dwar0123

Either I am being to literal with the definition of altruistic, or you are being to liberal :) Even that sentiment doesn't fit with my understanding of the word. Edit: Let me elaborate. Intervening, regardless of which side, such that they owe us big time, not altruistic. Choosing the side based on a similiar political outlook, also not altruistic.

I don't buy it. Not the idea of altruism, that I buy, we do it often on an individual and community level. We even do it on a national level when responding to things such as the Haitian earthquake. But being the worlds police force? That we don't do for altruistic reasons, not even close. We might try to err on the side of morally good, but we do it for very selfish reasons. We do it for control and influence. Calling our world dominating military an altruistic police force makes me sad, that is some deep self denial among our better educated citizens.

Aces are undervalued, they are undervalued more in suit contracts, but they are still worth 4 in nt. But no, never really heard of lowering the value of aces before.

I should have said bypass your first bid lower ranked suit.

I thought for a bid to be a reverse you had to bypass your first bid suit. As you can not bid 2♣ here, I don't think 2♠ can be a reverse. That said, it may still be showing extra's due to partner still having a bid. But I don't think it is a reverse.

The timing of the changes that would be neccesary to prevent the worst of the consequences of global warming is indifferent to our understanding of their neccesity. If we have to reduce carbon emissions to a certain level by a certain date, that level and date don't change by us learning what it is. That level could be half the current rate within two years making the urgency hopelessly acute. Our ignorance and uncertainty doesn't change that. Of course if al_u_card is right, there is no urgency. The point I am trying to make is that the urgency either exists or doesn't. The consequences are not going to be delayed by our ignorance. Of course my example over looks the reality that the level and timing would in reality by a large range of different options with varing consequences. But by the time we learn the levels and ranges, all the reasonably good consequences could have requred action twenty years in the past. That is the insidious nature of this problem that humans are not naturally equipped to deal with.

The urgency is indifferent to our knowledge of it.

711*.75>143*3

United States spends 711 Billion on defense China spends 143 Billion on defense 711 * .75 > 143 Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

You sure you don't have that backwards? I read something a few days ago that stated Antarctic sea ice was increasing due to changing ocean salinity(due to the more rapid melting of the land ice) and increased precipitation. And that the land ice was decreasing. Also, as the sea ice always melts in the Antarctic during their summer, its impact on global warming due to albedo was non existent. The ice melts when the sun shines and thus doesn't reflect energy.

A fire alarm is a known event, a fire existing is a postulated one. How is this any different then tens of thousands of temperatures readings and other measurements being a known event and climate change being a postulated event?

The reason I make money is so I don't have to kill people to survive. If I will die if dont kill this man, maybe, I dunno, I'd really have to beleive I will die. But as I can survive on a lot less than a 100 million, I have no ethical dilemma here. You vastly over value the benefits of money and vastly under value the toll taking a life has on the human psyche. It almost seems like you think taking a life has no cost except in that you might get caught, which is kinda scary, that almost fits the definition of a psychopath..

If my 2nd story apartment is on fire, I am going to have to jump out my window and probably break my leg, not to mention all my stuff is going to burn. I am going to be having a very bad day. Logic dictates that my best bet is to presume the situation is not urgent. The fire alarm is false and everything is fine. If global warming is an issue, the longer we take to address it, the more massive the resultant disruption of civilization will be. Take long enough and there may not be any civilization left to disrupt. Your solution really strikes me as the stick head in sand and hope it all goes away solution. We are not talking about shutting down all coal factories and outlawing gas cars, solutions that would actually be irrational.

I concede that all politicians, as a matter of practicality, have to tailor their statements to their audience. But that isn't what he is doing here, he isn't making alterations to his suit, he is tossing it aside and putting on a completely new one. This isn't tailoring your statements to a particular audience, this is lying. This is of course assuming he doesn't actually hold 47% of the country in deep contempt.

Added emphasis and deleted stuff in-between that I don't care to address here. Really? This could at best be described as a minor grammatical error during a live speech. Which was grossly over-inflated, not into a grammatical error but into something that was never meant and to which no rational person could ever take him as intending from that speech. That you seem to be repeating it here, not as a grammatical error, not even as an over-inflated grammatical error, but retelling Obama's speech into something that he clearly did not mean, that the audience clearly did not take him for and that no one that isn't on the extreme right has ever said he meant. This is a shining example of what appalls me about the right, their shameless tactics. You can't write this off as a fringe group of republicans banging on this absurd point. It was a major theme of their convention and Romney has repeated it often himself.

I agree with everything you say, I even agree with this specific quoted sentiment. It is just a pet peeve of mine, but I get bothered when someone tries to make a point by creating an artificially biased relationship by using only negative examples.

2/1, good partner [hv=pc=n&s=s6hat7532daqj5ca7&d=e&v=0&b=2&a=1sd2s3h4s]133|200[/hv] 1. Do you double originally? 2. Assuming you did double originally, what do you call now?

As opposed to the virgin birth, ressurection, trinity, water into wine, walking on water and that isn't even touching on the massive number and scale of what we would now call crimes against humanity, proudly described in the old testiment. Even more contemporary history, mormans have a lot less blood on their hands than any other christian group, of course that is mostly because they are so new, perhaps it is their turn to dirty their hands.

What is their normal tempo on opening lead, pausing for 10-20 seconds isn't that unusual when you first see the dummy. The club doesn't seem a realistic choice unless you interpret that spade as suit preference, perhaps it was how he huddled that transmitted the ui? Or is the partnership good enough to know that the spade count was immaterial and thus suit preference was the signal, this doesn't seem the case with the explanation given by east. But perhaps west just took the view that it was and got lucky, in which case it goes back to what is their normal tempo. If they normally pause then shrug, to bad for declarer.

The truth of this is pretty damning in its own right. With such an outlook, what value can we place on anything he says, ever. If the man hasn't the balls to speak his truth to his own people and glibly descends into the most horrid clichés that matches the puerile views of his audience, what ever audience that may be. Then how can he be President, how can he be anything other then a mockery of a man. I know I am coming off harsh, but this is a question of integrity, the lack of which you are using as a defense? The absurdity of the situation is just too much.

Actually they was referring to the 47% that don't pay income tax. Not quite that much of a tautology.

I don't think you can force liquidate bonds ahead of schedule. But if you just stopped issuing bonds to cover the cost of maturing bonds and just paid them off with printed money. I'd imagine inflation would skyrocket and China would be incredibly pissed. Though this would take something like 30 years to unwind and I am not sure how it is relevant, this level of money creation is not on the same order of magnitude with respect to the QE and no one argues that at this level of money creation inflation wouldn't be very bad.

My understanding is that a big percentage of that 47% are the retired living on social security who lean Republican. Another portion are veterans with disabilities, whom also tend to lean Republican. A rather large portion is lower middle income families who pay a good chunk of social security and Medicaid(payroll taxes) but don't actually pay any income taxes due to credits. This group leans democratic but not overwhelmingly, certainty not enough to discount their vote. And of course the actual poor, who do heavily lean democratic as well as students making use of government loans who also lean democratic.

No, in the speech, he is specifically saying they will vote for Obama, that trying to woo their vote is pointless. The issue really isn't so much about his election strategy, which is probably sound, it is about the level of contempt he holds for 47% of the country.

If you mean that 15-1 is overstated, then perhaps. If you mean that the idea that this policy of party first, country be damned, is mainstream policy for the Republicans as opposed to being a minor part of the Democratic party; as it is with any major party anywhere/when. Then I disagree.