Dosborne wrote: And yet the Berkeley Earth group (funded in part by the Koch brothers) found that there is in fact a anthropogenic factor involved in the current climate change we are seeing. As far as oversight and regulations in the drug industry. Despite all of the oversight. New and sometimes lethal side effects result in drugs being pulled off the market every year. But what you and others here seem to be suggesting is that we reduce the oversight and regulation of new drugs. Leading to more people being injured by or even dying as a result? --How Obamacare Could Kill Your Kids, and Their Kids Too
Dear Comrade Dos1,
I'm going to treat your comment as two separate and distinct incoherent ramblings, rather than one separate and distinct incoherent rambling. It's easier to do it that way than it is to figure out what the Berkeley Earth group, the Koch brothers, and climate change have to do with oversight in the drug business.
First, as to the Berkeley Earth group: Whether or not man has caused global warming isn’t really the question.
The question that we’re asking now is to what extent the so-called climate change models have predictive value, when in fact, 114 out of 117 predictions made in regards to global warming have proven wrong.
Warming forecasts have consistently overstated the amount of warming that’s happening. They also missed the decade and a half long pause in global warming that we’re currently experiencing.
Dr. Roy Spencer has estimated that as many as 95% of the global warming models have just been flat out wrong.
Perhaps this is a radical idea, but maybe, just maybe, the settled science crowd ought to consider this: Maybe global warming is the Earth’s natural way of providing for a more hospitable environment for a growing human population. Warmer weather, more food? That kind of thing?
Because the real threat to man’s existence isn’t global warming, but rather in a new Ice Age.
If man actually exerts an upward pressure in global temperatures, then thank God for man.
Dear Comrade Dos2,
I’ve never suggested that there shouldn’t be some sort of oversight and testing method in regards to drug development. I have suggested that there have been times in our history—the late 1970s come to mind-- when oversight has stifled the drug development business.
But in either event, that’s not what the article you commented on talked about.
What it talked about was how Obamacare could adversely affect capital activities related to drug development, thereby retarding the development of new drugs and new medical devices and procedures.
Believe it or not, power and profit are still the two greatest incentives in human achievement.
Why should I sacrifice profit, which after all is open to all, so that a narrow set of people who have power can retain power and thereby profit?
Xovnet wrote: Putin is old enough to remember the last time America elected incompetence they followed him with Ronald Reagan. He doesn't want to go too nuts this time, because he probably knows what's coming in thirty months. --Obama's Make Up Sex with Russia
Dear Comrade Xovnet,
Wow, that sounds exactly like an old Soviet style disinformation campaign—don’t you mean SovNet?
You seem to be saying that Ukraine should just lie back and enjoy it. I mean they brought it on themselves, right? Look at how they dress. You know they want it.
Looters don't stop looting because they think in stopping the police will respond less quickly next time; rapists don't stop raping because someday the laws might be tougher on them.
Dictators bent on expansion, especially ones who believe that their next opponent will be tougher than the current opponent, are going to go as far as they can until someone stops them.
It's the definition of an opportunist, like Putin.
And it's the reason why the price of freedom is eternal vigilance and not: “vigilance sometimes, and other times kind of vigilant.”
Eternal. Always.
Which part of those words don't liberals understand?
All parts, actually.
Because for Obama to stand up to Vladimir Putin now would require a painful admission that the administration's foreign policy has been eternally screwed up, as in always.
When the history of this administration is written, the story won't be how Obama was weak, the story will be how Obama wrote off Eastern Europe as unimportant because they were just nations of white people that he couldn't be bothered about.
Obama is undeniably-- post reconstruction-- the biggest racist we have ever had as president of the United States.
The man has set race relations back 40 years.
And, he's also weak.
He's like the battered spouse who goes to extremes of independence in order to show how independent they’ve become.
The reality is that the extremes just show how fragile their psyche still is.
Our president's extreme views on race, politics and wealth expose a fragile and fragmented psyche; a psyche that only Republicans have been too stupid to exploit.
