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Post by doctork on Feb 27, 2012 22:09:22 GMT -5
I would shake hands with the President if the opportunity presented itself, as I have respect for the office, if not necessarily for the individual office holder. For the Vice-President, not so much. I would avoid shaking hands with Mr. Cheney if at all possible. I am not sure if he is evil, but I suspect so. I certainly believe he is Not A Nice person. However, if he stood in front of me and offered to shake hands, I would do so, as to decline would be rude and would lower myself to his level, something I would not care to do.
Then I would unobtrusively go and wash my hands.
Who is Elizabeth Marshall?
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Post by BoatBabe on Feb 27, 2012 23:43:16 GMT -5
I think some of the ability to see an "evil" person comes from hindsight.
Sometimes, at the moment without the help of history, one does not know who is an "evil" person or who will turn into one.
The "evil" people described here have already been judged by long or short term history. Not that I would equate Dick Cheney with Hitler, but there is a certain amount of history that you used to make your decisions.
There are lots of really bad people who were described as charming and delightful by their contemporaries until history exposed them.
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Post by joew on Feb 28, 2012 1:25:12 GMT -5
Margaret Marshall was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts when they decided that the people had intended to allow same-sex marriage when they passed the equal rights amendment, even though (as Justice Cordy pointed out in his dissent) the proponents of the amendment had assured the voters that it would do no such thing.
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Post by doctork on Feb 29, 2012 2:20:56 GMT -5
Despite being at work in Urgent Care, I did have a couple minutes to check the internet and see that Mitt Romney won both Michigan and Arizona. Though I have defended Senator Santorum, I do feel that his views are too extreme for him to be a good President.
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Post by Jane on Feb 29, 2012 12:30:52 GMT -5
Mitt carried Michigan, but I'm ashamed to report that Santorem won this county. Of course, Obama carried the county during the last election. I don't know how many people voted.
I think it's pretty much over for anyone but Mitt. If he'd lost Michigan, there was talk of a brokered convention (at least, I think that's the term) with the GOP dragging in Jeb Bush, Chris Christie or Mitch Daniels at the last minute. I think any one of those would have a better shot at Obama, at least until they peaked and then tanked, like all the rest of the Republicans except for Romney. And no one has ever seemed very excited about him.
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Post by doctork on Mar 3, 2012 11:08:00 GMT -5
I do not and have never lived in tornado country, though I do understand they can hit anywhere. For example, Arizona is not tornado country, and tornadoes "never" hit Arizona, but there was one in Bellemont last fall, just outside Flagstaff. We had a number of guests at the Residence Inn who were there while their homes were repaired from tornado damage.
But - I see these news reports of people who were swept out of the second story of their homes. Why were they on the second floor? Aren't you supposed to go down in the basement when a tornado is coming? And failing that, go into the bathroom and preferably crouch in the tub, as that is in the interior (less flying glass and windows) and most protected area of the home?
Don't you hear the tornado? Do they come that fast? Aren't there sirens? Do they arrive so fast there is no time for sirens?
Years ago I was driving in the middle of urban Denver, mid-afternoon, and saw these ominous storm clouds. I turned on the radio and heard reports of tornadoes - in Denver! I thought they did not strike big cities. Then I saw a funnel cloud and was weighing whether to keep on heading for home (where we had a basement) or to stop the car and dive for some side-of-the-road culvert. Which I had heard is what you should do if driving and hear a tornado warning.
It was all over the local news that night - serious damage in southwest Denver (we lived in east Denver) and relatively minor damage to some homes near where I had been driving. I thought it was scary, and I wouldn't have dreamed of "storm chasing."
No storm chasing for me, I'd be in the basement. Actually, I wouldn't live in tornado country to begin with.
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Post by BoatBabe on Mar 3, 2012 13:55:55 GMT -5
Nasty news of tornado damage from friends of ours who do live in Tornado Country, wherever that may be these days.
They had enough warning to get into the basement. Apparently that is not always the case.
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Post by doctork on Mar 24, 2012 19:06:40 GMT -5
Dick Cheney had a heart transplant today. I am surprised.
I thought he must be too sick to have a transplant and/or the mortality was too high for such surgery for him. Otherwise, I'd have thought he would just buy himself a heart and had the surgery a long time ago. Those UNOS people must have been really hard-assed to hold the line against the VP getting his transplant on demand.
Wonder what happened? Maybe he really did wait in line just like everybody else.
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Post by joew on Mar 24, 2012 21:08:16 GMT -5
Interesting point, dock. I don't think it would have occurred to me.
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Post by BoatBabe on Mar 24, 2012 21:24:27 GMT -5
Interesting, indeed.
