American politics and news thread

saint mark wrote:

In fact, the Keystone XL Pipeline extension has been delayed, not canceled.

Exactly "delayed" Conveniently till after the election, so Obama doesn't loose the green nutter vote.

Even Obama understands the US economy requires a steady supply of oil, but because his core support is anti-oil leftist nuts, he has to cater to them until the election comes and goes. In the meantime, the country gets f***ed.

saint mark wrote:

in the Treasury Department’s handy “debt to the penny” website. That shows the nation’s total debt stood at $10.6 trillion on the day Obama took office (not $6.3 trillion), and it had increased to nearly $15.4 trillion by the end of January 2012 — a rise of more than $4.7 trillion in just over three years (not $6.5 trillion).

So even Obama's leftist spinners will admit he has ballooned the debt more than 4.7 trillion in over 3 years. That's an increase of almost half of what the national debt was before Obama the spendaholic came to office and that's using the left wing spin. Faint praise.Obama has no interest in curbing government spending. He believes in big government and its power to redistribute wealth. Congress had to fight him like dogs to prevent him from raising the debt ceiling.

tiffanywint wrote:

saint mark wrote:

In fact, the Keystone XL Pipeline extension has been delayed, not canceled.

Exactly "delayed" Conveniently till after the election, so Obama doesn't loose the green nutter vote.

Even Obama understands the US economy requires a steady supply of oil, but because his core support is anti-oil leftist nuts, he has to cater to them until the election comes and goes. In the meantime, the country gets f***ed.

That is your vision or translation. Perhaps not as factual but your personal view.

The Green Nutter vote. :face:

Would that make you the Oil brown fossile fuel junkie? ;)

saint mark wrote:

On the subject of Romney care -

The Connector, the state exchange, is being asked to find ways to keep its budget constant next year while facing the prospect of increasing enrollment in the down economy. Glen Shor, the Connector’s executive director, says he thinks it can be done by using “the power of competition” to drive down what insurers charge. Some cuts already have been made in the last few years because of the state’s overall fiscal situation — the Connector cut back on coverage for legal immigrants who have been in the country for less than five years, giving them reduced subsidies, and an increase in payments to providers was scaled back.

This is encouraging, that Mass is making an effort to get its spending under control and using the power of competition do drive down the costs of insurance premiums. What makes Romneycare, not the disaster that Obmacare is, it that it does encourage competition between private health insurers.

I wish we had Romneycare in Ontario and not the brutal public single-payer system that we do have.

Do vote Romney for President. He will blow-up Obamacare. He will devise a system of mandated private insurance with subisidies for the "needy" as actually needed.

saint mark wrote:

That is your vision or translation. Perhaps not as factual but your personal view.

The Green Nutter vote. :face:

Would that make you the Oil brown fossile fuel junkie? ;)

Yes it does. I don't want to live in a cave. My view is perfectly factual. Obama is factually holding up the pipleline because he needs left-wing votes. Its quite obvious the pipeline will get finished. Even Obama knows the oil needs to flow....yet he's conveniently put off a "decision" coincidentally until after the election.

If Elektra King was running this pipeline, she wouldn't put with his crap. She'd nuke the Whitehouse with him in it.

However the good folks at Trans Canada pipeline are fine upstanding non-psycho non-criminal, law-abiding upstanding, exemplary Oil Executive citizens of the world :)

So the republican or democratic president will order the pipeline to be build?

I find it a smart move to insure that there is as little damage to environment, which is also in the best interest of the presiding governor because he gets to pay that bill by the next election. So one man gets the blame for getting votes and the other one doesn't lose any votes due to carefull decisionmaking instead of cutting corners in cost when human interest is also a concern these days.

I guess that is politics.

What I still worry about is that currently there is much emphasis on politics and not enough on actual economic problems. They will not get solved by a pipeline, or deregulation of banks, medicare and oil-industry. Normal folks will get hit.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/25/santorum-obama-is-a-snob-who-wants-everybody-to-go-to-college/

Quote :

GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum once again attacked President Barack Obama on wanting students to go to college Saturday morning, calling the president a “snob” on the campaign trail in Troy, Michigan.

