Mickey

The assault was pretty much expected long before it began so I am pessimistic that any of these guys hung around waiting to get killed. I am sure they know that they can't win a conventional fight of any kind and can only succeed with hit and run ambushes, suicide bombs and kidnappings. That being the case, why would they hang around to get in a fight they can't win? I hope they were that stupid, I really do. I am afraid that all we can do is pacify the ground we take there be it by killing those that remain or driving the rest to some other location. There is something to be said for having accomplished that but it won't stop the same crap we have been seeing month after month, day after day. It just moves it around. Sorry, but after last week I can't help but be a pessimist.

Do you know how much money she has donated to charities or are you just assuming that it isn't enough? How much does one have to contribute to not be judged a hypocrite for thinking that the government should do more for the poor and disadvantaged in your book of judgment?

But Roe specifically grants the rigth to decide to have an abortion to the individual and prohibits the government from being involved. Do you not see that if you grant the government jurisdiction over reproductive decisions, you make the type of abortions by the state that so worries you more likely to occur? You can't give the the right to make a reproductive decision (carry baby to term) to the government without also giving them the theoretical right to control other reproductive decisions (not to carry the baby to term). If Roe is overturned, in the absence of a right to privacy: Government can override a person's decison to terminate a pregnancy. Government can override a person's decison to carry a pregnancy to term. Under Roe, due to the right of privacy it defines: Government can't override a person's decision to terminat a pregnancy. Government can't override a person's decision to carry a pregnancy to term. How would you protect against government intereference with reproductive rights by giving the government the right to interfere with reproductive decisions?

The constitution also doesn't specifically state that the government can't stop you from writing a satirical essay on the mating habits of blind mice but "free speech" generally covers it. Roe, its predecessors and progeny, are based on a Right to Privacy arising from the Due Process Clause. That Right to Privacy, given meat by the Roe decision, would easily prohibit the State from forcing a woman to have an abortion. Actually, that Right to Privacy would be far easier to construe as prohibiting forced abortion than prohibiting the state from outlawing abortion. Read the opinon. Here is a blurb that makes it clear that the ruling is based on a Right to Privacy grounded in the Due Process Clause: "State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy." This right is not absolute. In order for that right to be by-passed by the state, the state would have to demonstrate a "compelling state interest". There are reams of cases that help give guidance as to what constitutes a "compelling state interest". It is abundantly clear that the state would have a difficult time to the point of absurdly impossible, to show that it has a "compelling state interest" in forcing a particular woman to abort a particular child. Broadening Roe's domain would be to broaden the right to privacy and by expanding the realm of individual action and restricting the power of the state over that realm. If Roe were expanded, state power would shrink. I am beginning to sense that you may have a fundamental misunderstanding of the decision in Roe. It is not a case that at all expands governmental power, quite the opposite. It is a landmark in a line of cases going back to 1891 that recognizes a Right to Privacy that restricts governmental power. Your arguments seem to indicate that you see the ruling as somehow expanding the government's power over individuals. The only part of the ruling that could lead to that concern is where it finds that at the point of viability, the state's interest in protecting the unborn child is compelling enough to permit it to make abortion illegal from that point of the pregnancy on. If that is the part that concerns you, the answer is additional case law that goes further than Roe and prevents the state from prohibiting abortion even past the point of viability. An expansion of Roe would therefore make it less likely that the state could ever force an abortion and if that is your concern, you should be advocating an expansion of Roe, not it being overturned. Here is a link to the opinion in the Roe case, tell me where it is that you see it granting government increased rather than decreased power over the reproductive decisons of individuals. Roe v. Wade

I am hoping that the country is solid enough that we will muddle through whether it is their bone head running the show or our bone head. I also am hoping that Bush has learned from his mistakes despite his understandable reluctance to admit to them publicly. As for Iraq, I said before the election that there was little difference between Kerry and Bush on Iraq. The next President was going to have no choice but to try and make a success of that war no matter who that ended up being. My hopes and prayers are focused on that now, winning that war is the key that opens many doors even though I greatly fear that we are deluding ourselves into thinking that a stable democracy in Iraq or Afghanistatn will last any longer than the presence of our troops. On domestic issues I am nothing less than distraught. The very idea that the Constitution is going to be used for the first time to expand the government's right to interefere with individual freedom rather than to preserve individual freedom as against the power of the state makes me positively ill. As for abortion, there is likely less to worry about there. The hope that the court can be stacked to finally get a majority to overturn Roe lessens the need for its opponents to push for yet another constitutional amendment. If O'Connor hangs on, they won't be able to get that majority unless another justice dies. Besides, as time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult to overturn Roe as it has become the foundation for so many other rulings, many unrelated to abortion. It is not exactly as bad as overturning Marbury but that is the general idea. I also wonder if overturning Roe would be the punch in the mouth many people who take these freedoms for granted need to wake up.