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Post by jspnrvr on Mar 25, 2012 7:18:36 GMT -5
The former Vice-President was on the wait list for 20 months.
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Post by doctork on Mar 25, 2012 15:35:30 GMT -5
The former Vice-President was on the wait list for 20 months. Is that 20 month wait list documented? He is a wealthy man who could easily have bought his way to the top of the list in certain environments. I would be medically inclined to believe that the risk:benefit ratio changed to make the transplant more feasible for him, i.e. he got clinically worse on his LVAD, which is only designed for a few weeks' use, or the surgical and anesthetic technology improved to lessen his surgical risk. After 5 heart attacks and multiple CABG, he probably had only minimally functional myocardium, so had he been willing to undergo the surgical risk, he would have been near the top of the list based on how ill he was. The criteria are generally based on how sick you are (how likely to die without the transplant) as well as the availability of donors in your "vicinity" (which includes length of organ viability in transit). Areas with high organ donor rates become unhappy if all the donated organs go elsewhere while their locals die waiting. [NB: good friend from college works for UNOS]
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Post by jspnrvr on Mar 25, 2012 16:11:55 GMT -5
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Post by jspnrvr on Mar 25, 2012 16:20:58 GMT -5
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Post by doctork on Mar 26, 2012 0:22:12 GMT -5
I am skeptical of both sources mainly because I saw Cheney in several interviews last year saying that he did not want a transplant, not that he was waiting for one or was on a wait list.
Now the PR machine suddenly says he "waited 20 months."
It's really none of my business which is the "real story," nor are we likely to learn it, so I'll just wish him a full recovery.
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Post by doctork on Apr 1, 2012 12:38:26 GMT -5
I was reading a bit more about Stephen Dinan of The Shift Network, organizer of Spring of Sustainability. He wrote a commentary on Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue that I thought was interesting. We could use less polarization, reinstitution of civility and more understanding of all points of view without the demonization so rampant today.
I come away from reading Going Rogue feeling that it would be a useful act of citizenship for all those who feel prejudice towards her to read her book and meet her on her own turf in order to heal the lingering prejudices. I feel more balanced for having done so. I would also urge conservatives who hate or fear Obama to read his autobiography to better understand the man behind the political leader and thus heal their own biases.
The way I see it, healing the rift between Democrats and Republicans helps to heal the rift in our own hearts. The truth is that each party tends to champion one side of America's core values and we need both to operate in complementary and respectful ways for us to address the challenges we face. As each of us heals that prejudice in ourselves, we truly become part of the solution.
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Post by doctork on Apr 6, 2012 9:49:05 GMT -5
have you seen the story about this whiny Samantha brick, the women who is so beautiful that other women hate her?
Boo-f***in'-hoo. She is pretty, but I have known lots of pretty women who nobody hates them for being pretty. Or even beautiful.
I spose there is a paucity of real news today.
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Post by Jane on Apr 6, 2012 17:47:29 GMT -5
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Post by BoatBabe on Apr 6, 2012 23:52:14 GMT -5
What's up with the F-18 crashing in Virginia Beach?
I got home too late to see the news . . .
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Post by doctork on Apr 7, 2012 13:58:41 GMT -5
I haven't seen any solid explanation of what happened with that F-18, other than "It crashed shortly after take-off." I looked at the story the minute it came over the wires, as I was online while eating lunch "at my desk." I used to live in Tidewater Virginia and know folks there, so I was worried.
Most plane crashes happen either on take-off or landing, but for a military plane to crash into a populated neighborhood is distinctly unusual, especially since the ocean was right there, and if your plane is going down, you go down in the water, not into apartment buildings and houses. The F-18 is a very sophisticated aircraft that can just about fly itself, compensating for a lot of "pilot error."
So who knows? The crash will be investigated in detail, and perhaps in a year or two, the military will announce what happened. Or not.
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Post by doctork on Apr 17, 2012 13:52:59 GMT -5
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Post by doctork on Apr 20, 2012 22:01:53 GMT -5
It's Earth Day! Funny, I thought it was April 22, but never mind, it's close enough for government work.
Speaking of which, do you recall which president created the EPA? It was Richard Nixon. He'd be kicked out of the Republican Party nowadays since not only did he endorse protecting the environment, but he was in favor of national health care, and he signed off on Title 9 which created sports and sports scholarship opportunities for female athletes in college.
I used to say of RMN, "Even a stopped clock is right twice a day." But that is 3 times!
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Post by doctork on Apr 22, 2012 15:41:09 GMT -5
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Post by gailkate on Apr 22, 2012 18:31:55 GMT -5
One has to subscribe to read her article. Maybe you could summarize.
