world, however, we can expect that the rest of the climate system will NOT remain the same in response to a warming tendency.

Thus, the most important debate is global warming research today is the same as it was 20 years ago: How will clouds (and to a lesser extent other elements in the climate system) respond to warming, thereby enhancing or reducing the warming? These indirect changes that further influence temperature are called feedbacks, and they determine whether manmade global warming will be catastrophic, or just lost in the noise of natural climate variability.

Returning to our example of the whole Earth warming by 1 deg. C, if that warming causes an increase in cloud cover, then the 3.3 Watts of extra infrared loss to outer space gets augmented by a reduction in solar heating of the Earth by the sun. The result is a smaller temperature rise. This is called negative feedback...

If negative feedback exists in the real climate system, then manmade global warming will become, for most practical purposes, a non-issue.

But this is not how the IPCC thinks nature works. They believe that cloud cover of the Earth decreases with warming, which would let in more sunlight and cause the Earth to warm to an even higher temperature. (The same is true if the water vapor content of the atmosphere increases with warming, since water vapor is our main greenhouse gas.) This is called positive feedback, and all 23 climate models tracked by the IPCC now exhibit positive cloud and water vapor feedback.

In fact, the main difference between models that predict only moderate warming versus those that predict strong warming has been traced to the strength of their positive cloud feedbacks.

How Mother Nature Fooled the World’s Top Climate Scientists
Obviously, the question of how clouds in the REAL climate system respond to a warming tendency is of paramount importance, because that guides the development and testing of the climate models. Ultimately, the models must be based upon the observed behavior of the atmosphere.

So, what IS observed when the Earth warms? Do clouds increase or decrease? While the results vary with which years are analyzed, it has often been found that warmer years have less cloud cover, not more.

And this has led to the ’scientific consensus’ that cloud feedbacks in the real climate system are probably positive, although by an uncertain amount. And if cloud feedbacks end up being too strongly positive, then we are in big trouble from manmade global warming.

But at this point an important question needs to be asked that no one asks: When the climate system experiences a warm year, what caused the warming? By definition, cloud feedback can not occur unless the temperature changes…but what if that temperature change was caused by clouds in the first place?

This is important because if decreasing cloud cover caused warming, and this has been mistakenly interpreted as warming causing a decrease in cloud cover, then positive feedback will have been inferred even if the true feedback in the climate system is negative.

As far as I know, this potential mix-up between cause and effect — and the resulting positive bias in diagnosed feedbacks — had never been studied until we demonstrated it in a peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Climate. Unfortunately, because climate research covers such a wide range of specialties, most climate experts are probably not even aware that our paper exists.

So how do we get around this cause-versus-effect problem when observing natural climate variations in our attempt to identify feedback? Our very latest research, now in peer review for possible publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research, shows that one can separate, at least partially, the effects of clouds-causing-temperature-change (which “looks like” positive feedback) versus temperature-causing-clouds to change (true feedback).

We analyzed 7.5 years of our latest and best NASA satellite data and discovered that, when the effect of clouds-causing-temperature-change is accounted for, cloud feedbacks in the real climate system are strongly negative. The negative feedback was so strong that it more than cancelled out the positive water vapor feedback we also found. It was also consistent with evidence of negative feedback we found in the tropics and published in 2007.

In fact, the resulting net negative feedback was so strong that, if it exists on the long time scales associated with global warming, it would result in only 0.6 deg. C of warming by late in this century.

Natural Cloud Variations: The Missing Piece of the Puzzle?
In this critical issue of cloud feedbacks – one which even the IPCC has admitted is their largest source of uncertainty — it is clear that the effect of natural cloud variations on temperature has been ignored. In simplest of terms, cause and effect have been mixed up. (Even the modelers will have to concede that clouds-causing-temperature change exists because we found clear evidence of it in every one of the IPCC climate models we studied.)

But this brings up another important question: What if global warming itself has been caused by a small, long-term, natural change in global cloud cover? Our observations of global cloud cover have not been long enough or accurate enough to document whether any such cloud changes have happened or not. Some indirect evidence that this has indeed happened is discussed here.

Even though they never say so, the IPCC has simply assumed that the average cloud cover of the Earth does not change, century after century. This is a totally arbitrary assumption, and given the chaotic variations that the ocean and atmosphere circulations are capable of, it is probably wrong. Little more than a 1% change in cloud cover up or down, and sustained over many decades, could cause events such as the Medieval Warm Period or the Little Ice Age.

As far as I know, the IPCC has never discussed their assumption that global average cloud cover always stays the same. The climate change issue is so complex that most experts have probably not even thought about it. But we meteorologists by training have a gut feeling that things like this do indeed happen. In my experience, a majority of meteorologists do not believe that mankind is mostly to blame for global warming. Meteorologists appreciate how complex cloud behavior is, and most tend to believe that climate change is largely natural.

