From monkeys. Are you going anywhere with this?

Probably something along these lines:

Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Im just curious.

How did the monkey to man jump happen?

A dumb hairy monkey banged a less hairy, smarter monkey. Rinse and repeat and you've got yourself a human.

And your scientific proof of this? Or is this just a belief of what happened?

Well, I'm pretty hairy. Not all that smart either. So there is evidence of monkey in my background.

I would disagree here. Urban ERs are swamped and underfunded as it is right now. With a ton of people coming in with this "public insurance", it will be a nightmare for ERs. First, they have to make sure the people sign up or they don't get any money (a big issue for current uninsured people who qualify for existing programs). Next, since more people will have access to coverage who haven't had it before - chances are they won't have a family doctor setup. This means a lot of initial emergency room visits until they understand the system.

Which means longer waits until the infrastructure catches up. You also have the issue of a serious lack of family practitioners. You add 40+ million people to the health insurance rolls in major cities and you will have doctors that are swamped.

Next, we will run into a funding issue. It's going to take longer to get paid by the public system (combined with more patient requests) which means some doctors won't initially accept it. So, if your company drops your coverage because it's cheaper to pay the fine (as it would be for my company I work for). Then, there's a chance my doctor won't take the new public plan because they can pick and choose patients due to demand. This will, of course, begin a new legislation process mandating that doctors take a certain number of publicly funded patients (ie, affirmative action for public health plan members).

I buy this. I think some patients that weren't previously covered will now be covered. The problem is that person needs to be enrolled in the plan. Right now millions of ER patients go in uncovered even though they qualify for numerous publicly funded plans that they haven't enrolled in.

However, it will take longer to receive money from the government. Right now, private insurance companies have to atleast attempt to compete from a payment standpoint (and they take forever). Where's the impetus on the federal government to provide prompt payments to hospitals? Combine a lack of initiative with all the regulations/oversight that will be needed and funds may be a long time coming. This becomes a major issue to small, private practices.

I'll take the gamble that I can (like 80-90% of the country) remain employed and keep some kind of coverage. This argument becomes a question of whether you want good health care for X cost with a small chance of losing coverage for a small amount of time due to unemployment vs having worse coverage for a higher price all the time.

Again, I just don't see a situation where currently employed person with quality coverage benefits from this new bill. And, that's 75+% of US adults right now. At the end of the day, all 75% will suffer in some way for a benefit that no one can really quantify.

It's basically like me telling you that if you give me $10, there's a 20% chance I give you $12 back and an 80% chance I give you $6 back. However, the guy who gives me nothing has a 60% chance of getting $4 back. Right now, a lot of us giving up the $10 aren't really excited about entering into this arrangement.

Not really sure of this statement. Please expand.

Can we keep the science vs religion argument out of this thread? We've had it in plenty of other places already.

Id like to point out that this thread is an example of how the debate on health care, on here and in the town halls, gets mutated into all sorts of other things that have nothing to so with health care or it's bill at all.

Interesting poll from Gallup, where they interviewed 1,000 hairless bipedal monkeys about the healthcare town halls:

Poll: Health care views take sympathetic tilt - USATODAY.com


I'm actually surprised by this... especially the independents.

Im just curious how people can run down other peoples beliefs. This isnt Science vs. Religion. Its called respecting other peoples beliefs.
From reading this thread, we need more of this.

This is why the Health Care town meetings get crazy. People lack the respect to listen to each other.

We will all disagree on things. Thats human nature. But we shouldnt shout people dow or put people down because they think the politicians are going to kill old people or the Earth was created 6000 years ago.

Plus this thread is about Obamas presidency and his Muslim leaning s really bother me.

Arles, I'm curious about your last post. Based on the few town hall meetings I've watched, it seems like the only difference between the public insurance and the private insurance is the person paying the premiums. In one case it is the individual, and the other it is the government. Both the publicly a privately insured person will show up in an ER with their BCBS (for example) insurance card. The hospital staff won't know or care who is paying the insurance premiums, they will just send their bills to the insurance company. Am I missing something?