On a vaguely related topic, I read that some people are prediciting the end of newspapers by something like 2015. The 3 that will remain are WSJ, NYT and USA. What a stunning concept. Of course there will be little local papers, but no one else will be attempting to cover national and int'l news. If you're not motivated to read online, it will be TV and - I guess if you can afford it - those 3 remaining papers. Ben Franklin would upchuck.
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Post by doctork on Apr 22, 2012 23:37:59 GMT -5
Hmmm, I thought my subscription had ended so if I could read it everyone could. Guess not.
Peggy Noonan comments on "flash mobs/flash robs;" a TS"O" feels up a pax rather intimately and then strolls off while leaving her in tears (and it was caught on a cellphone and then posted to YouTube); the GSA fiasco in Las Vegas; and the Secret Service adventures in Colombia. PN remarks that the polls on "Is the nation on the wrong track?" is more of a question of character than culture or politics.
She concludes:
//The leveling or deterioration of public behavior has got to be worrying people who have enough years on them to judge with some perspective.
Something seems to be going terribly wrong.
Maybe we have to stop and think about this.//
And as an aside - I think that the Washington Post will likely continue as a print newspaper also, and I wouldn't dismiss the local papers, as they are important - locally. Then too, vinyl is coming back in music, who who knows what will happen with print news?
I just don't think the alternative forms are as satisfying as the print paper, at least on Sundays.
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Post by doctork on Jun 1, 2012 9:15:22 GMT -5
John Edwards has been acquitted of one charge, mistrial/deadlock on the other five charges.
I do not really understand the fine points of the charges, but it seemed to me that they were rather trumped up; Edwards is a cad, but not an obvious lawbreaker. Were I a cad, I would probably have done the same as Edwards, try to cover up the affair to protect my sick spouse.
At least Edwards acknowledged his 4 year old daughter favorably, as I think it would be difficult for her to grow up knowing her father spent all his energy denying her existence. And I thought his daughter Kate comported herself well in what must have been a very tough experience.
It was a very expensive trial to pursue and I wonder what possessed the Justice Department to go after Edwards so aggressively when their evidence was weak.
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Post by BoatBabe on Jun 1, 2012 21:34:41 GMT -5
I've heard it said that it is easier, and gets more press coverage, for the Justice Department to go after "Stars," i.e. Edwards and Roger Clemens, than real criminals. More bang for the buck. Makes it look like they are doing something.
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Post by doctork on Jun 2, 2012 8:44:03 GMT -5
I've heard it said that it is easier, and gets more press coverage, for the Justice Department to go after "Stars," i.e. Edwards and Roger Clemens, than real criminals. More bang for the buck. Makes it look like they are doing something. Is it then another case of the emperor having no clothes? Has the Justice Department not noticed that Americans are aware that extended persecution of a baseball player and a disgraced has-been politician is a waste of money? Especially when drug violence is rampant and corporations create billions in damage with barely a slap on the wrist? I suppose those are rhetorical questions. I should go back to watching the Kardashians and American Idol.
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Post by BoatBabe on Jun 2, 2012 10:53:33 GMT -5
Is it then another case of the emperor having no clothes? Has the Justice Department not noticed that Americans are aware that extended persecution of a baseball player and a disgraced has-been politician is a waste of money? Especially when drug violence is rampant and corporations create billions in damage with barely a slap on the wrist? I suppose those are rhetorical questions. I should go back to watching the Kardashians and American Idol. One must have "started" watching them in order to "go back." ;D Personally, I would like to see everyone on every level, who produced and sold Liars' Loans and NINJA [No Income, No Job or Assets] Loans (amassing a TON of money in commissions and bonuses, which was mostly spent as though they were drunken sailors in their first port-of-call in 12 years) FINED 100% of their ill-gotten gains and sentenced to cleaning public toilets with toothbrushes. That includes the Head Honchos of the dead Washington Mutual, who have never paid one damn dime for their business immorality. Who the hell came up with the term "Toxic Assets" anyhoo? Was it coined before or after The Bubble busted? The money collected from the fines would be used to pay off the National Debt, and the remainder would replace the missing funds from Social Security, money that was originally paid by hard-working Americans their entire lives. Maybe I need to find out who " the Kardashians" are . . . or were . . . or whatever . . . ;D
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Post by joew on Jun 2, 2012 15:48:33 GMT -5
I think it's a good idea to try to get the message across that perjury is not to be tolerated. I get the impression that it's rampant, and it really undercuts the effectiveness of our judicial system. But you need a very winnable case that the public will pay attention to.
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