Santorum spoke the tea party group Americans For Prosperity’s Michigan branch and received a round of applauds for his latest eye-brow raising statements.

“President Obama wants everybody in America to go to college, what a snob,” he said. “There are good, decent men and women who work hard every day and put their skills to the test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor. And trying to indoctrinate them.”

Another member of the tinfoil hit club brigade, it seems. Shockingly, not everyone who goes to college turns out to be a god-fearing liberal. In fact, a college education is what is keeping a lot of people off the poverty line.

It's depressing people like this are serious candidates to become president.

Quote :

Shockingly, not everyone who goes to college turns out to be a god-fearing liberal.

Usually a god-less liberal, but of course not everyone turns out to be one. There are a few exceptions that prove that rule.

To be honest, I couldn't agree with him more.

A college education is the new high school diploma in the States. You're going to have a hard time making ends meet without one. In that sense, what Santorum is saying is utter bullshit, especially if any part of his platform is seeing that the economy gets better.

Most of what he said is pure bullshit, as usual. But I do agree that not everyone needs a college education. If you want to be a farmer, a mail man (though, in the US, that's not going to last long), a machine operator at a plant, a garbage man, etc., then more power to you. Someone has to do those jobs. The people who actually want those jobs shouldn't have to feel ashamed of that.

I don't think there's anything wrong with Obama pushing younger people to seek a higher education, however. And not every college professor is a radical liberal. Our own Dr. Khan is proof of that.

In college one is meant to test all theories be it right , left, socialist, liberal. It is supposed to be a time of education and learning about the world, finding your own identity and finding your own truth.

There is nothing wrong with a liberal that is any worse than being anything else. IMHO.

saint mark wrote:

In college one is meant to test all theories be it right , left, socialist, liberal. It is supposed to be a time of education and learning about the world, finding your own identity and finding your own truth..

Well, first off, I disagree with the phrase "your own truth". But beyond that, everything that you described could also be accomplished in elementary, middle and high schools. Learning, testing, educating....all of that doesn't just start at the college level.

Gravity's Silhouette wrote:

saint mark wrote:

In college one is meant to test all theories be it right , left, socialist, liberal. It is supposed to be a time of education and learning about the world, finding your own identity and finding your own truth..

Well, first off, I disagree with the phrase "your own truth". But beyond that, everything that you described could also be accomplished in elementary, middle and high schools. Learning, testing, educating....all of that doesn't just start at the college level.

Yes you are right, what I mean is that education should not tell you which way of thinking is right, but offer you a variety of views. With finding your own truth I mean that mostly in college you start finding your own views on the world and during the rest of your life they will be tested or changed.

After Wave Of Violence, Councilman Wants Gas Station Security

http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2012/02/28/councilman-suggests-way-to-curb-violence-in-city/


Oh God, not another march. I'm so sick of marches. They never accomplish anything. And why is it that the answer to crime at gas stations is for the government to force you to hire police officers?

WWJ’s Florence Walton reports Detroit Councilman Kwame Kenyatta is planning a midnight march against violence and fear. It comes in the wake of a rash of crime that included the killing of a 9-month boy in a walk-by shooting, and the death of a 6-year-old at the hands of two 15-year-old carjackers with an AK-47.

And an 86-year-old World War II victim was carjacked at a Detroit gas station in broad daylight on his way home from Bible study, and said no one helped him while he cried for help. He tried to crawl away on a leg that was broken in the attack. He eventually tried to pay a stranger to drive him home, but the man drove him for free, and called an ambulance.

Oooooh. That'll really force violence and fear to cower in submission.

To help curb crimes like these, Kenyatta hopes to draft an ordinance that requires gas station owners to hire security guards to protect the public.

“And as we watch this man was beaten on camera and crawled into the station, never once did I see the proprietor, as well as the people who were going to that gas station, help that individual. We are saying secure your facility, safeguard us as a community,” said Kenyatta.

It's the gas station that needs protection from the "community". The gas station didn't attack anybody. The gas station didn't murder anyone. Where's Robocop when you need him? As I've said before, Detroit is a lost cause, and it's only going to get worse as fuel prices get near $5 and $6 dollars. And people like Kwame wonder why gas and other staple prices are so high in areas like his. Now they know!