Ed53 wrote: We are destined to repeat history because the lessons of history are inconvenient and undesirable. Sometime around 1977 or 1978 Fortune magazine had an article on the lack of medical research within the countries with socialized medicine. --How Obamacare Could Kill Your Kids, and Their Kids Too
Dear Ed,
Very true.
The numbers show that the bulk of innovation-- and money-- comes from the United States when it comes to medical innovation and research.
And while things aren’t bad right now, wait until we get to the tough part of Obamacare when costs have to be cut and rationing is implemented.
An article from Forbes about Britain's National Health Service shows what I mean:
They’ve foregone cutting-edge medical treatments available in the United States, told by their leaders that these new therapies were no better than the old ones — just more expensive. At least in Britain, they thought, everyone has access to basic health care. That has to be better than the situation in America, where tens of millions of people lack health insurance, right?
Wrong, the article says:
A report released in October by Britain’s health regulator found that a stunning 20 percent of hospitals were failing to provide the minimum standard of care legally required for elderly patients.
A system like Obamacare, which disproportionately concentrates on bulk cost, will inevitably transfer more dollars to benefits used today at the expense of research. And as the Forbes article points out, they can’t even do the minimum mission of providing basic care today.
Ron wrote: Hi John, I hope that you had a Happy Easter and that you spent some time in prayer. Anyway, Stop the scare tactics: "Obamacare could kill your kids and theirs too". The Republicans are getting nervous because the Republican mantra against the ACA seems to be backfiring on them, so I guess the Repubs will go into high gear with the scare tactics. --How Obamacare Could Kill Your Kids, and Their Kids Too
Dear Ron,
As you know already, I spend time in prayer every day.
In 2006 I made a commitment to pray one mystery of the Rosary every single day. Since today is Sunday, I will be praying the Glorious Mysteries, which includes the resurrection, the ascension into heaven, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the assumption into heaven and the coronation. After I'm done with the Rosary, I pray the Divine Mercy chaplet.
Since you are an avowed Catholic, Ron, I would invite you to do the same thing.It's made a big difference in my life.
I’m no angel, either. If I get into Heaven, I expect it will because of a loving God, not because I deserve it. So, prayer helps.
The Republicans don't actually have to go into high gear with scare tactics. The truth with Obama, Obamacare and the progressive left is scary enough.
I don't know which polls you've been reading, but the ones I'm looking at say that Obamacare is one of the most unpopular things any president has done ever.
Obama also remains an unpopular president.Imagine how bad it would be if the popular press piled on him in the same way that they piled on Bush everyday.
Even with a bump from the press, Obama manages to maintain an almost double-digit gap between approval and disapproval.
A staggering 60% + of Americans believe that the country is on the wrong path.
And here's something to consider: All the really bad stuff inside Obamacare has been postponed.
So yeah.
Prayer. It’s all we got left.
H13 wrote: This is perhaps the most confusing article I've read recently. The headline would have you believe it's about Chicago and the increasing violence under the Super Liberal Mayor. But it really has much to do with the stock market. Sure, there's some mention of Rahm, but I believe the attempt to compare his failure as the Mayor with the current success of the stock market based on "Momentum" is wildly unconnected. --Rahm Reaches Rock Bottom; Cites 'Values'
Dear Comrade H,
No, I just think you don't get it.
Rahm Emanuel, like Barack Obama, was elected based on momentum. It's kind of like this year when Republicans are widely expected to make gains in the House and the Senate because the other side is out of favor.
This is a common phenomena in American politics.It's actually designed into our system of government.
And once the hopey, changey momentum candidate wins, they either deliver or they don't.
In his day, Ronald Reagan was a hopey, changey candidate, who won because the other side was out of favor. Reagan however delivered real, substantive change, thus is considered one of the most successful presidents since Roosevelt. Emanuel on the other hand, has failed to capitalize on his momentum, has failed to provide any real substantive change from Chicago machine politics.
The market too has moments like that, when the premium investors put on stocks expands because other investments are out of favor. Over a period of time either investor confidence in stocks is buoyed, or not.
Maybe if you had the article read aloud to you, you'd better understand it.