Given what we need, offensive lineman, the second rounders would be fine. I think we need more depth at WR since Moulds can't play forever and neither Reed nor Sam Aiken look to be worthy of being starters. Throw in the loss of Shaw and I think we need to go for yet another WR. Drew is likely gone next year and if that is the case, we need a back up for JP. We will probably look for a veteran to fill that role but another young QB is not out of the question. I don't think Posey is really as good as the rest of the defense so we should keep our eye out for a LB with speed. A guard, a center and even another tackle would be high on the list, especially guard. FS remains a concern as Reese is adequate at best. I am not happy with either McGee or Thomas as a starting CB and if the plan is to move Vincent to FS, then we would have to move CB up to near the top of the list. One way to look at what we need is to look at who you would like to see off the roster next year. I think Wire, Reed, Pucillo, Denney, Haggan, Drew, Neufeld and Smith are all pretty high on the list of guys that will likely be gone. That means we need guards big time.

Yes, in the most desperate moment of a person's life what a shock it is to find that they would grasp at any straw, any hope no matter how faint, to stave off death. If anything it is indicative of just how desperately we need there to be a God to make the certainty of death a palatable, endurable horror. We need him so desperately that if he did not exist, surely, with our imaginations, we would have invented him to spare us the agony of our own mortality and give life to the greatest of human yearnings, immortality.

Apparently you see no design in the process of natural selection, why? Order can come from chaos and disorder. Witness snowflakes, sand dunes and graded river beds. When you talk of believing in "creation", do you refer to believing in the literal truth of the biblical story of creation or something else? Though I do not agree with them, plenty of scientists and men of faith see no conflict between belief in a divine creator and evolution. The conflict only arises with those whose literal interpretation of the bible leaves them no choice but to deny science.

I'm not sure what the existence of a divine being has to do with evolution and common descent. I can wager perfectly well on the existence of God without at the same time betting on the literal truth of the bible and the story of Genesis. My comment on schools was not a statement on what science is taught in schools. What I would like to see is creationism taught in place of evolution in schools not attended by my children. A number of school districts in a number of states would like to do just that and since my kids don't go to those schools, I say great, let them teach that all they want, somebody has to wait on tables and pump gas.

Wow, what brilliant unassailable logic. You need to write an academic paper and publish it, you'll be famous as the genius who disproved evolution. Why oh why could the scientists not see what you see so clearly, it is all so simple. I guess it took a real simpleton to see it. I look forward to your publication and reading your name in lights. I guess when they come up with links between those links, you'll then complain that they haven't found links between the links between the links. It is like the old game about creating a crumb so small that it can't be cut in half. By the way, the theory you are discussing or more accurately, missing the point of, is not the theory of evolution, it is the theory of common descent. Biological evolution means "a change in allele frequencies over time." In that sense, it is an indisputable fact. Evolution Information "Common descent is a "theory" but not in the sense that creationists use it. A theory, in the scientific sense, is "a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena" [Random House American College Dictionary]. The term does not imply tentativeness or lack of certainty which is how creationists use the term. Proof, in the mathematical sense, is possible only if you have the luxury of defining the universe you're operating in. In the real world, we must deal with levels of certainty based on observed evidence. The more and better evidence we have for something, the more certainty we assign to it; when there is enough evidence, we label the something a fact, even though it still isn't 100% certain. What evolution has is what any good scientific claim has--evidence, and lots of it. Evolution is supported by a wide range of observations throughout the fields of genetics, anatomy, ecology, animal behavior, paleontology, and others. If you wish to challenge the theory of evolution, you must address that evidence. "

Its place is in bible class, not a science class. I am a strong advocate of teaching creationism instead of evolution in all schools except those attended by my children. I would love to see my kids competing for jobs with kids who were denied the fundamental knowledge underlying all the biological sciences.

