Too bad for the summary that "Joe the plumber" wasn't actually "Joe," but Sam; wasn't actually a plumber, but an apprentice plumber (not licensed); and at the time of the question that made him a conservative darling, was outright lying (the business wasn't up for sale, he couldn't have afforded it even if it was, nor could he have run it because he wasn't a plumber).

All that aside, we should be reforming out high schools and advanced learning to be more similar to Germany, where people who want to pursue academic careers can get to college, and people who want to pursue vocational careers can get into technical schools. High school is where that really begins, where people start building interests that will stick with them for life.

Yeh.... they even have a saying for that....

Heard in the lab: "Dammit, that neutron went straight to my ass!"

First: Give the business a reason to upgrade.

So far, many upgrades come around because the software company wants to push a different version onto the business, costing them another boatload of money. Unless that different version has something actually useful, why bother to spend the money?

Let me put it another way: How much more spectacularly superior is the spreadsheet now than it was in 1985?

Hmm... i thought the lesson to be learned was being about to take a broadside of nukes with minimal damage was good.... and that Gracie Park is just damn hot (and you can never, NEVER, have enough copies of her).

Get off my lawn!!

I'm sorry you seem to be incapable of understanding my basic point. I don't believe it was that my point was put for so obscurely that the normal person would have trouble discerning it, but rather you have some point you want to make that has little to no bearing on the point i made, you just needed a lead in.

Allow me to remake my point as succinctly as possible: We are a republic AND and democracy, and people who try to make the distinction usually have a very odd, and usually ignorant, reason for doing so.

That IS how we're designed. Whether it's working or not is another question. The system can't work when we have inside it a group of elected insurgents who's only goal is to destroy the federal government by any means available. The second that the line was states that someone wanted to shrink the federal government till it could be drown in a bathtub, that person should have been considered an enemy of this country. Instead, a radical fringe grew up around it, and has been trying to destroy the federal government since.

Can the system work in that atmosphere? No. The traitors to this country have to be dealt with, but won't happen until the fake "wave your flag on the 4th" patriots pull their heads out of their asses and understand that "destroying the country" is not the same as patriotism.

But, none of that was my point. My point was in response to someone, again, saying we're not a democracy, we're a republic (and said to enlighten the formation process, not what's actually happening right this minute); when in fact, we're both.

Pi is never wrong. Unless it's like strawberry glaze, but accidentally using strawberries that aren't ripe and still bitter... then it's just horrendously wrong.

This stupid argument.... again. Why is it people can't pass a simple civics class?

We are a democracy and a republic. We are not a direct democracy, we're a representative democracy, so no.... it's not mob rules, tyranny of the majority (you may be confusing us with Switzerland, or simply be confused for no reason). It can also be called a representative republic, as our president is elected and not a monarch (like in England).

Whenever this stupid argument comes up, i'm often humored by the split in terminology. Conservatives want to claim loudly we're a republic, not a democracy... somehow i'm guessing that this makes them think republicans are better than democrats... yet when push comes to shove, what conservatives really want is a direct democracy so they can continue the tyranny of the majority against gays getting married, women having the right (or not) to self determine their own medical situations, and pretty much every social issue; after all, "the people should be able to vote on that..." as they tend to say right after a judge throws out their discriminatory laws. THE only reason they think that is because they believe they're in the majority.

So, back to the stupid argument...yes, we're a republic...and YES, we're a democracy.

In the late 70's it was Cranial/Rectal Inversion Syndrome.

No.

You can make a zipgun out of a ball point pen. Everyone has the ability to make a weapon; most people simply don't have the need, desire, or psychosis to do so.... and admittedly, many don't have the imagination for it either.

Peta-burro-hectares by centon.

Wake me when Rockey Balboa (Sylvester Stallone... still) gets on the scene half way through the movie (not because the ship is too long, but because his walker doesn't work as well on the shag carpet mind-deck).

So what you're saying is... you don't have a fucking clue about history. I suggest you pull your head out of your ass long enough to learn a little, before proving to the world you are, indeed, a fucking idiot when you write stupid posts like what you just did.

Decent people think overthrowing a democratically elected, pro-west government, installing a ruthless dictator and training his hit squads to murder his opponents purely because he's easier to control than a freely elected government is NOT a good thing. Too bad the US did exactly that back in 1953. How were those mental fucking midgets to know that it would turn the country against the US, who they'd then end up kicking the hell out so they could establish a religious theocracy that views westerners as evil, and fund what we in the west consider terrorist groups. I mean hell, that would have taken all of a couple brain cells to have that amount of foresight.

Then again, if we empower some other ruthless dictator who hates the new religious theocracy that kicked our asses out after we fucked over their country, we can have him fight a proxy war. Too bad if he's a ruthless dictator killing people (just like the first one we empowered), he's our dictator.. again. Oh wait, he decides he doesn't need us anymore. Now you say we have to go kick his ass out, and we do it because we're "good" people.

Bull fucking shit.

Here's a clue, Rudy. They don't hate us because of our freedoms, they hate us because we've fucked them over every fucking chance we've gotten, and we're generally big fucking pricks. You want to blame someone.. blame the stupid motherfuckers who put those fucking dictators into power in the first place. Oh yeh, that's us in the US, isn't it.

...and now you want a pat on the back for removing the second dictator we empowered. There's not enough derogatory obscenities to adequately qualify what should be the response to that.