Our research has taken this gut feeling and demonstrated with both satellite data and a simple climate model, in the language that climate modelers speak, how potentially serious this issue is for global warming theory.

And this cause-versus-effect issue is not limited to just clouds. For instance, there are processes that can cause the water vapor content of the atmosphere to change, mainly complex precipitation processes, which will then change global temperatures. Precipitation is what limits how much of our main greenhouse gas, water vapor, is allowed to accumulate in the atmosphere, thus preventing a runaway greenhouse effect. For instance, a small change in wind shear associated with a change in atmospheric circulation patterns, could slightly change the efficiency with which precipitation systems remove water vapor, leading to global warming or global cooling. This has long been known, but again, climate change research covers such a wide range of disciplines that very few of the experts have recognized the importance of obscure published studies like this one.

While there are a number of other potentially serious problems with climate model predictions, the mix-up between cause and effect when studying cloud behavior, by itself, has the potential to mostly deflate all predictions of substantial global warming. It is only a matter of time before others in the climate research community realize this, too.

 

[TE999]

~~~

I too had to search to find the documentation:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080414115101.htm

ScienceDaily (Apr. 15, 2008)

Just listened to a T. Boone Pickens interview, during which it was stated that there is enough Natural Gas in America to fuel everything for the next 100 years and that it is a 'cheap' source of energy that will fuel cars, trucks and electric generating plants.

But no one wants to utilize the resources as it is considered a 'fossil' fuel, non renewable and thus an anathema to the left wing ecologists and environmentalists.

Amusing, eh?

Amicus

Edited to add:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf69.html

Over the last 50 years the principal reason for reprocessing used fuel has been to recover unused uranium and plutonium in the used fuel elements and thereby close the fuel cycle, gaining some 25% more energy from the original uranium in the process and thus contributing to energy security. A secondary reason is to reduce the volume of material to be disposed of as high-level waste to about one fifth. In addition, the level of radioactivity in the waste from reprocessing is much smaller and after about 100 years falls much more rapidly than in used fuel itself.

Whoa! Cool! You found it. Evidenced by the fact that this information was virtually ignored by the dominant media culture, yet every pronouncement from Al Gore and his cohorts is front page news, one wonders if there's the remote possibility of bias? Nahhhhh...couldn't be.

 

[Liar]

Congratulations are in order...only one snide remark in an otherwise reasonable post...things are improving after all.

...while you didn't manage to type out that one line without resorting to pot shot. Just sayin'.

 

[TE999]

...while you didn't manage to type out that one line without resorting to pot shot. Just sayin'.

I knew you'd appreciate that. Just sayin'.

 

[Liar]

I knew you'd appreciate that. Just sayin'.

Big fan of brevity, me.

 

[TE999]

Big fan of brevity, me.

Set and match Mr. Squirrel.

 

[amicus]

Cool We The People
This is an interesting take on what's happened in Washington.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeYscnFpEyA

I agree completely!

~~~

The long term, nearly half a century, since the sixties, move to the left at the expense of basic American values, is finally being challenged across the board.

The 'ecological/environmental' activist groups have morphed with the anti nuclear, anti industrial, cafe' socialist left, and, as I mentioned before, finally have an advocate in the White House.

People are beginning to realize that high energy costs are the result of the political influence of the left. They now understand and feel the effects of no new energy plant construction for 40 years and the curtailment of exploration and utilization of natural resources within national boundaries.

Nuclear energy is available and proven safe with no storage problems.

Global warming is a hoax, supported by the anti industrial left who apparently yearn for a wood burning society of small villages.

Socialized medicine has been seen for what it is, a cruel failure everywhere it has been imposed.

Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, Amtrack, and a hundred more government run entities, lose money every year and are paid for by higher taxes on the general population and higher costs for every consumer item purchased.

It is time to put a stop to this insanity, but how?

?

Amicus

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

AMICUS

The internet is slowly killing the US Postal Service; in time the internet will kill public schools.

 

[amicus]

That is the objective rational view of the future, but what makes you think the teachers and postal unions will permit such a change to occur? Education could, at this moment, be delivered over the internet and a few assorted education facilities are offering classes, but replacing public education? Not without a fight.

Amicus

 

[TE999]

AMICUS

The internet is slowly killing the US Postal Service; in time the internet will kill public schools.

That's true. I received in the mail today a CD from the Post Office that would enable me to buy postage on line and other services. When you join up they send you a postal scale and other goodies...free! *snerk*

That is the objective rational view of the future, but what makes you think the teachers and postal unions will permit such a change to occur? Education could, at this moment, be delivered over the internet and a few assorted education facilities are offering classes, but replacing public education? Not without a fight.

Amicus

That's what the auto unions thought they'd won when they helped elect BHO and then a bunch of them lost their jobs.