How much more expensive will the items be at these convenience stores if they have the added burden of having to hire police officers to patrol their stores? And how long do you think it'll take the NAACP to ask for an investigation into police brutality because some minority got roughed up, beaten or killed by a police officer patrolling one of these stores? Not long.

A college education is only worth it if you get something out of it. Joe Schmo with a 118 IQ and an Arts degree is going to be even less employable than Joely Schmo with a 118 IQ who dropped out of school at 16 to work at McDonalds and did well enough (not difficult in a place with that much staff turnover and low qualifications for entry) to get put in their management program.

Unless his parents are loaded, he's going to be a lot poorer, too.

I endured the Canadian university system for 4 years. It's a veritable hive of leftist liberal pretensions. Thank God we had an on-campus pub to escape to. One of my brain-dead poly-sci profs waxed eloquent one day on the profound leftist social implications of Roger Waters and Pink Floyd's The Wall (hip with the kids I guess). I nearly vomited right in the class. Even the more impressionable students were looking at him like he was on halucinogens.

I did enjoy my philosophy classes though. Plato's Republic fascinates me to this day.

The trick though is to just get the piece of paper, whilst carousing and consuming as much suds as possible, and then get the hell out!!!!!



===

I don't know what Obama is a babbling about. Santorum is right. University is not for everyone nor desirable for everyone. If one is academically inclined, or if one has a genuine interest in the studies, it's 3-4 years or longer well spent. A liberal arts degree is not a ticket to a job anymore though. But it does help.

And yes you can do well joining a company like McDonalds and working your way up the ladder and into management training.

Universities may be rife with subversive liberal professors but they are also great places for athletic excellence too.

I do think though that college professors should be required to get outdoors, at least once every 10 years. It can only help.

Another perscpective. The full context of Obama's remarks aren't presented in the article but I doubt they were terribly radical or provocative. Sounds like he's simply encouraging kids to go to colllege, which is fine.

Santorum being a political opportunist has seized the moment to try and brand Obama as some sort of College snob and higher education elitist.

Santorum could have left that alone as there is no gotcha here vis a vis Obama that I can see. Santorum isn't making any kind of point that matters IMO. Obama's comments are harmless.

However politics is a game. Both sides play the spin. I do like that Santorum is using the moment to call out academia, for the leftist indoctrination and general intolerance for opposing views,that seems to be pervasive on all liberal arts campuses in a bid to rally votes.

But I don't think he scored any points against Obama.

If someone's so upset by this notion of "liberal professors," why not go to a conservative school?

It's no surprise to me that professors tend to be liberal, since studies have shown that liberals have higher IQs than conservatives.

But alas, in my experience, I can't recall a single professor ever waxing on one way or the other. That's pretty unprofessional, especially in any class that's based on politics. Only thing I can remember was in a biology class where a professor went on a short tangent on global warming.

I think if you're going to blame the college experience for making students liberal, you should blame the students around them much more so than the professors.

Jack Wade wrote:

It's no surprise to me that professors tend to be liberal, since studies have shown that liberals have higher IQs than conservatives.

Yeah, those Occupy poop 'n' rape camps are hotbeds of intellectualism.

Poor Santorum's got Ann Coulter all over his bony ass.

She says he's got it all wrong!!!

"Most recently, Santorum assailed Obama for saying everyone should go to college by responding: "What a snob!"

No! No! No!

Santorum's response merely reinforces the insane liberal worldview that going to college is the preserve of our betters, a hoity-toity proof of social class, a desirable consumer product like a Louis Vuitton bag.

This isn't the '20s, when only the upper classes went to college. These days, every idiot who can scratch an "X" on his checkbook assumes hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to make himself less employable by taking college courses in -- for example -- "Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame" (University of South Carolina, Columbia), "GaGa for Gaga: Sex, Gender and Identity" (University of Virginia), "Arguing With Judge Judy: Popular 'Logic' on TV Judge Shows" (University of California, Berkeley), "The Phallus" (Occidental College), "Zombies" (University of Baltimore), "Comics" (Oregon State University), "Harry Potter: Finding Your Patronus" (Oregon State University), and "Underwater Basket Weaving" (University of California at San Diego).
My fellow Americans, Meghan McCain has a bachelor's degree.
It's not snobbery that compels liberals to promote college for all; it's a scam to manufacture more Democratic voters, much like their immigration policies.
Is a Valley Girl who takes courses in Self-Esteem at Cal State Fresno (an actual course at an actual college) a finer class of person than a skilled plumber with approximately 1,000 times the earning capacity and social worth of the airhead?
No. But she is more likely to vote Democratic.
Encouraging everyone to go to college creates an all-new class of people entirely dependent on the government, which is to say: reliable Democratic voters."