What should we do to the uninformed people who think politicians are going to set up death squads to kill old people. Talk reason to them? In case you haven't been paying attention, these people (many on Medicare) don't really want to listen and are the ones shouting down. I'm not getting into the whole creation vs. big bang thing because I have no proof on either side, so if somebody wants to think the Earth is 6000 years old (as long as they don't teach it as science in schools) that's their belief. But when a belief is patently wrong (and being stoked by doofs like Palin) you can't just sit aside and say that's their opinion. It's an opinion being presented as fact based on incorrect knowledge.

Good grief, I hope I wasn't supposed to be representing science here.

Awesome.

I didn't know we had a birther in our midst.

Come on now, he didn't say anything about the birth certificate. So what do they call the 'Obama is a Muslim' people?

A muslie?

Did I say he was a Muslim? Or did I say he leaned that way? ah yes, post what others want to hear.

*shaking my head*

fail.

EPIC MOTHERFUCKING FAIL

How does he lean that way?

Seriously.

Because he doesn't advocate bombing every Islamic country back in to the stone age.

I have Rastafarian leanings myself.

Polls say they do.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/108226/re...eationism.aspx

Am I missing something? The article you linked does not have anything to do with the earth being 6,000 years old or people believing that.

Quoted from an interview with Cathleen Falsani

FALSANI:
What do you believe?

OBAMA:
"I am a Christian.

So, I have a deep faith. So I draw from the Christian faith.

On the other hand, I was born in Hawaii where obviously there are a lot of Eastern influences.

I lived in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, between the ages of six and 10.

My father was from Kenya, and although he was probably most accurately labeled an agnostic, his father was Muslim.

And I'd say, probably, intellectually I've drawn as much from Judaism as any other faith.

(A patron stops and says, "Congratulations," shakes his hand. "Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Thank you.")

So, I'm rooted in the Christian tradition. I believe that there are many paths to the same place, and that is a belief that there is a higher power, a belief that we are connected as a people. That there are values that transcend race or culture, that move us forward, and there's an obligation for all of us individually as well as collectively to take responsibility to make those values lived.

And so, part of my project in life was probably to spend the first 40 years of my life figuring out what I did believe - I'm 42 now - and it's not that I had it all completely worked out, but I'm spending a lot of time now trying to apply what I believe and trying to live up to those values."

Again from the interview:
"I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell.

I can't imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity.

That's just not part of my religious makeup."

If you dont give yourself to Jesus Christ, you go to Hell. Christians believe this.

Obama believes he is “an instrument of God” and join him in creating “a Kingdom right here on Earth."

This quote by Obama should scare all Christians.

Obama ignores national day of prayer. The president slights godly expression. No mention of Matthew 6:5-6:

"And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret."


"We know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus – and nonbelievers," Mr. Obama said

This is a Judeo-Christian country. Muslims live for divisiveness. Not untiy.

"Obama is a true believer in the religion of Environmentalism.

Not the science of the environment. Where that science survives, it provides us with a vital service; and it doesn't take any faith to believe in the findings of genuine scientists doing science properly."

Allah is the name for the Moon god that Mohammed founded the Muslim religion on.

Obama quoted as saying "We are no longer a Christian nation....."

Again the divisive rhetoric.

I think its pretty clear that Obama is not a Christian and does lean towards the religion of Mulims

Countless fossils and DNA?

What article is coming up for you?

oh man. i might let somebody else have first crack at that...lol

One that polls peoples belief in evolution or creationism.

And points out that 60% of Republicans believe God created us in our current form within the last 10,000 years.

And here is a link to an article on the same site that polls only 39% of Americans believe in evolution. Does that mean the other 61% are lunatics?

http://www.gallup.com/poll/114544/Da...Evolution.aspx

Also, the article you linked indicates 38% of Democrats also believe in creationism and that God created humans 10,000 years ago and 39% of Democrats believe in Evolution. An additional 17% of democrats believe humans evolved but that God guided the process.

yep

Either way, it sounds like most can agree that believing in creationism or God does not imply a person is crazy.

Not lunatics, but uneducated and/or ignorant.

false

Then I guess your not as smart as JIMG thinks you are ;)

eh, maybe "crazy" isn't the best word. but it's a lot "nicer" than some of the other words i'd use

I agree with this. Health care should not be on the table until there is a plan in place to reduce the deficit.

You don't pay $150 pretax a month though. Your employers may cover a portion of it, but that's still technically part of your compensation.

