StrangeSox

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 08:40 AM) And don't forget, with the fiscal cliff out there, all Obama has to do is veto an agreement, and he gets his tax increases, if he really wants them. He gets his tax increases, but nobody wants what the CBO is projecting if absolutely nothing is done for the entirety of 2013. He can get his tax increases on Jan. 1 to strengthen his bargaining position and then go with the Congressional Democrats back to the table.

I haven't read anything from Krugman in months but here's his (political) take on what Democrats should do: He and other liberals advocating for the "let the tax cuts expire and then come to the table with a Democratic plan on Jan. 1" route may be underestimating what would happen if they took that course of action, but surrendering once again and making ineffective tax cuts for the rich permanent and cutting entitlements as part of some "Grand Bargain" to avoid a tangentially related situation would be awful.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 08:29 AM) There is absolutely no chance that the House passes a bill that raises those taxes even higher than they were under Clinton.

But I don't consider it a human being. So I see people wanting to take away an actual woman's right to decide over her own body in a similar light to how you see people wanting to allow abortion.

There is absolutely no chance that the House passes a bill that raises those taxes even higher than they were under Clinton.

just crash in on iamshack's place, I'm sure he'd be cool with that

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 9, 2012 -> 08:20 AM) They can do what they want with their own bodies, just not the body of the other human being living inside of them. Again, that argument fails if you recognize the fetus as a human being. My point was a rhetorical one. I obviously disagree with you on when a fetus should be considered a human being and thus deprive the woman of the right to decide what to do with her body.

I understand your point that, in the short-term, it'll obviously be bad to go past the Jan 1. deadline without doing anything to change the laws. But it isn't an unrecoverable cliff as it's being framed in the national narrative. I used your post as a spring-board for my own annoyance, and that's not really fair.

Living in a society where women can't choose what to do with their own bodies is very dangerous as well.

They can go over the "cliff" and then fix things the next day (or week or month) without catastrophic results. The CBO's estimated impact is assuming that the issue isn't addressed at all next year. It's a gradual slide, not a cliff.

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 10:25 PM) I was thinking more like free birth control, free abortions, free citizenship, free phones but you can go that way since that is about the limit of your vision. Republicans lost the greedy slut vote, why oh why can't those whores see the wisdom of the Republican party??

QUOTE (Alpha Dog @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 10:19 PM) Let's see, which of those groups do Democrats give lots of free stuff to....... Lol, minorities are all lazy moochers! That's why they won't vote for republicans! I sincerely hope that's the message conservatives take away from this election because it'll make the next one that much easier.

I'm not sure why Peggy Noonan wasn't fired immediately after Ohio was called for Obama. For as much as the pundits like to lecture America about "personal responsibility" and meritocracy, they sure seem to get away with doing nothing but feeding bulls*** to the public all day, every day.

http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2012/...erica-only.html I only wonder if there will ever be some sober reflection from these apocalyptic conservatives where they're a little ashamed of this stuff: some gems from the comments: Obama literally is Hitler, Obamacare literally is the Holocaust, American is literally going to be Belarus under Nazi occupation - I saw it in a movie!

Maddow 2016 Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/ms...w_show#49736294

oh Texas Texas town adds sugar to water supply to encourage residents to drink more water

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 03:12 PM) Do you have an example of that law? I didnt realize that people had already let the govt go that far. I'm pretty sure your child can be taken from you by DCFS if your drug abuse places the child in danger.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 03:08 PM) Feeling pain is not a significant function of the brain/nervous system? That happens well before 20 weeks. IIRC it is debatable if they can or not, but a fetal brain prior to 23 weeks, according to the article from the neuroscientist I posted earlier, is functionally equivalent to someone that would be declared brain dead. edit: plants respond to external stimuli without a brain or nervous system, so I don't know that feeling pain (responding to external stimuli) really counts. edit2: http://news.discovery.com/human/fetus-pain-abortion-law.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/blog...rt-says-no.html

the unattributed quotes are mostly from freerepublic.com.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 02:48 PM) now we're getting into the semantics of what the word LIFE means. to me, organism and life mean the same thing. Well I used the highly technical term "organic thing" instead of organism for a reason! I don't think an egg is classified any different than a red blood cell. Yeah, it's organic matter, but it's not a living organism.

QUOTE (Reddy @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 02:44 PM) well, to be fair, single celled organisms ARE considered life... so a zygote is too. it's just not a person, which is an organism with synaptic brain function that can reason and has free will. An unfertilized egg is a single-cell organic thing, but I don't think it's considered life.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 02:37 PM) That's garbage. We define life on other planets, yet we can't define it for our own species? We have rough categories of "life" and "non-life" and break things down further from there. All of these categories are man-made and really just convenient ways for us to classify things for our own understanding. We're drawing a map with definitions, not defining the terrain. Saying that a zygote is "life" is one thing, though I don't know if that's even a consensus view. But that isn't the only thing meant by "life begins at conception" rhetoric in the abortion discussion. That phrase carries a much more significant moral argument that human life worthy of moral protections and considerations begins at conception. There isn't a scientific question there. There's no hypothesis to test.

Time for the GOP to rethink abortion politics I thought this was insightful.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Nov 8, 2012 -> 02:35 PM) Because of the whole abortion debate, most everyone is afraid to step into everything before birth. Except for those people that passed dozens of bills around the country restricting abortions in the past two years. They were okay with stepping into it.

Specist! Identical twins have different DNA, it's just really, really, really close.