People are always complaining that that our government can't work together, especially on the environment.

Perhaps unintentionally, you completely renewed my faith in our political system when you shared that, "Many actually turned off the servers."

Clearly Democrats and Republicans CAN work together on the environment.

The "great shutdown of 2013" was a bipartisan effort to curb global warming!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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Always look on the bright side of life....

Politicians and government are the problems.

There were a lot of games played to get where we are. With the data available, it would appear that too much was promised, therefore, too much was expected by the people. It appeared from day one to me that they tried to go for pretty over function.

I admit that I went onto the website a few times to simply look over the different options. Of course I could not browse the plans at the time because I was not going to start the process of entering in a bunch of information to a site that I did not trust. So yes, I guess I just said that I don't trust the US government. Huh, those black helicopters landing in my yard are quieter than I would have thought. :)

Right now I have insurance that I like, but I doubt I'll get to keep it. I gotta submit this post before they drag me to prison....

That sucks. Sun was cool. Oracle just sucks money are brains out everything it touches and torches.

Vader - How is that possible?
Luke - Father, your "Emperor" committed to spending programs that largely kick after the time of that report.
Vader - You don't understand the power of the dark side of the aisle.
Luke - I'll never join you, your Democratic ways are too rank and file.

The problem is economics, at a macro level, and more importantly for some a personal level, are wrapped up in this debate. People want more power and money.
What both side of the argument want is to influence or control the debate as to what, if anything, we do about it. So really it is how the controllers of the debate can profit. Pretty simple. Nebraska is a "red" state, the University of Nebraska is extremely liberal (I worked there), the Omaha World Herald (commonly called the weird herald) is owned by Warren Buffet, who is a big democratic supporter. So you have the conservatives controlling the politics in the area going up against liberals in the Universities and the media.

Everyone knows that climate change is real, everyone knows that even a butterfly passing gas would have an impact, albeit very very small. The masses in the US these days need to be told what to think by 'experts' to feel good about something.

The reality is nobody conservative or liberal wants to pollute unnecessarily, but when it comes down to a purchasing decision, we're not going to bankrupt ourselves to move to green energy. If the scientists feel that have a problem and we're polluting it, then they should propose a reasonable alternative....there like...smart and all....right? :)

The Whitehouse statement says, "The President assured the Chancellor that the United States is not monitoring and will not monitor the communications of Chancellor Merkel." Soooo from this the POTUS can say we know what phones you use, and we are not listening to them right now, or going forward?? Is he saying that yeah, sure we listened to your calls in the past and since you're ticked now we'll only listen to your staff's calls?? Words are funny and the POTUS has no quote on record.

The fact that we're losing the rank and file politicians is good in my opinion. People voting their conscience, not their party. Now it just needs to happen to the democrats, we need more independent thinkers. At least they're not debating about which is better, vi or emacs. That could go on forever...

My apologies, but my perception of time somehow placed the vandalism of the memorial before the shutdown by over 2 months. To clarify the Lincoln Memorial was spray painted earlier this year on July 26, 2013, and the shutdown was like around October 1, 2013? So, by chance are you smoking some Mary-Jane laced with synthetic tachyon speed boost? If so, did you get that drug through the Affordable Care Act website when it was working long ago in the distant future? :) It could be that the old Lincoln Memorial got tagged again, but I could not resist having a little fun.

Going out on a limb here might you like Al Sharpton, Rachel Madcow, or Lawrence O'Donnell, by chance?

Honestly, do you believe that Obama knew this as well as you might? Of course not, the POTUS made his decision based on the fact that he personally LIKES Apple. He may like Apple for many reasons, it is cool, trendy, might have donated to his campaign, or because he might like eating apples (the fruit). He is just another one of fake people that is only fair in his mind, not his actions.

I have not heard of anyone who doesn't say it is changing, including the right wing. The reporters statement is disingenuous and trying to make this a political debate rather than a real world debate. The climate is always changing, with or without man. How much impact does man cause is clearly the main point of the debate. We are all meat sacks and we believe we have a greater understanding than we have of our surrounding world. This is a complex issue, environmental, health, international, and economic. Just because one country may blow their budgets on making themselves 'green' it will do no good in the larger scheme. If energy costs sore and nobody can afford to live...we'll have other issues. We don't even understand if the planet is going to do something like create more cloud cover and reflect more light...etc. To quote men in black, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals, and you know it." That is what we're doing. Heck the northwest passage is closing and Antarctica has more ice this year. This is not a political discussion, this is a complex discussion and we need to listen to one another and push towards cleaner energy, but in a reasonable and slow manner in my own opinion. So what is the motivation for the insurance industry? They want more money. :)