I don't see those same negatives you do. It's not like we are killing the private sector so there will still be good money in the medical profession. Supply and demand should dictate that if there is more demand for specialists, we'll see more coming out of school.

I agree things would need to change. But isn't it a bid morbid to tell 15% of the country to fuck themselves because the 85% need higher care?

It would be no different to me than to say that we'll pull police officers out of 15% of the cities and move the to the other 85% so that they could get much better protection.

The funniest part about that evolution survey that people love to cite( because they're trying to lump them with anyone that disagrees with them) is the last question - only 55% even know what the theory of evolution is. So what do the rest of the numbers even matter?

I've always wondered why this debate was framed as "creation vs evolution". It's pretty easy to believe in creation and still be ok with evolution. Is anyone really railing against Mendel and his punnett squares? Now if you want to go "Creation vs Big Bang"- that gets a bit more interesting because big bang is built on a lot of speculative science with no real good underpinnings.

SI

I didn't mean it to come across as telling 15% to go fuck themselves. What I was trying to get across is the complexity of the issue. Its not as simple as just giving everyone affordable health care and then letting the rest take care of itself. In a country with the resources we have every single person should have an affordable health care option. However, the infrastructure isn't in place for it right now.

We also need to the money to pull this off. As I stated above, Medicare is probably the best health care in the country, but it's well over-budget and is probably going to become a financial burden to the country. Where's the money going to come from? Are the 85% of the people with health care right now going to end up paying for the other 15%? Is this going to affect how long you wait for specialty care? Are doctors going to schedule less time to see their patients?

I think these are legitimate concerns and it may not sound fair, but I'd rather keep things the way they are until we have a plan that can answer all of these questions (no idea if the current plan does or not) than give the other 15% health care and fuck things up for everyone.

I think again, it's framed that way by those on the "evolution" side to mock religion and for political points, and to more easily look down upon people that are different than them. I think less-educated people see "creation v. evolution" as "god v. no god", and answer accordingly. When you're absolutely right, the two things are completely compatible, it makes no sense that they're always presented as mutually exclusive.

I don't think the people who answer "creationism" to that question really don't "believe" in evolution. Evolution has just been framed as "anti-god" for some reason so they're against it. If you asked them, outside of a god context, whether they "believed" in natural selection, and gave an explanation of what natural selection is, the numbers would be different.

There's plenty of other threads here on this so I won't get into it again, but the religion-bashers don't get religion. Religion isn't an attempted scientific explanation for the earth, no matter what blog they read or preacher they quote.

I think this has been a very good debate (Monkey business aside). To build on an earlier point, many doctors have decided against accepting currently public-based insurance programs. The reasons are long delays in payment, reduced coverage options and too much paperwork/oversight:

Fewer Doctors In Texas Are Accepting Medicare Cases, Texas Health Insurance

Illinois Senate Republicans - The doctors are in, but not many taking kids

Doctors Taking Less Medicaid Patients

Low pay from Medicaid keeps doctors away from primary care

Currently publicly financed programs like Medicare, Medicaid, All Kids, Commonwealth Care in Mass and nearly every other instance in the US have a much lower scope than a national plan would, but struggle to provide competitive payments to doctors (or payments on time). There's a very good chance a large percentage of primary care physicians would just not accept this new program.

So, you have doctor X with your employer paid PPO insurance. This new government plan is enacted and your employer drops coverage (something very attractive to many employers when you look at the cost savings). Then, you go on the government plan. Next, you find that doctor X doesn't accept this plan (for the reasons above) and now you've lost your family doctor. This is a very real fear and one that is getting very little response from the congress/White House.

It's all fine to try and change a flawed system. But if that change results in losing your primary doctor, longer waits and less access to other doctors - is it something really worth doing? It seems like people are so invested in changing the health care system that they are embracing any new idea - even if that idea results in more issues than we have now. And, IMO, that is very dangerous.

I think I "get" religion fairly well.

If the Christian religion didn't want to get dragged in to this debate, it shouldn't have included Genesis. :)

Sorry, you clearly don't get religion.

Oh I thought you were being sarcastic.

This thread just got awesome again.

:popcorn:

And? You are so willing to believe a man made tool. How do you know those fossils arent 6000 years old? Why do they have to be 6 million years old?