 

[Guest]

I've noticed a marked lack of vilification and invective since certain persons who shall remain nameless have quit the field of battle.

Rational discourse, as the truth, will out.

It hasn't yet.

But I shall leave again.

 

[TE999]

It hasn't yet.

But I shall leave again.

That wasn't aimed at you, sweetie. You're the soul of decorum.

 

[DesertPirate]

It hasn't yet.

But I shall leave again.

You definately not the one he is talking about.

 

[Belegon]

To me, most of this stuff boils down to "We lost the election. Therefore, we must recommend revolution."

During the Bush years, this position was answered with "Why do you hate freedom?"

Personally, I see the current status of the GOP as self-inflicted and the current dismay of the conservatives on this board would be amusing if it were not so disturbing.

You lost this game. It is a little late to take your ball and go home when the ninth inning is already over.

Next game is in Nov. 2010 for the Senate. Nov. 2012 for the presidency. See you then.

As to the whining? Meh. You got a right to whine, as long as you actually voted anyway.

Doesn't mean I have to listen though.

But you ARE whining.

I for one never denied that I was upset or that I was whining. I paid for my right to whine the same way you hopefully paid for yours, by voting the opposition.

However, I want you to go into the archived threads on this site and find a single post where I advocated revolution. Go on. Look all you want.

The system is the system. Was I upset about the voting irregularities that, from my POV, looked very bad in 2000 and 2004? Yes, I was. Did I whine about it? Sure. I was upset.

Did/do I feel Bush was an incredible fuck up? Oh yes. Do I blame some of this recession on the deregulatory policies championed by Reagan and his ideological heirs? Absolutely.

Do I think the Bush administrations most valuable asset historically will be as a bad example? Hell yeah!

So I whined.

You know what else I did? I championed the opposition. I selected a candidate I wanted early and supported him vocally and financially. I got involved. I didn't just bitch and moan.

Guess what? My guy, the person I selected months before he was given any chance of winning... He won.

So yeah, I'm supporting him wholeheartedly and I've got his back. Deal.

First: The concept of trickle-down economics (which I would define as the delusional idea that giving people primarily motivated by the acquisition of more money a tax-break so that they will then allow the new money they have to go to other people rather than into their own bank accounts) is only tangentially related to the idea of giving everyone an economic stimulus payout.

Second: You are the exception, not the rule. Besides, it is not individuals or small family units who are most affected by the drying up of short-term credit options. It is small to medium sized businesses.

Third: The retail end of the spectrum has the smallest margins and results in the least profitable available jobs. Using this to blunt the idea that the majority of benefit could flow offshore is as foolish of a statement as the recent trend of counting "job growth" by saying that a company that fires one salaried employee making 80k plus benefits and replaces that person with 3 part time employees making 25K and no benefits has added 2 new jobs to the economy.

First: Whether or not it worked is dependent on who you ask. Opinions differ. Obviously, mine differs from yours, for example.

Second: The first was not the important sentence in that answer, although since the second and third sentences were not about you, I can see why you didn't notice that.

Third: The three jobs combine to earn 5K less than their predecessor in pure spending power and do nothing to support the subsidiary industries who serve by providing benefits. In addition, IMHO as a bank and retail manager and based purely and subjectively on those experiences, three people "just doing a job" do not produce nearly the equivalent of one person pursuing a career.

And that is from the businesses POV. From the other side, how many of us feel that we can support even ourselves on 25K and no benefits? Forget family... I am talking just yourself.

I can do it. I won't call it a comfortable living, though. Those are survival wages and that is all.

I'm getting so tired of the way certain people on these boards, when confronted, retreat into opinionated statements of doom and despair that have no component that can be discussed in a concrete manner.

Please provide evidence that there is a dictatorship or tyranny being planned. Please reference the definitions of dictatorship and tyrant while doing so. Please show examples of elected officials in this country who are legally entitled to hold their position "until death."

Please show evidence that the "far left" is a homogeneous group and that it is funded by a certain individual. In particular, expand upon claims that politically-motivated organizations with large memberships are the tools of a shadowy demagogue rather than the voice of a segment of the population.

Please be specific about which propaganda, please define socialism and compare and contrast it with the ideals in these publications and then please tell me how ANY political belief that is pursued through the current political system can actually be un-American when it is clear that public debate from all sides was considered to be an asset by the Founding Fathers.

Please define "myriad forms of welfare." Please discuss how certainty that medicare and medicaid will bankrupt the country fits with opposition to the establishment of a national healthcare system that would eliminate them. At the same time, please show why eliminating the significant cost to business that is currently imposed by supplying health insurance would be a negative upon the health of those companies... since I can't think of a single small to medium business owner I know who would not immediately point to health care and workers comp as their two biggest costs associated with employees other than actual wages.