Ortheadnew write:A question unanswered is why the UAW would drop their case with the NLRB in order to pursue a settlement by the Senate. Why not pursue both paths? And it seems that the UAW has a right to object when the state of Tennessee offered a $300 million bribe to Volkswagen on the condition that the Volkswagen workers rejected union overtures to organize. The resultant threats to the voting workers probably caused them to vote against their own best interests by rejecting the union.Harry Truman stated, "If I were a working man, the first thing I would do would be to join a union." --UAW to Try U.S. Senate 'Fix' for Survival
Dear Comrade Orthead,
Why in the world would the UAW have the right to object to the state of Tennessee offering Volkswagen $300 million in incentives, provided that the workers rejected the union contract?
You're supposing that the workers are too stupid to understand what's in their own best interest.
What is very clear from the evidence is that Volkswagen stayed out of the voting and allowed the workers to make up their own mind.
This is what I say to union folks: You want to be involved in politics, then stop whining when politics doesn't go your way. You want to go back to bargaining for employees, rather than bargaining for politicians, then be my guest.
Until that time, suck it.
You lost. Get over it.
And let me remind you, while Harry Truman was a supporter of unions, he also broke up one strike by threatening to conscript workers into the United States Army if their union did not start bargaining in good faith.
Again, welcome to politics.
OldMom wrote: Chicago is NOT Illinois. True, it sucks all our tax money, has screwed us by electing their Chicago gangsters as governors, and calls Illinois it's state, but there are a lot of miles between Chicago and Cairo, and a lot of nice people live between those cities. People who work for a living, pay their taxes, don't go around shooting each other, know their neighbors (and help them when they need it). The cities downstate might have a "rush minute", but folks don't spend hours getting to or from work. One of the biggest industries in downstate IL is the prison industry, 90% full of Chicago hoods... including a couple of past governors (from Chicago). The name Chicago was the Indian name for the swampy area where the city started. It means "place of a bad smell." Back then, it referred to the wild onions that grew there. Now, it refers to stinking politics and greedy politicians.-- Poll: Even Illinois is Sick of Obama
Dear Comrade Mom,
Then explain Ray LaHood, Republican from Peoria, Illinois.
When I was a kid I can remember Big Jim Thompson, Republican, running for governor, and wouldn't you know it, within a month of winning—again-- he'd break his promise to not raise taxes, with a sigh…and raise taxes.
Seriously, if you think that the only problem with Illinois politics is inside the borders of Cook County, then you're part of the problem in Illinois.
The whole freaking state is corrupt.
Both sides plunder the state treasury for narrow bipartisan purposes, and it doesn’t matter if Republicans work for Democrats or Democrats work for Republicans as long as everyone gets a piece of the action.
DoctorRoy wrote: Well any state that re-elects David Vitter over and over shouldn't be criticizing anyone. He is the poster boy for corruption and moral decay. He should have been run out of town on a rail years ago but you all just keep apologizing for him and sending him back. As a matter of fact I'll go one step further and say if you believe he deserves to be in the United States Senate you have lost all moral authority to criticize any politician. Poll: Even Illinois is Sick of Obama
Dear Comrade Doctor,
There are still more Illinois governors in prison than there are Louisiana governors in prison.And let’s face it, as I wrote earlier this week, the United States Senate isn’t a group filled with choirboys.
How come Harry Reid gets a pass from Democrats all the time?Because he’s from Nevada?
Plus how do you expect anyone to take somebody from Illinois seriously about having the moral authority to judge anybody or criticize any politician, especially you, Comrade Doctor, whose only claim to moral authority is “Bush did it first?”
Wally21 wrote: I am sure Chicago isn't too pleased that you claim it as your home town. --Poll: Even Illinois is Sick of Obama
Dear Comrade Wally,
I’m sure that Chicago doesn’t care one way or another.
I was never counting on the city’s support when I ran for president anyway.
In fact, I think it would be much better to have their hostility.
I don’t charge them for my opinion, and they don’t charge me for their opinion, as Mark Twain said. The books are square.
That’s it for this week,
V/r,
JR
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