I can't argue with that. I am in awe of both your comprehension of my ideas and your understanding of American history. Those same arguments have been made at every point of government expansion in the past, let's say, two hundred years. It never ceases to amaze me how many of the masses(of which I belong to as well) will vote against their self-interest and defend with great passion a constitution they don't even begin to understand. I will respect your right to your own opinion, however uninformed and short-sighted; I hope you will respect my right to disengage from a discussion that has no chance of changing your ideas with things like "facts." And while we are here, let us both pray to be saved from the socialistic death panels. If we continue down this slippery slope we might find ourselves doing things like helping our neighbors and feeling like "we are all in this together..." Oh the horror!

You really believe that? Here is where all of these arguments fall through. The evil "single-payer" system we want in health care mirrors another single payer system: your local fire department. I don't remember seeing very much anti-fire department posts on here, or really ever hear too many people complaining about that. We all pay taxes to support our local fire department, and when someone's house catches on fire, they respond. The same principle is in effect with a single-payer health care system. And since I haven't seen anything making my fire department unconstitutional, I think we could fit in health care. If it is ran with the same efficiency of say, social security (two cents of every dollar goes to administrative costs) we might actually come up with something good.

I don't think anything here is so provocative as to merit citations... and always, this is only my opinion....

I am right there with you. My wife and I have every channel our cable co offers, and we take advantage of it. If TV were measured like bandwidth we would be "data hogs and heavy users" for sure. I feel better knowing I'm not the only one with TV's on in multiple rooms. Usually it is just background noise, but do not, I repeat do not, get in the way while my Tar Heels are playing basketball - Go Heels!

Amen to that. Maybe we shouldn't have a huge push against those "educated elitist" when it comes to picking our leaders. I remember when being educated and attending Harvard, etc, was not a bad thing like it is now. Whether you have a "D" or "R" after your name, having them both "Dr" should not be a bad thing....

You assume people buy a car that makes sense. How many of us drive a car that can hit 165 and handle turns at high speeds, but do we ever need to race? How many have pick-up trucks but never haul anything. 4wd's are everywhere but not many actually need them (or know how to drive them). If every one in a city drove a Prius or other hybrid we would save a lot of fuel, but not every one does/will.

This really causes me to question our Afghanistan policy even more. We, the US Geo Survey(?), found these mass deposits of rare earth metals/minerals and, at last read I believe, the Chinese are getting the rights to actually mine and produce the metals/minerals (cit: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all ) and (for those that like more of a "story" with your "news" cit: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/14/discovers-t-minerals-afghanistan/ ).

Am I way off here or should we not be keeping these rights? Not being a geologist, "IANAG", maybe these are completely different metals/minerals. If they are the same I believe we have every right to mine them ourselves. We have invested more than enough into Afghanistan to justify producing these reserves.

However it now becomes very interesting with China. I think most Americans forget how close to China our military is in Afghanistan.

Can anyone enlighten me if I am missing something since IANAG.

Dido is not very MTV.

Okay, since all you do is ask the same question, maybe you need to do some research on your own. I think a good place for you to start on this whole ethics idea is to research the quote "Profit alone is not sufficient reason to start a business" and see if that helps you out.

I apologize to you all. It is great to be corrected on this. I remember when getting caught completely making things up would soon be followed by a resignation. Maybe she can make it work the way she makes alcohol (and entire bars) appear on military flights (http://politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/21/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-accuses-nancy-pelosi-spending-100/ ). Not living there I just see a lot of the "stuff" she says and does.

Hmm... seems strange that this is also the home of Michele Bachmann, who is very outspoken about "wasteful government spending" and a proponent of small government (http://www.michelebachmann.com/about/). This seems to go against those values and her push to keep jobs local and create jobs locally. However it does seem to fit with her less spoken about ideas of privatizing everything. I wonder if we should be drawing any conclusions from the fact, or coincidence, she sits on the Financial Services Committee. I would think once one state goes this route, others will follow suit. I can also see how having all of your data saved in the cloud (we aren't responsible for it) would be in the interest of any generic banking institution. Also, not having an open source platform could make transparency much more difficult, not that government or banking institutions would ever want to hide anything!

I'm pretty sure the tidal locked planet/moon will have a different orbit than a rotating planet/moon.

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

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

First, I appreciate your post and think maybe it could help some one... but I think any of us that actually click on this story probably know those things. I'm hoping you were just spurring conversation with some basic facts so you and I can rebut the "...We have only ONE place that we know life flourishes...." ideas together.

I can't agree with that premise. Even on our planet we have some extreme conditions: underwater lava flows and sea vents, frozen north and south poles, deserts, etc. These extreme-ophiles show there are life forms at every extreme our planet has, which also bolsters the idea that life can survive in many different places and conditions.

Now whether humans could survive in those places is a different issue; what would we accept as "survival" in this place?

*the author of this post has been at work for 13 hours of retail today, so I'm in need of something intelligent to read!*

Bureaucrat? Possibly. Democrat? No way... his bio makes me think Republican for sure. He is former military, who are usually Republican (I make no judgment here). He formally worked/possibly still does for a large oil/mining company which usually means Republican (I am making judgment here). And through that career, it seems safe to assume he has gotten rich, which means Republican (again, judgment). If one takes those three observations (not necessarily in that order) I think Republican is a sure bet. And before I get the "troll label" A)most military members vote Republican, as they used to believe in small government and a strong defense force; and B) which party is fighting to keep the tax cuts for the richest 2.5% of our population? I'm not going to turn this into a political discussion, I'm just explaining my theory and answering the question.

Republican or Democrat, this policy stinks and really runs contradictory to "of, by, and for the people" and seems to me to be more fallout from the Citizens United verdict, which I still mourn.

Since we are in a technical legal discussion, I'm going to ask if you really meant "whist" (a card game, an early form of bridge, but without bidding) or "whilst" in your reply. I was not sure it was a word until I looked it up....

Also from wiki it seems "No U.S. state but Montana has chosen to statutorily modify the employment at-will rule"; I was under the impression it was mainly southern states....