They don't get any federal cash. Only 17 get state money and that is because in 4 of them, the legislatures, ie "the people" decided that they wanted too.

Yes, and all we would have had to do was repeal the Hyde Amendment by getting a republican controlled congress and senate to agree. Yeah. Is that what all those posts were about? Staking out your opposition to that which is not occurring and hasn't been since 1976 and is unlikely to ever occur unless there is a dramatic shift in the political makeup of both houses of Congress? Glad we got that straight. Now maybe you can tell us where you stand on flying cars, anti-gravity boots and warp drive?

Read my other post on funding, the idea that the government plays a major role in paying for abortions is overblown. Giving the state control over the womb by giving it the power to forbid terminating a pregnancy is a step towards, not away from, the very "engineering" by the state you decry. It gives the government the right to interefere with reproductive choice. Roe keeps them out of the womb. The government has no right nor even an enhanced potential to have such a right to force an abortion. If you give it the power to force a birth, you give it the power to force an abortion. A point Justice O'Connor has made in abortion cases. Roe would prevent the state from forcing a woman who wants to take her child to term to have an abortion just as it prevents the state from stopping her from making that choice on her own. If you don't want the state to "futz" with issues of choice, then why are you in favor of them not only "futzing" with choice but with making it illegal to make a "choice" to terminate a pregnancy? If you are willing to give them that power, you are closer to giving them the power to force sterilization. You may have meant it as hyperbole but being in favor of forced sterilization and in favor of forcing a woman to carry a child to term are pretty consistent.

Please show me what "abortion clinic" receives federal $? Provide link. My understanding is that the Hyde Amendment, passed by congress in 1976, prohibited federal funding of abortion in that it is not covered by medicaid with the only exceptions being when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or when the pregnancy endangers the mother's life due to injury, illness or other physical disorder. Four states provide funding for low income women as they would for any other procedure (HI, MD, NY and WA). Thirteen others do but only because their state courts determined that such funding was mandated by their state constitutions (AK, AZ, CA, CT, IL, MA, MN, MT, NJ, NM, OR, VT, and WV). The remaining 32 states only provide funding in line with the sharp prohibitions of the Hyde Amendment. Additional restrictions on such funding beyond those of the Hyde Amendment are also in place. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 allows HMO's serving medicaid recipients to refuse, on moral grounds (there's a hoot, HMO's as arbiters of morality), to provide counsleing or refferals for reproductive services including abortion. The Hyde prohibitions do not apply just to medicaid recipients. Similar prohibitions apply to military personnel and their dependents, federal employess and their dependents, many Native Americans, Peace Corps volunteers, low income residents of DC and disabled women who are on medicare. Unless you live in those few states, there is no tax money going to abortion. As for federal cash, they don't pay for abortion except in those limited circumstances. If your argument is that a woman who is too poor to pay for the procedure who is raped and impregnated as a result should be forced to carry the child to term simply because she is poor, you need to make that clear because that is when "federal funding" for abortion comes in.

Gee, whenever I suggest that the pro-life position is really just a subtext for a government seizure the womb, I am told I am over reacting. Here it is, clear as an unmuddied lake. Forced sterilization. O brave new world. You seem to assume that pregnant teenagers are the only ones having abortions. That is certainly not the case. You also assume that all pregnant teenagers are from broken homes which is also certainly not the case. You also assume that all pregnant teenagers are unable to care for themselves or their children which, unless being wealthy is a perfect form of birth control, is also certainly not the case. Would pregnant teenagers from wealthy backgrounds who can care for themselves without help from the government be excluded from your program of forced sterilization? Would a mother who is pregnant in her thirties with a child she can ill afford to raise be eligible for forced sterilization as well? How do you determine when it is that a mother "can't afford" a child? What is the income level that would spare her entry into the forced sterilization program? What if a mother gets laid off from her job during her pregnancy, would she then be sent for a, how did you so gently put it, "snip-snip"? If a woman sentenced to forced sterilization refuses, can we jail her? Physically force her in to the stirrups? If someone helps her avoid arrest, can we arrest them for aiding and abetting a fugitive? If a doctor refuses to do the state's bidding, will he lose his license to practice medicine? Since it really is money that you are focusing on, why not just automatically sterilize anyone making less than "X" amount of money? Even better, just sterilize everyone with a reversible procedure. Have them apply to the state when they reach a certain age and can afford the license, the price for which could be set so that only those who really can "afford" a child would be able to buy the license. We could check to make sure that the home is not a "broken" one and that the parenst are not likely to get divorced anytime soon. We could make whatever other rules seem like a good idea and save even more tax dollars. Then we would just reverse the sterilization procedure and off they go. To the far left is socialism and to the right of that, liberals and to the right of them, conservatives and to the right of them, fascists. Since you are not a socialist or liberal, the line you have crossed is the last one, from conservative to fascist.

