Can a democrat accurately describe the fundamental ideology of members of the Republican party? Or does he or she assume that the most outlandish of Republicans represent the norm?

The Republican party I know is comprised of several distinct groups, not all necessarily mutually exclusive. One group believes in small government, less regulation, lower taxes. The Reagan Republicans, if you will. One group believes in laissez faire capitalism: the Randian Republicans. Another group believes in bigger government for the purposes of national defense and international manipulation. We'll call them the Bush Republicans. One other group believes in totalitarian government: the religious right.

Some members of the Republican party, myself included, despises the religious right and everything for which it stands. I also dislike the Bush Republicans.

As I've recently convinced my wife, both the religious right's stance and the Bush Republican stance is inconsistent with the fundamental basis of traditional Republican values. Fundamentally, we believe in less government involvement in everything - from business to individuals to international affairs. But without these other groups, we'd never win an election.

And now we see why Republicans are f$cked. In order to have any political clout, we sold our souls to the war machine and to God. We cannot abandon them (despite the Tea Party's now twisted goals) because without them, we're massively outnumbered by people who believe that governments should always be doing something.

So I've essentially given up. I believe that the government that governs least governs best. But I'm in the vast minority on that one. So I just have to suck it up and pay my taxes and grumble. Like this post.

I was not aware that the drilling contract was available to the public. Or are you sharing confidential information on a public forum?

Finally, someone talking some sense. BP is being blamed by the feds and press because every American (well, most) know of the existence of BP. I'd wager that fewer than 10% had ever heard of Transocean prior to the accident. The more I've read, the less culpable BP seems. The president coming out and essentially convicting BP before all the facts were known was completely inappropriate.

Bread and circuses...

Without the profit motive, they have no reason to provide you with oil and its products.

And lets not forget that they allegedly did install a check valve. The check valve failed to close. Was it BP cutting corners to squeeze a little additional margin? Or was it the check valve manufacturer who cut corners in the manufacture of its product that caused this disaster?

I suspect that plants do not use 100% of available energy reaching the surface of the Earth. Its not like we'll be coating the surface of the Earth with solar panels within the next 100 years. But what it does provide us with is additional time to perfect fusion.

When discussing global warming and energy policy with associates, the typical basis of my point of view is "we either figure out fusion or we're screwed." Wider adoption of solar/wind/geothermal at least gives us more time to get there before society collapses.

I do agree, however, with your concerns about the effect of wide adoption of solar energy on weather patterns.

The existence of corporations arose by virtue of express permission from the government of the country/state in which the corporation desired to transact business with a corporate liability shield. Because they cannot conduct business with the privileges and protections of a corporation without the express permission of the applicable government, the government is empowered to condition the granting of the corporate charter upon certain conditions. One of these conditions is prohibition against certain types of anti-competitive practices.

So yes, private property came first, but a corporation cannot exist to be an owner of private property without the express permission of the government in which it wishes to transact business. That entitles the government a certain level of control.

I would be curious to see what would happen if an individual tried to go out and do something like this - say, some particularly wealthy fellow decided to go out and buy all coal reserves in the United States, then refused to develop it. I don't think anti-trust laws would apply. I suppose the government(s) would just claim imminent domain.

Eh, don't forget the GMO soy bean and their efforts to destroy heirloom soy bean farming.

Well, according to wikipedia, the largest estimates put the Oort cloud out at 3.6 light years, so this brown dwarf is probably too far away to perturb the Oort cloud, but as an aside observation: If the Sun's oort cloud is 3.5 light years in radius, and Proxima Centuari is only 4.2 light years away, and assuming Proxima Centuri has its own oort cloud (if it didn't get swept away by the gravitational interaction of the multiple stars), would our system's outer members and Proxima's outer members intermingle? IIRC, the Oort cloud objects aren't necessarily on the plane on the system.

Ten light years away... How far out does the Oort cloud extend? Its NEMESIS!!

How can you say we got nothing out of it? I wouldn't have survived the 80s without Tang!

Apparently, those people are not married.

Mass Effect 2 > Fallout 3 > DA:O

After a certain dramatic event in Fallout 3 that changed the course of the game, I just didn't care enough about the general population to keep "fighting the good fight." DA:O became incredibly boring for me while in the dwarven caves - I wish I would have stuck with it, but I would sit at my PC and just yawn and wonder what was on the tele. ME2 has been non-stop action through about 30 hours (except the tedious, ridiculous mineral searches).

+1 Insightful

This is way off topic, but in response to the above...

I've always considered liberal policies to be the more emotionally based. For instance, universe health care on an emotional basis makes a lot of sense. Consider, for example, Keith Olberman's one hour special appealing for the passage of the health care bill. But if you can overlook the immediate emotion of the issue, issues regarding long term fiscal shortages and potential effects on innovation arise.

Really any social program, from affordable housing to corn subsidies to health care typically relies upon an emotional response for support. "The Poor Farmer" "The Middle Class is being left behind..." Etc...

If you have a heart, its sometimes difficult to remain conservative (at least by my definition). Its difficult to tell senior citizens that we're scaling back medicare because we simply don't have the money to pay for it. Its difficult to tell failing banks and their employees that we're not going to bail them out and that thousands will be laid off because the leaders of those companies made terrible decisions bankrupting the company and its not the government's responsibility to save their ass.

Now please keep in mind that I don't judge a government program based upon what party proposed and/or passed the bill, but by its overall effect. I can't think of a conservative thing the federal government has done since Clinton scaled back welfare.

Accordingly, the asshats currently claiming to be conservatives are just as guilty in relying upon emotional response for expansion of government, e.g. "The terrorists, the terrorists, the terrorists."

We've become (are? always have been?) a reactionary society. The politicians take advantage of this fact to gain and retain power. Its works on both sides of the aisle, but each with its own respective heart strings to pull.

I didn't RTFA, but exactly how detailed is this information? Will my facade of sophistication bolstered by my renting/viewing of foreign films remain intact? Or will it be torn asunder when it is revealed I only fast forwarded to the sex scenes?