Please provide examples of failed policies and programs that would indicate that this President is ineffectual rather than effective in a manner that disagrees with your personal goals.

Please provide examples of international failures and losses of territory and influence that would show that the global status of the United States has been weakened in the last six months.

And finally, please provide evidence that any and all of these individuals you scream against "hate America" rather than that they have certain beliefs that do not align flawlessly with your own.

I want stuff that can be proven or disproven. I want something besides the opinions. I want to see if you can actually quit screaming long enough to have rational discourse.

Forgive me if I don't believe that any of that will happen.

no, but I bet someone else will come along and point out that I missed an "h" in "while"

Damn, thought I caught it before anyone could quote it. Anybody else have that experience where you always seem to miss edits in posts until you actually see them on the board?

And thank you. I actually do want to see the sources. But I quite honestly believe that I will be given nothing more than links to websites that agree with them. Of course, if I were to respond in kind, it would simply trigger another round of "the mainstream media is corrupt."

Once upon a time, I used to sit around with friends of differing political POV's and we would discuss things until the owners of the coffee house/bar/restaurant kicked us out. True, most of the time we would simply be engaging in the kind of venting that happens here.

But occasionally, real ideas would get through and a real consensus would be formed. It was enlightening and enjoyable and none of us hated each other. I would love to see it happen here.

Sadly, I think that it is far easier to rant and despise and hate when you are behind a firewall. I doubt we can get much of that atmosphere to transfer. However, that does not mean it is worthless to attempt a change.

Ami, in your extremely detailed post you do absolutely nothing to address the issues I brought up.

There is nothing quantifiable. Nothing that can be tested and shown to be false or fact. Only opinion.

In other words, thank you for illustrating my final point.

It's a valid point. However, you couldn't resist the final little dig, could you?

Don't you think, if you truly wanted to sound interested in rational discourse, you could have held back from attempting to use a soundbite against someone? That urge you apparently feel to ridicule opponents is exactly the problem I was referring to in my post.

What do you want to discuss specifically? Pick something. I don't have infinite time on my hands in which to garner unbiased info on everything that has been talked about in this thread... pick any single subject.

Remember when we did term papers in high school? The easiest subject to research is a specific one.

Just to point something out...

Some of us have priorities besides this thread. Have I "quit the field of battle?"

No. Does time with my kids get a higher priority than time talking on this thread?

Absolutely.

Check my posting numbers in the last few weeks. My attention is elsewhere.

I keep seeing things about the usual suspects resorting to hateful name-calling. I proudly consider myself to be among the usual suspects. I know that SSS has a similar POV.

She was told specifically she wasn't the one being referenced. So, I went back and looked at my posts.

I see one thing that might be considered insulting to a specific person. (I would consider that required if I was indulging in name-calling) Even it was done somewhat wistfully and the worst thing it implied was that someone was self-centered.

There is some general invective implying "sore losers"

SO, is all of this ire from multiple sources directed at multiple people the result of a couple of posts by Cloudy?

Ya know, I kinda think she would actually enjoy that...

( I suppose Liar should be considered as well, but those accusations about name-calling were in place long before he posted in this thread.)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Its easy to imagine the Usual Suspects of AH holy jerking and rolling spasmically and talking in tongues or barking if they lived a century ago.

 

[Guest]

Bel, this is why I can't do this anymore.

Ami started his "usual suspects" thing a few years ago to respond to a few of us because we began to tease him about his misogynistic views. And everyone knows it's impossible to have a discussion with ami. He doesn't debate, he waxes rhapsodic. He endlessly opines about his love for Ann, and for those simpler times, when women knew their place.

I just tease him, as I would an old guy sitting on his rocking chair shouting out at the world "You kids get outta my yard!!!"

It's as productive as attempting rationality with someone who does not possess it or chooses not to display it here on this forum. I am curious how he debates on the other forums where he pretends to be liberal. He's spoken of that before, so in addition to non-rationality, he isn't even being honest. On purpose.

But back to usual suspects? I find it interesting to see who quickly picked up on that and has been using it to bash anyone who holds different views.

I do know that I cannot lump anyone with differing views than mine into one neat pile, either Republican or conservative or anti-abortion or Limbaugh lover - I don't know - people are different and it is insulting and inaccurate to toss everyone together.

Why then, are people on the political threads, many I've known for years, many I've met in person, so certain they can do that to me?

I'm not so easily categorized. NOr is anyone else.

But I am finally, insulted to the point of non-tolerance. I don't have the reserves.

But shame on us, I must say. How did we allow the haters to rule the forum?

PM me if you're interested in a link to where many of us are going.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I thought you didnt read my posts. You said I'm on IGNORE. (snicker)

SARAH you cant do it anymore becuz you show up for a gun fight with a pop-gun that makes noise but has no ammunition.