Damn, why didn't they have Under Water Basket Weaving as an elective when I was in University. I was always looking for bird courses to round out my year so I could spend more time on my real major, Advanced Barley and Hops Consumption Studies.

Damn, when I went to college they had only serious subjects and not such fun ones.

I feel tempted to return to college. :*e*:

Quote :

It's no surprise to me that professors tend to be liberal, since studies have shown that liberals have higher IQs than conservatives.

A study that caused plenty of controversy and was widely debunked. The data is screwy and the conclusion is specious. It did not ask their political views at the same time as it took their IQs. It also relied on the assumption that someone's IQ between grades 7-12 remains the same at 22-28, which it doesn't. The tests change with age and the intelligence of the cohort and averages against whom they're compared to adjusts as well. The brain doesn't fully mature until your twenties. There's still a correlation there, but not one that fits with the proposition. In the best case scenario, the hypothesis it proves would be along the lines of: 'A higher adolescent IQ leads to the adoption of liberal philosophy, atheism, later in life'

Also an average IQ of 102 amongst atheists vs 97 for self-identifying religious people is not much of a difference, and certainly doesn't suggests atheists are much more likely to have soaring intellects (I find atheism thoroughly unscientific, and an ironically close-minded view of the world, but that's another topic entirely).

The ten point difference in the average between self-identifying 'very conservative[s]' and self-identifying 'very liberal[s]' is more substantial, but given by and large most people fall into neither category it isn't neccessarily much to scream about and may not tell the full story. And once again, a 107 average is still thoroughly in the middle ground, and depending on the survey could easily be artificially lifted by one or two MENSA members who happen to identify as very Liberal vs idiots who don't even understand the question.

It is also worth noting how the subjects were interviewed and how that question was formulated. The article you linked to states the study adopted the American definitions of conservatism vs liberalism, complete with definitions, which were highly general statements with no specifics to the policy positions that tend to be associated with either political idealogies. It would be worth knowing whether the study asked the subjects whether they viewed themselves as 'very conservative 'moderately conservative' 'moderately liberal' 'very liberal' etc or offered the highly general definitions of liberalism and conservatism it claims it adopts away from policy and asked how much they agreed with it.

If the latter case the results could be skewed because if someone is given a normative statement and asked how much they agree with it they may agree with the notion while on a policy level their actual view is quite different.

Not to mention that the end of the day an IQ is hardly a barometer of success. The bulk of the studies I've read suggest that people with high IQs are only marginally more likely to wind up in a high paying or prestigious job than anyone else, and it is more likely to have an impact on job performance, if anything. At the end of the day, IQ is more about ones capacity than their true intelligence.

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012/03/conservative-blogger-andrew-breitbart-is-dead-at-age-43/1?csp=34news#.T0-r5HnZV8E

Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart has died.

I'd say RIP but I have no compassion for a man who called Sen. Ted Kennedy a "pile of human excrement" when he died.

Andrew Breitbart dead at 43

http://bigpeace.com/lsolov/2012/03/01/draft/

What a tragedy. Too young to die. I always looked forward to watching him on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld. He had a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas. He also brought us Hannah Giles, the hottest conservative woman ever::




And for that I will be eternally grateful.

Poor guy just collapsed when he was out walking, and only 43. Can't take your health for granted at any age, can you?

He worked closely with Matt Drudge and ironically helped Ariana Huffington get the the Huffington Post off the ground.

I'm not surprised a smart guy like Breitbart had no use for Ted Kennedy. Ted was an embarassment to that family. I'm not a big fan of the Kennedys but I can respect both JFK and RFK as very capable leaders, who both did some good work and did inspire others.

Teddy was a slimeball of a politician. Utterly useless.