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Translation into what? Gremlinese? It looks sunny and beautiful today Klenke. Shouldn't you be about beating some busy right now?

Not that I really want to extend this discussion, but I do not recall any censorings of explanations of how a climb went. Are you saying that some TR's were deleted?

Ha ha....errr....yeah (we need an uncomfortably tugging at collar gremlin). You've probably progressed past that treating patients like bugs phase too? You even seem like a doctor that knows what "evidence based" means. We need more doctors like you.

"The Republicans made it known to the FDA that not enough new drugs were being approved and that the FDA was overly concerned with safety." Do you have any information to support this claim?

Recent dirt on Vioxx and the FDS's lax enforcement of drug companies knowingly selling dangerous drugs. link1 link2 ""I would argue that the FDA ... is incapable of protecting America against another Vioxx," he said, because of the FDA's close relationship to the drug companies it regulates."

We could accomplish both of your goals by replacing the current income tax with either a flat tax or a national sales tax. Of course, doing this would mean that you would probably have to pay a greater percentage of your income to federal taxes, but HEY! it would save that tax time headache!

Hmmm....I guess I wasn't confrontational enough... HOW MANY OF YOU LIBERAL COMPUTER JOCKS WITH NO HOUSE AND STOCK OPTIONS ARE EXCITED ABOUT BUSH SAVING YOU A BUNCH OF MONEY? HOW MANY OF YOU FAMILY VALUES WORKIN' STIFFS WITH NO SAVINGS AND A MORTGAGE ARE EXCITED ABOUT PAYING MORE TAXES SO LIBERAL COMPUTER JOCKS (SEE ABOVE) CAN PAY LESS TAXES?

From the Washington Post, in an article about the current plans for tax simplification. You can also read about it here, if you're too scared to engage in free registration. "Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations. The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said. " So those of us who get more money from interest on our savings account and stock investment gains than we pay for our property tax will be happy with this news. Those whose major investment is their house, those who were excited about that new law to make WA sales tax deductible, and those businesses who provide health insurance for their employees are gonna be sad. I fall into the latter category How about you?

Is that from the gallery. If it is, it's not her fault. The gallery's broke now and doesn't auto-resize like it used to. Also, the old resized versions all got scrapped.

Are we talking about two different things here? If you abolish social security, then many people will be even less prepared than they are now come old age. If we keep it, less people will be indigent at old age. You say you get all your money back, plus interest. Then where is the sacrifice? What is your problem with it? I assume it's because you would rather do something your consider smarter with the money (or you're planning on dieing at an early age?) If you would rather not make this sacrifice of acquiescing to put some of your money away at a guaranteed rate in order to assure that thousands of elderly will not be destitute, then I say yes, it's you who is abrogating the moral responsibility.

You rail about people who want to make someone else pay for it. And that person is you! Sheesh. You don't want to pay money into social security. Look, if you do think it's OK to let the less fortunate die on the streets, you could say so. That would at least make your sentences consistent.

You say it is our moral responsibility to care for our elderly, yet you call for removal of the system that does exactly this thing? How do you reconcile this? I'm not sure why you want to abolish social security, but I suspect it has to do with you not wishing to subsidize others. If this is the case, then where is the moral responibility there? Any statements of "local charities" or "let families care for their own" are just dodges of not wanting to care for what you consider someone else's burden. Where is the moral responsibility there?

You can rationalize all you want about what would be nice to have, but you know there are going to be people who will die from lack of a safety net. This is why I think the SS privatization idea that Bush wants to do is a bad idea. By letting people invest their SS in the stock market there will be losers. Some winners, some no diff, some losers. That's guaranteed. Those who lose are SOL if they don't have some other safety net. SS should be a safety net guaranteed so our society doesn't have to bail out those who gambled with their retirement and lost.

Did she light him up like a christmas tree?

Well, it makes sense to me. Some rules can be situational, or have a situational purpose. The Republicans probably enacted this rule in order to attempt to gain some political high ground at a time when their party was mired in a scandal (AND losing). Now that they are heady with victory, and perhaps becoming a bit overconfident, they are removing a voluntary restriction on their liberties that they no longer feel is necessary. The fact that the rule change was catalyzed by DeLay's troubles is no biggie either. They had no reason to remove their selling point until it got in their way. I'm glad that the press is making it known that the GOP no longer holds itself to this ethical level, but it's not like it's a scandal. The only people that really should be pissed are the GOP at DeLay, for making it necessary for them to remove something that helped sell the GOP to voters.

Since you object to us using the word "execution" how about you rephrase your sentence to, "I would have shot a wounded guy lying on the ground too." (BTW, I probably would have too.)

Kas, The market works because it weeds out slackers by letting them die. If you want to let market forces work for social security, for example, you are going to have to accept watching a good percentage of our elderly population to die early due to starvation and exposure. Many people will not save enough for retirement. No amounts of threats or advertising are going to change that. Plus, many people who are carefully saving for retirement will lose their shirts in the stock market (think former Enron employees) and be out on the street. Are you willing to condemn a good percentage of our elderly population to an early death? I hope you're not saying that they can go on welfare instead!

Hey Norman Clyde, You're a doctor. How do you feel about socialized medicine? I think this is one area where a government takeover would help. There is currently huge waste in terms of how the providers, consumers, insurers and the government interact. Not that the govt. doing all this stuff on it's own would do it perfectly, but I think they couldn't screw it up more and would end up providing much better care to the poor and the middle class. One downside I see is that once the state is paying for healthcare, there is an incentive to legislate risk-taking behaviors.

I've never seen moveon.org use something as base as a soldier killing another unarmed soldier as humour either.

This quote from the NY Times article should get a chuckle from both sides of the aisle. "It could also prompt the Bush administration to make good on its threats to haul Iran before the Security Council."

Wow! Comparing an execution with spitting on the sidewalk. You guys are intense.

They hate freedom, that's all the justification we need.

Speaking of changing rules that put limits on politicians

Big Night in Bithlo