Oh, well that settles it then. The Catholics say he wasn't one of the,... so clearly he was an atheist who didn't believe in God despite all evidence being to the contrary.

Wait... when exactly did ATHEISTS claim him? Or does that only work one way?

"If" - Kipling.

------------------------------------------------------------

Are you STILL implying that you don't? Do you know that that chart I linked means? What the implications are for the nation if it doesn't exist and isn't enforced?

For one thing, like I said before, they are the allocators of the entire electromagetic broadcast spectrum. And like I asked you before, do you know what happens if we remove that regulatory apparatus and people just start being able to broadcast whatever they want however they want?

Do you think this:

http://reboot.fcc.gov/spectrumdashboard/ searchSpectrum.seam

Just organizes and maintains itself with no regulatory body enforcing transmission protocols? That it just spontaneously happens and regulates itself? It stuns me how many people just drift through their lives with no idea how much work is being done in the background to keep everything they take for granted on a day for day basis running.

Sigh...

Yes. I know the FCC does that. I SAID the FCC does that. I also said that is not the ONLY damn thing they do. That is just the one thing they do that the general public pays any attention to so people THINK that's the only thing they do. What is remarkable is that after I've ponted this out to you three times now you STILL seem to think that's the only thing they do.

And the FCC is the reason GM was in debt? WHAT?

Wow. Even after I pointed out to you that I was pretty sure you only had an awareness of one tiny portion of FCC responsibilities AND pointed out to you what some of the other ones were... you STILL based your argument entirely on the one trivial little aspect of their operation as if that's all they do. Bravo.

Being in debt or being partly government owned doesn't make a company a "zombie". Neither does sales figures being down DURING A GLOBAL RECESSION.

Less spending or more taxes. I prefer less spending.

Then you prefer staying in debt. It's that simple. This is not an "either/or" situation. It's both or we're not getting the job done. Spending is too high AND taxes are too low and they BOTH need to be corrected as soon as the economy is back on firm footing.

Is that intended to be a serious list?

I'll give you NASA as unecesary. Important, but not necessary. But you don't think the FCC is necessary? I'm betting you're only thinking of the occasional meddlesome idiot from the comission that gets their panties in a twist about a wardobe malfunction on television or something, which is the only thing about the FCC that ever really catches the attention of the general public, and the fact that they are the regulators for things like the allocation of the entire electromagnetic broadcast spectum is not even on your mental radar. Do you appreciate what happens if we remove that regulatory apparatus and people are allowed to broadcast whatever they want however they want?

And you don't think we need a Department of Energy? How do you think we have a national power grid without a Department of Energy?

And GM and Chrysler are already paying back their bailout money. They are not zombies. Your concerns are a little out of date, that was the GOP talking point from last year.

I care about money being spent wisely, and paid for, but the thing about America is that we want all of these government services, but America is clearly unwilling to pay for them. This is why we are $12 trillion in the hole.

Actually, mainly Republicans are unwilling to pay for them, which is why they practically riot in the streets any time anyone says the word "tax".

And nobody needs a deficit commission to figure out the problem. You need it to reach common ground on the solution. It's all well and good to say "Duh! Don't spend more money then you're bringing in"... but then try actually doing it. Everyone agrees you need to reduce spending, but try putting that through congress or the senate and everyone agrees you need to reduce spending in someone ELSE'S district, sure as hell not in theirs. And bottom line is spending cuts aren't getting you there even if you miraculously manage to get some significant portion of them through. The deficit and the debt are too massive. Taxes need to be raised. But you can't even say the words" raise taxes" without half the country throwing a screaming tantrum. And instead of talking them down the GOP just whips them into a frenzy because that's their party base.

I still the understand the difference between necessary and unnecessary spending.

Yet, the fundamental difference between you and I is that you believe in high government spending at no matter what the cost

If you understand the difference then explain why you're harping about THIS spending. Do you consider avoiding a Depression to be unnecessary?

And how do you get me harshly criticising unnecessary spending during times of economic stability as me believing "in high government spending no matter the cost"??? Do you even pay attention to my posts when you respond to them? Or do you just react to certain key words that jump out at you?

the cost while I don't as noted before. Our system is based on profit-loss system, not a profit system. No matter what industry it is, they are not entitled to government bailouts because of mismanagement.

Entirely agreed!

Of course the bailouts had nothing to do with "entitlements". It had to do with preferring bailing them out to letting them take down THE ENTIRE NATIONAL ECONOMY when they collapsed.

Same goes for the car companies on a smaller scale. They wouldn't have smashed the entire national economy flat if they'd imploded and dissapeared, but they would have taken a huge chunk out of the Great Lakes economies . Do you have any idea what the unemployment rates would have hit in Michigan if the car companies and al the businesses that supply them and get business from them went under? Bailing them out was an investment in keeping the regional economy functional.

Now yes, steps need to be taken to reform the financial regulatory system so that kind of thing isn't necessary anymore, but not doing it was not a sane option.

And yeah, they did allow Lehman to fail. Within a month the Dow had dropped 2000 points and it triggered a global financial crisis that almost caused the entire international system of credit to lock up. That was a hint they wanted to not do that kind of thing anymore.

