Posts Made By: James Brown

Tony Aguire said:


So much for "charity"

Looks to me like this is one person dead from cancer and treatment complications. Tony, do you really think that this dude would be alive today if he had better insurance? Even if he had a cadillac plan like you used to have at the casino?

When many cancers return the patient dies. That's just the way it is.

Did you see this article when Russ posted it this spring?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577243321242833962.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read


Jim

Hi Floyd:

They both look very nice!

Jim

Rod Kaufman said:

Who covers uninsured for their health care in Texas?
The taxpayers, that's who:

Hi Rod:

Of course the taxpayers cover the uninsured! That is not news. We all pay increased costs to cover the care provided to the poor and uninsured at the emergency room, in clinics and so forth. All government assistance programs are funded by taxpayers (duh). I guess I'm not sure what your point might be.

One question about Obamacare is whether expanding Medicaid is more cost effective than merely maintaining the existing paradigm. There are plenty of other issues as well.

Jim

Russ Carroll said:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-case-against-reelection/2012/08/09/c64ce76c-e250-11e1-98e7-89d659f9c106_story.html

"In 1988, Michael Dukakis famously said, “This election is not about ideology; it’s about competence.� He lost. If Republicans want to win, Obama’s deeply revealing, teleprompter-free you-didn’t-build-that confession of faith needs to be hung around his neck until Election Day. The third consecutive summer-of-recovery-that-never-came is attributable not just to Obama being in over his head but, even more important, to what’s in his head: a government-centered vision of the economy and society, and the policies that flow from it."

Good points. Mona Charen has a good column today too. I'm starting to worry about Mitt's viability though. Have you seen the new attack-ad described in this piece? It's getting a lot of air time in Colorado, during the Olympics...

http://www.theonion.com/articles/romney-murdered-jonbenet-ramsey-new-obama-campaign,29114/

J

Doug Matulis said:

"I have never hurd anyone being hurt by Creationism."

No mirrors at the Matulis homestead?

J

David Cotterell said:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/08/29/mitt-romney-tells-533-lies-in-30-weeks-steve-benen-documents-them/

Wow, you'd really have to work to achieve this level of dishonesty.

Small prediction: rebuttal of the above by some of the denizens of this forum will involve claiming the source is biased and pointing out that Obama also lies. The rebuttal will not point out that the 533 lies didn't happen because every single one of the lies is clearly proven in the article.

David:

Did you read this article? I did. I clicked on the most recent Maddow link too.

I see lots of spin and opinion being cast as "lies."

It appears to me that the meaning of the word "lie" has been morphed by the political press into something along the lines of "expressing a contentious political opinion about my policies or my opponents policies that the article author disagrees with"

In other instances it appears that the simple word "lie" has morphed into "projecting a positive opinion about the possible outcome of my policies while projecting a negative opinion about the possible outcome of my opponent's policies."

Other instances of alleged "lies" appear to be substantially true statements of fact or opinion that are incomplete or partially incorrect.

For most of us Americans, and I am a highly educated American by the way, the true meaning of the word "lie" is more along the lines of "a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive" How many of Romney's 533 statements qualify? Seriously, statements of opinion, spin on disputed facts, puffing up one's own policies and denigrating the opposition's policies hardly qualify as "lies." The press's infatuation with the "lie" meme has run it's course.

My rebuttal is not on your list of likely rebuttals - In my opinion, no one but the partisan press and rabid partisans considers these types of arguable statements to be lies.

Jim

Tony Aguire said:

Barack Obama, 4 more years!!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzDhk3BHi6Q

Hi Tony:

It was a good speech. I'm wondering whether it will help Obama with the undecided voters though. I voted for Clinton and as I watched last night I could remember why. I also remembered that I can't trust him to tell the truth. So the wonky content he delivered was tainted. His old charm is undiminished though.

One thought I had during the speech was how Clinton accomplished things by compromise - and no matter how much the Obama team wants to paint the current failure to compromise as a unilateral Republican thing - I know that compromise (or the failure thereof) is always a two-way street. I know this from my own life experiences in law and business. Compromise is always a two-way street.

Thus, the implicit comparison between Clinton and Obama with respect to their actual governing skills might not be flattering to the President among the over 45 year old crowd.

Jim

Tony Aguire said:

A NYC Taxi driver wrote...

Obviously the cabby was not a republican...

The only thing obvious to me is that something is really going poorly in your life Tony - otherwise why all of this irrational lashing out? Surely you have a few Republican friends? Are they all pure evil? I have lots of Democrat friends and none of them are raging commies. Real Republicans and real Democrats have a lot more in common than election season rhetoric would lead one to believe.

Anyway, for those who are interested in wonky internet stuff, the cabby story is substantially true, although the cab ride occured in Minneapolis, not NYC. It was author and spiritualist (and former cabbie), Kent Nerburn, who originally wrote the piece in 1999. It is amazing how these things take on lives of their own.

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/cabride.asp

http://kentnerburn.com/about

J

Rod Kaufman said:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/27/pew-poll-obama-opens-up-lead-over-romney-among-catholics/?hpt=hp_t2

Hi Rod:

A 54/39 lead among Catholics does not pass the basic smell test. Exit polling from the last few years shows the following with respect to the votes of those who self-identify as Catholic:


%D - %R

2000: 50/47

2004: 47/52

2008: 54/45

Any poll that suggests that Obama is going to do better among Catholics in 2012 than he did in 2008 is goofy, (as are the polls that suggest Obama is up 10 in Ohio when he won by 4 in that state in '08.) The economy and Obamacare are a big deal for many Catholics and are certainly going to erode Obama's share of the vote. On the other hand, most recent immigrants are Catholic, so I think that Obama will possibly win the overall Catholic vote, but not by anything like 10%

I will note that the Catholic voters are not a one-issue anti-abortion voting bloc. A Catholic union guy is going to vote D whether he feels strongly about abortion or not. Historically, the Catholic vote has ebbed and flowed but is more or less similar to the overall popular vote.


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

Jim

Here is the same image with the disk inverted and the proms and background normal. I like the filaments better with the disk inverted, but the white sunspots bug me...

Here is the full res version:

http://home.comcast.net/~jameslbrown/pwpimages/final%201%20crop%20full%20res.jpg

Jim