You are reading a book that says 6 million years old, other people are reading a book that says 6000 years old. But they are crazy or lunatics?

carbon dating

Um, I beleive in creationism. Just throwing that out there for those that like to paint with a broad brush.

Sometimes it's better to have people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. Combined with your bogus Obama's christian vs. muslim post (with paraphrased, out of context quotes), we are heading down the pooper.

Anyway, I believe in God and evolution, but one is faith and the other is science. My problem is the people advocating that creationism be taught in science class, or that people brand the front of their text books with disclaimers and such. When I was growing up, my book called it the Theory of Evolution and the Theory of Relativity. It was fairly clear that these scientific theories, and unlike creationism, testable. Not saying the Miller-Urey experiment was the be all and end all, but testable.

I like how the Obama-Muslim post was so cuckoo that nobody even bothered to refute it.

Yeah, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Sorry, you clearly don't know how to take a light hearted jab in stride.

One day a monkey jumped down from his tree, picked up a rock and told his fellow monkeys who were still up in the tree: "I've had it up to here with fruit, nuts and leaves. Daddy's gonna get himself some steak."

Sadly, said steak was raw because he hadn't discovered fire yet, but you get the picture.


Out of curiosity, does believing in creationism also require that you believe the Earth is roughly 6,000 years old (I ask this seriously, I don't know the nuances here)?

I mean, I can understand people believing in creationism. It's the "Young Earth" thing with which I have a problem. But I've always had a leaning towards Deism anyway.

Some good points made in this interview as suggestions to Democrats. It's something I've said several times in this thread. Stop courting the Republicans. The Democrats keep asking for 'bipartisan support' and the Republicans end up throwing pies at them every time in one form or another. If the support for this bill is good, pass the thing along partisan lines and let's get on with seeing whether health care reform under the Democrats works or doesn't work. Take a stand for once and vote on the thing rather than looking for cover in the form of any bipartisan support.

Huff TV: Arianna to White House: "Welcome to Reality" (VIDEO)

One does have to wonder that if the Dems are so confident in this plan, why do they need the Republicans at all? If they had that support, it would certainly mitigate the political damage if this was a disaster, but wouldn't the political gains be even greater if they could be the party that saved healthcare? What are they afraid of?

i think they're afraid (rightfully so) that if they do pass this on a straight party-line basis that there will be outcries before we even know how it is working that they essentially abused their power and abandoned democracy and rammed this thing through and so on and so forth.

I'm not saying I agree that they should just ram it through or not (i'm fairly undecided) but I think if they do just ram it through, regardless of if it will work or not you'll see an even larger gnashing of teeth by conservative media talking about how the Democrats have abandoned bipartisanship, etc. When really, bipartisanship takes two to make it work, and by all accounts it doesn't seem that the Republicans are that interested in making anything work - they've become the party of "NO" rather than the party of "No, but"/

Economic Scene - How the U.S. Surplus Became a Deficit - NYTimes.com

from the article:

Outside economists agree. The Medicare budget really is the linchpin of deficit reduction. But there are two problems with leaving the discussion there.

First, even if a health overhaul does pass, it may not include the tough measures needed to bring down spending. Ultimately, the only way to do so is to take money from doctors, drug makers and insurers, and it isn’t clear whether Mr. Obama and Congress have the stomach for that fight. So far, they have focused on ideas like preventive care that would do little to cut costs.

Second, even serious health care reform won’t be enough. Obama advisers acknowledge as much. They say that changes to the system would probably have a big effect on health spending starting in five or 10 years. The national debt, however, will grow dangerously large much sooner.

Mr. Orszag says the president is committed to a deficit equal to no more than 3 percent of gross domestic product within five to 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office projects a deficit of at least 4 percent for most of the next decade. Even that may turn out to be optimistic, since the government usually ends up spending more than it says it will. So Mr. Obama isn’t on course to meet his target.

But Congressional Republicans aren’t, either. Judd Gregg recently held up a chart on the Senate floor showing that Mr. Obama would increase the deficit — but failed to mention that much of the increase stemmed from extending Bush policies. In fact, unlike Mr. Obama, Republicans favor extending all the Bush tax cuts, which will send the deficit higher.

