You are living in a paranoid delusional fantasy world. I don't think any words can reach you at this point, so I'm going to stop trying after this one last appeal.

You honestly have embraced the idea that anything your side believes is good and anything other side believes is evil and twisted. That right there? That is how nations go mad. When you stop seeing people as *people* and start caricaturing and stereotyping their beliefs as labeling them as evil and stupid, you are just one perilous step removed from declaring that nothing done to these "evil" people can itself be evil. That is where genocides come from. That is where suicide bombers come from. That is where nearly every evil that humans have perpetrated as a group against other humans come from -- from dehumanizing those that are different.

Anyway, liberals don't believe America is an evil empire that can do no good. We just believe it can always be better than it currently is. That American can constantly improve and in fact has done so over the course of history. You see, we don't treat America as some revered ancestor as conservatives do, to always be respected and never be questioned -- as someone to inherit from and to forever stick to the traditions of. We see it as our child. Something we've created together as a people. Something to push to be better and to raise to make us proud. If it does wrong, then that should be acknowledged and not uncomfortably shoved under the rug and forgotten like a grandmother's racism. It should be examined and learned from so that we don't repeat it.

We all love America. It's just that conservatives are proudest of the America that never was, and liberals are proudest of the America that isn't here yet.

This stuff. It's also not great for an athletic level of perspiration, but it won't come to pieces under stress or heat-related sweating.

A hydrogen-rich atmosphere can better be phrased as "carbon/nitrogen/oxygen-poor." For example Neptune's upper atmosphere is 80% hydrogen and 19% helium. That leaves any life-supporting materials scattered and diffused too thing for life to be likely to exist in any shape resembling Earth biochemistry.

Pressure isn't as big of a problem since you can find a nice pressure at the right distance from the center, but pressures and temperatures near the center are high enough that liquid diamond may be found. We're talking 1000x Earth's. That would also preclude any biochemistry we currently can predict & understand.

GP isn't making a value judgment like you are. He's making a utility judgment -- that casting away species before being able to assess their value is short-sighted.

That said, your argument is ridiculous if generalized. Just because something happens naturally does not mean it's okay if it happens by human will. Take human deaths, for example.

To save you the immense effort of a Google search, it's block of alum salt used as an alternative deodorant. You can also water-based mister deodorants with the same salts. From my own experience, they work pretty well unless you sweat hard enough to overcome them, at which point they become useless pretty quickly.

Largely used as an alternative to other aluminum-based stick deodorants by people who think that it's less likely to get into your brain and cause Alzheimer's (which is dubious on multiple counts). I used them for a while before settling on a different solution because I was sick of the way stick deodorant gets into the fabric of your shirts.

Nope. An elephant being bigger than a flea doesn't make the flea big.

Please. e-Cigarettes produce less nicotine than regular cigarettes (about 10%), but it's still quite detectable and can be found in the bloodstream of secondhand inhalers.

But frankly, I don't care if they puff out caffeine or Tylenol or magic healing pixie dust, the major point is the you don't get to set my level of drug exposure for your own benefit. The principle behind secondhand smoking bans is the old one of "your right to swing your fist ends at my face." It's the reason we have similar laws like noise ordinances. Your entertainment rights end when they intersect with my body and my health. You don't get to force your habits on me.

Vaping doesn't produce many of the VOCs and other smoke-based pollution of cigarettes, but you still have the problem of delivering an active drug (nicotine) to unwilling recipients that makes a public smoking ban still logical. No one should be forced to indulge in someone else's drug habit just because they happen to be walking though a public space, regardless of the drug.

Yes, we do. If you spend your money on a day-by-day basis without keeping track of expenditures and having a budget, then you can end up spending far more money than you realize. (I know, I've been there.) Lots of people who are making little money could still get by if someone had taught them how to manage their money responsibly at an early age before bad habits set in. Sure, there are times when you'll feel pinched, but if you don't track your money, you won't see it coming.

The entire predatory payday loan business is founded on poor financial decisions by the poor, and being poor tends to make people focus more on the now than the long-term, which only feeds the cycle.

The working class has been growing, especially as the quality of jobs has declined. It's the middle class you should be asking whether it still exists, because the lower middle class is vanishing right now.

The "cash back" you get is just a slice of the merchant's fee that makes prices go up for everyone, credit card users and non-users alike. This is why the company is willing to do business with you in the first place despite paying off your balances: you're still giving them a cut of everything you buy.

You are part of the problem. Playing games of "who started it?" is exactly the sort of childish behavior I was talking about. Or did you not learn the importance of being the better man or leading by example when growing up?

I think it's completely tragic and horrifying that you seem to seriously believe that anyone who has a different political view from you is a mustache-twirling villain who actively seeks the destruction of America rather than someone who wants their country to be the best it can be and who just has a different set of priorities on what issues to tackle first.

Most conservatives and liberals who aren't so wrapped up in "the game" really share a lot of similar core values. Open your eyes and try talking to people across the partisan divide instead of just throwing poo at them, and you'll find people with most of the same concerns you have, just a different set of ideas about how to tackle them.

No liberal wants abortion to be commonplace. No conservative wants a homeless person to die in the cold. No liberal wants to destroy small businesses. No conservative wants another school shooting. No liberal thinks people who can work shouldn't have to. No conservative thinks you shouldn't be able to get ahead if you do. We just have different solutions to the same problems and a different set of priorities when solutions come into conflict. That is where we can come together and compromise.

But only if people stop demonizing the other side and pretending that they are evil and cackling at the destruction of America. Because the people feeding you that lie are the ones closest to that fantasy.

I know you think you're being cute and funny, but this kind of asinine reductionism (whether sincere or not) is a huge part of the problem. There are some problems for which government -- i.e. the democratically chosen pooling of resources by the people -- is the best or only solution. Where the line lies between the far extremes of pure laissez faire capitalism and state-run socialism is a valid matter for civil debate and disagreement, but this sort of "all or nothing" BS is why America is completely dysfunctional at this point.

Because of people who think that the other side has nothing of value to offer and must be relentlessly mocked at any turn. Who think that purity of thought is a virtue and compromise a deadly sin.

Frankly, a lot of us are sick and tired of it. We need negotiators and diplomats. We need scientists and engineers. We don't need more divas and demagogues and firebrands. No more culture warriors and sound byte artisans.

We need an adult in here.

You know what would help change that? More people knowing how to live within their means and how to avoid predatory lending. Are you really so wrapped up in "team rivalry" thinking that you reject this common sense idea on reflex?

Progressives should be happy that we're helping people in need, but we should also be even happier when they're shown how not to need it and to help others in need in their place. It's a sad thing that American politics has devolved the the point where you can only be self-reliant and independent OR compassionate and community oriented. Strong OR generous. What happened to being both?

Yes. And to build a better one in it's place.

I did say I was a liberal, didn't I? :-)