There is also a chance when you drive a car that you will get in an accident, can you infer consent to be in an automobile to be consent to be in an accident? Is the failure to wear a seat belt tantamount to given consent to die in an accident? What you are talking about as consent is really a concept well known in the law as "assumption of the risk". I don't imagine anyone keeps stats on this but if every women who ever got drunk then got pregnant or even a majority, there would be a lot more unwanted pregnancies than there are and our population would have "exploaded" beyond our resources long ago! Women only ovulate and are capable of conceiving for a short time each month. Even then, not every act of copulation results in a pregnancy. In fact, the odds are pretty strong that a random sexual encounter will not end in pregnancy. Is there a chance? Well of course there is always a chance but that isn't the question. When do the odds become so great that a given behaviour will lead to a particular result that we will infer intent/consent to the result by virtue of the intent/consent to the behaviour? It is like a drunk driver. Drunk drivers do not intend to kill anyone. "I thought I was okay to drive" they always say. Now if the person had two beers, you might say that he didn't assume the risk of driving drunk because the likelihood that his ability to drive was all that impaired or that he knew it was from two lousy beers is too small. If he had 15 beers and then drove, it is easier to infer that he assumed the risk of killing someone, knew it was a risk and went ahead and drove anyway. The inquiry depends on circumstances. Sexual encounters occur with an infinite number of variables. You can certainly take issue with the examples I gave but that misses the point. You can't make a one size fits all rule that all pregnancies except ones resulting from rape and incest are the result of irresponsible behaviour. Circumstances matter. That is what incest and rape are, they are simply "circumstances" under which there is some agreement, not necessarily complete, that the pregnancy is not the result of irresponsibility and is therfore ethically eligible to be terminated. Your position already acknowledges that circumstances matter, I am just trying to show that given the variety of human encounters and behaviour, you can't just make a universal judgment that all such pregnancies are the result of irresponsibility and therefore are not eligible for termination. Ultimately the argument turns on the question of who will be given the power to make this decision. I think individuals should and not the government.

There are a lot less deserving "leeches on the teet of the state" than children who didn't ask to be brought in to the world as the offspring of other children. When those leeches are weaned first, then I'll worry that my tax dollars are being "wasted" feeding a child that would otherwise not be fed. Children being born to people who are not able to provide for them is not exactly a new phenomena. It has always been thus. Nothing changes but the numbers. The basic choices are to 1) let them fend entirely for themselves and make do on what charities they can find 2) have the government take over entirely by having them raised by the state in institutions, orphanages and the like 3) provide government assisstance to the mother to help her raise them tied to numerous incentives and disincentives encouraging responsibility and work and discouraging sloth and irresponsibility. Not one of those choices is a perfect solution and will end for all time the problem of people having children they are unable to care for. Pointing out the shortcomings of each accomplishes nothing but pointing out the obvious. Neither abstinence, easily available contraception, forced sterilization nor "faith based" charities are a magic wand that can be waived to save us from this reality. I don't like the first choice at all, the second choice is even worse thus by default, I think we just need to do the best we can with the third option and that is basically what most states are trying to do.

First time I've seen it and yeah, it was pretty funny. Like it or not, there is a bond between the US and England that football, driving on the left and queens can't ever dissolve. No one can deny that they are our most dependable ally. There is not a nation in Europe I would rather have on my side. That and they gave us Monty Python as well. Got to give them props for that.