Republican leaders in the House, meanwhile, announced a plan last week to cut spending by $75 billion a year. But they made specific suggestions adding up to meager $5 billion. The remaining $70 billion was left vague. “The G.O.P. is not serious about cutting down spending,” the conservative Cato Institute concluded

Man, this thread is all over the place.

I think they are afraid of "owning it" by themselves, in case it doesn't work out well. It is silly and you raise a good point: if you aren't confident enough to push it through when you have a strong majority, why is it even on the table and why are we wasting time on it?

I guess it is no secret, but this is probably the most evidence that I have ever seen (along with the ongoing who was for/against the war post-2004) that almost all politicians are far more worried about self preservation than they are about doing their jobs once they are elected. Both sides of the aisle are afraid to do anything right now, less than a year after the last round of elections, because they don't want to be responsible for something that doesn't work.

More importantly, something that may not look like it's working in the short term- long term be damned

SI

That's a good point. Something could look bad short term, thus resulting in a reverse of power and nixing the plan before it really gets a chance to work.

Yeah, I mean something as complicated as health care reform will likely need time to succeed with adjustments needed along the way.

Swaggs' point is right on the money.

Maybe it's time to start talking term limits again.

Or not. We'll just end up with the same crooked people, under a different name.

If the public isn't smart enough to vote the idiots out, then it's their own damn fault.

Yeah, i mean look, the TARP money is starting to come back + interest.

Yeah, I posted that in June when the article first came out (maybe in the "Recession" thread, though). However, I noted that someone has done a pie chart from the article:

So, basically, a president who was in office for 8 years has contributed more the deficit than one who hasn't been in 8 months? Shocking...

Bush was a disaster on spending, but if this health care proposal goes through, that pie chart will look much different in 2011.

Look at where healthcare industry dollars have gone since 2006. It's not that hard to connect the dots from money to obstruction. Max Baucus is a particularly egregious case.

How do you determine the vast majority of idiots though?

With the amount of legislators that are "allowed" to vote against some bills when the numbers are believed to be there (and visa-versa), the water gets pretty well muddied. Add in the fact that many (most?) tend to vote based on what their legislator has done for their locality...and this is why I am (nearly) universally against increases in federal government size & authority.

This is also how consolidation happens since small businesses get run out due to the amount of legal hurdles required to be in compliance with. Sure...they handle quite a bit, but there is a threshold (obviously variable by industry) where buyouts and consolidations make sense (for the individual companies...not consumers/workers necessarily).

All that to say...this how companies start down the road of too big to fail.

I'm not sure doctor consolidation is in the best interest of patients. When you go from 9-10 independent practices to one big practice, it seems like the doctors feel less like their practice is a "labor of love" and more like a cog in a bigger wheel. I think you will find the quality of care will suffer as more doctors feel like hospital/ER residents instead of private practice owners.

Eww, as I recall a number of experiences with staff doctors as opposed to private practice doctors.

Maybe that's actually the secret to paying for the plan. If the level of care & concern of the staff physicians I've run across in the past few years is indicative, we'll see steady population reductions pretty quickly.

Read the whole NYT Article. Many of your questions are answered. You may not agree, but the article addresses a lot of those points.

Yeah, but it's already been heading that way over the past decade long before the current health care debate heated up.

SI

Ingenious! :D

SI

Really good article by David Frum.

http://www.theweek.com/bullpen/colum...ourts_violence

That small but non-zero chance we were talking about around and after the election is getting larger. I wonder if that's the primary reason for Biden being chosen as the VP- veteran statesman who is ready for the Presidency.

SI

The rhetoric hasn't changed over the last 8+ years, all that's changed is the target.

Edit: A quick google search tells me that the Bush/Nazi stuff was even more elaborate than I remembered.

I'm not sure I remember a former Dem VP candidate claiming Bush wanted old people and the mentally handicapped to die.

There is no doubt that Palin is being rather unethical in her statements at this time as a role model for some. That being said, As Ive pointed out before to MBBF during th campaign and now, if you dont "Believe" the verbiage coming out of one of the mouthpieces OR you dont trust one of the candidates/mouthpieces, than there is no debate anymore. All you have is spin, rhetoric, and faux-shock and a willingness to do anything to 'win' (whatever that means).

There was plenty of similar fear-mongering about invasions and police states and such.

It's only when that stuff comes from the "other" party is it considered "dangerous"

Why do people here only want to talk about Palin and the extremes? Why not pick a fairer fight? Somebody made that point before and its a good one. If it's Palin, death counsels or whatever, there's this enthusiasm here, it's like, "HEY, I can WIN this argument!". There isn't the same enthusiasm about the regular debate, the regular concerns.

And it turns out all they were doing was spying on our email, tapping our phones, firing judges for political reasons, torturing people, and invading countries on faulty intelligence.

SI

Yeah, I mean protesting that someone should face war crimes charges is exactly the same as saying they should be violently removed from office.

We had the latter with Bush as well.

Yep, I remember all of those Bush town hall meetings where folks brought guns. And all of those mainstream voices in the Democratic party advocating violent solutions.

What's your point, ultimately? Democrats are perfect? That this health care plan must be the right thing to do because Palin's an idiot?

I don't agree with Palin, or the town hall behavior. But why are people here so obsessed with it? It's incredibly obnoxious. You've got your team colors and you want to fight the other team. You're always right and they're always wrong. You're smart and they're ignorant.

It's depressing because there's no real thoughts, no real ideas, no non-sheep viewpoints. It's awful if Obama is called a socialist but you could care less if Bush is called a nazi. People's opinions are all set in stone before we know anything, they just loyally line up with their team.

The number of people that can fault with their own party, or respect a differing opinion is getting smaller every day. If you're an Obama guy you just CAN'T ever criticize him. It's like that part of the brain is missing.

And MBBF gets get beat up on for posting links when that's all we see from other side as well. It's really bizzare - you go out on the internet, find the opponents with the easiest viewpoints to argue against, and make that the entire focus of any healthcare debate. Why is everyone so afraid of the merits of this thing? Why do they need Palin to make this look like a good idea?

No, the point is that the rhetoric is not exactly the same, as you were trying to make it out to be.

No one has claimed this.


The point is that Palin's comments are irresponsible. That should be evident to anyone no matter what they think of the health care proposal.

In the article that started this little tangent, Frum was critical of the plan and other policies. It's possible to dislike the plan and also dislike the type of rhetoric being used, and I'm sure you could figure that out if you could get beyond your default "omg liberuls wur meen 2 boosh!" post.

well to be fair the Bush family has/had legitimate historical business ties with powerful Nazi party members.

Please, I'm still trying to figure out what you contribute here that's so brilliant as to repeatedly criticize my posts. I could just fall in line with the masses but don't we have like 15 identical posters in this thread who pretty much share a brain?

A few pages ago, Jon made a joke about dumb voters, and Rainmaker went on a tantrum about how Republicans have dumb people too. Where was the larrymcg421 thread police then? Why didn't you have a problem with that?

That's the essence of the thing that annoys me about the team politics. You disagree with me, so you invalidate my opinions. You agree with Rainmaker, so his identical tactic is pefectly OK.

Point being? It's OK to call him a Nazi or sell a t-shirt with his face and a swastika? Haven't you criticized people for refering to Obama as a Muslim? That connection is much closer.

(The list of Americans who did business with Germany in the 1930s is quite long, by the way. Actually, it would include anyone of note). To use this "connection" to justify calling Bush a Nazi is just, I mean, can you hear yourself?

You are stopping the analysis at the name calling. I don't think anyone would deny that each president was called these things. But how folks react to the name calling is much different. There is currently a much more violent overtone than existed with Bush.

Nah...point not being it's okay to call him a Nazi or sell t-shirts like that. Just that there's more of a basis in fact for referring to Bush in that way then Obama (although not correct). Just like there's more of a basis in fact for referring to Obama as a Muslim (although also not correct) than Bush.

And yes the list of Americans who did business in Germany in the 30's is quite long. But the list of those who continued to do business until their assets were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act is a lot shorter. And of those families how many used the profits gained to establish a political dynasty?

The irony of this is I never see you go after Jon or MBBF or dutch or anyone else that uses the tactics on the right. So by your own reasoning, you're playing the same team politics that you purport to have a problem with, except you do it while pretending to be above it. That's what I really have a problem with, and I took a shot at Bucc for doing the same exact thing a while back.

And if you only go back to a previous page, I noted my displeasure with Christians being painted with a broad brush, as I am one myself.

And you make fun of the birthers? What about Joe Kennedy for goodness sakes?