If he is the best LG to have on the field on running plays, why isn't he the starting LG period? Blocking is blocking and although pass blocking and run blocking do require somewhat different skill sets, they are not that different. If he is the best blocking LG on running plays, I think there is a good chance he is the best blocker at that position period. Maybe we should just bring in Smith on passing plays? Just a thought, I certainly defer to McNally on that kind of thing. I wish I could ask him that question.

The same arguments have been made over and over by both sides with each having pretty clearly set forth their positions more times than I can recall. This is probably the last place to come for enlightened discussion of this topic which is covered amply elsewhere. Maybe you are too young to have participated in the political and ethical debate on this issue which has been going on now since the late '50's. There are plenty of places to go for this information besides here. Clearly, your position is that a full fledged life exists at the instant of conception, many disagree. Just as certain as you are that it does, others are just as certain that it doesn't. It is likely an "unknowable" and as such some believe that the government should not make that decision for us, that we should be able to decide it for ourselves. Others would take their personal decision on this issue and turn it into law to be enforced by the government on all of us. Though this is clearly a breach of what government in a democracy means, they believe so certainly that they are right that they are willing to give government that kind of power in this limited instance. Their righteousness becomes their justification for doing that which otherwise, even they would admit is a grievous governmental interference into the private lives of citizens. You seem to be saying that the decision to engage in sex is tantamount to a decision to become pregnant. That is a sweeping conclusion deciding the details of thousands of millions of events occurring daily between people about which you have zero knowledge. I could envision many sexual encounters where the persons engaged had no intention at all that it result in a pregnancy and were conscientiously trying to be sure it didn't and yet it did. I could think of just as many where people were admittedly careless and irresponsible and yet certainly did not intend a pregnancy to result. The continuum you could draw and the circumstances that could come into play are infinite. What about a couple that is told they are not fertile and so forgo contraception? How many people have had too much to drink and had their drunkeness lead to a sexual encounter they had not intended and under circumstances, no contraception, they certainly did not intend? Is the decision to drink the equivalent of deciding to get pregnant? If terminating a pregnancey is "killing an unborn child" as you believe, would a mother who neglects her prenatal care and has a miscarriage guilty of murder? My wife was prone to miscarriages and miscarried our first child. Afterwards, we went to see a fertility specialist who helped us minimize the possibility of a miscarriage the next time around and thankfully, that specialist's skill and the knowledge accumulated by so many scientists unfettered in their research by the bounds of religious dogma, enabled us to get through the pregnancy all the way and now we have two beautiful girls. If we were more careful the first time and went to see that specialist, we would have three children, not just two. Are we responsible, complicit in killing our own child? My stance on abortion does not prevent anyone from teaching their children and all who will listen to them that abortion is wrong, wrong, wrong. My position does not force anyone to be involved with an abortion against their will. My position simply leaves it to people to decide on their own the mystery of when a human life deserving of legal, ethical and moral protection even against the competing rights of another human being begins. I leave to them the difficult and terrible decision that must be faced when an unwanted child is conceived. Your position takes that decision away from individuals and gives it to the government. If you absolutely believe that a fully formed human life, a life deserving of protection to the same extent as a person living and born begins at conception and your certainty and righteousness are without doubt, then I don't see why you make an exception in any case at all. If there is the slightest doubt that maybe you do not have all the answers that maybe your certainty is matched by the certainty of others that the opposite is true, then I don't see why you would be for the government robbing us of the right to solve this mystery ourselves in any but the most outrageous circumstances.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAH Suggesting that all democrats committ suicide, how funny. You are a real class act.

That would be true if people voted by states but they don't. As many people as there are in California, there are plenty of people elsewhere. As it is now, we do vote by states and because we do, any state that is not a "battleground" state is ignored. Even if you are right, that means we have a choice between having the states with the most people ignored and the election being decided by a handful of voters in Ohio and having the election decided by the vast majority of people with New Mexico being ignored. I guess if I had to make a call, I'd say it would be better to ignore New Mexico and Iowa and the 2.1 million voters there than to ignore California and New York and the 16.4 million voters there. Pretty easy call actually.

Talk about splitting hairs. Ever pissed after the Bills lost a game? It is that kind of anger. "Darn, we lost". Not exactly a major surprise or evidence of moral weakness. It is pretty much a natural response to a frustrating situation.