There is no way to prove that if nothing was done, the economy would have collapsed, but it is better to be safe than sorry.

If you recognize it was better to do the bailout why spend the first half of your post complaining about doing the bailout?

And I don't care if government spending increases in the long term. Just saying "government spending increasing" doesn't mean anything by itself. I care if it's being spent usefully, and if it's paid for.

If government waste is increasing, I care.

If government is setting long term plans to just keep spending money it doesn't have I care.

I do not care if spending increases are offset by revenue increases that cover them, and if the spending increases is on something we want the government spending on.

However, that said, Obama has already spent considerable time trying to get the GOP to sit down on a deficit commission, that would have the power to make calls to CUT spending going forward to address the budget deficit, and it took him all year to get them just to finally agree to send anyone to sit on it... which they finally did a couple weeks ago. And they will now no doubt stall as long as possible to avoid actually doing anything because anything the commission accomplishes means something was accomplished during Obama's watch, and they refuse to cooperate in allowing that to happen no matter what the consequences are for the nation.

We weren't talking about making you young. We were talking about relocating you in time.

I'm almost certain Reagan had nothing to do with you not being old when he was president.

What happened to understanding the difference between necessary and unnecessary spending? Of course the deficit is going up right now. Spending enough to dig the national economy out of the worst recession since the Great Depression will tend to do that. It's why the deficits of almost every nation on the face of the planet massively increased right about now. There was this little incident with the global financial system back in 2008.

When the economy is back on firm footing and growing at a sufficient and sustainable pace and the private sector is able to pick up the slack on the demand side of the economy... then you start getting serious about deficit reduction. Like Bush should have been doing for years during his terms when that was an entirely possible thing to do.

You mean the projections BEFORE all the fallout from the financial catastrophe were different than the ones from after that fallout was largely known. You're kidding.

Now explain why you keep insisting on calling attention to the old, since invalidated, projection as if it has any meaning?

Dude, what Bush projected for the 2009 budget deficit is irrelevent. Bush couldn't be trusted to project the sun will rise tomorrow. The CBO projected a 1.3 trillion on-budget deficit for 2009, and they're the ones ultimately responsible for providing those projections. That's what the state of affairs was when Obama was sworn in. And that was when the CBO still thought the economy was only declining at an anualized rate of -3.8% of GDP at the end of 2008. Then they later figured out it was actually declining at an annualized rate of closer to -6% of GDP, which means it was nosediving way faster than they had accounted for.

As for you just "messing around"... if you say so.

Oh boy, you're so much fun.

One second the current deficit is all Obama's fault. The next minute a single guy in the Senate is who is actually responsible for deficits as soon as we start talking about Bush's deficits.

Give me a break.

Of COUSE they voted for TARP. It was that or a Depression. Which would you have preferred? Same goes for the stimulus. You really need to learn the difference between necessary and unnecessary spending. Spending to prevent a looming financial Depression? You need to DO THAT. Massive spending to give tax breaks to your rich buddies or bribe seniors before an election? Not required.

Same goes for the omnibus. It's like you have no ability to recognize economic contexts.

And the fact that you are STILL apparently are completely uncomprehending of what it means that the Federal Deficit was already projected to be at 1.3 Trillion dollars for 2009 before Obama was even sworn in and why it makes your "Obama is so great at running up deficits" remark asinine is just stunning.

I'm a multi-tasker. I'm perfectly capable of teaching someone basic math and insulting them at the same time. It's one of my special skills.

I don't need to see "section 1101" to refer to the government providing insurance. It's called Medicare. It happened when JOHNSON was president.

And yes, forcing them to take on higher risk customers does, by definition, increase their risk. If only there was some way to offset that risk by also giving them access to a larger customer base of lower risk customers to cover the difference. Something involving mandated insurance... now that sounds familiar for some reason...

And yes, the people who were working on the bill didn't do it to achieve nothing. You're so amazingly astute to notice. They perhaps did it to extend coverage to tens of millions of people. And they perhaps did it to reign in costs that are rapidly on their way to either bankrupting the nation or pushing health care out of reach of a steadily climbing percentage of the population. Neither of those things is nothing.

The fact that you think you said something clever doesn't actually render it into some profound argument beyond my understanding.

Your ridiculous attempt to imply that the only possible reason Democrats and Republicans could have been fighting was over whether or not to actually nationalize the nation's health care provision and therefore the Democrats winning means health care nationalization must have occurred is infantile.

The link works fine. Apparently you lack the ability to read pdfs.

Try this one instead: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9957/ MainText.3.1.shtml#1090923

And yes, I know what Obama's current budget deficit is. The problem is you clearly do NOT know what the budget deficit already was when he took office if you think he "produced" that deficit. His policies have had relatively minor impact on it, almost entirely as one shot short term fiscal stimulus measures needed to prevent the economy from imploding as it was in danger of doing when he took office.

Hey...

Pssst...

Read this: http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/99xx/doc9958/ 01-08-Outlook_Testimony.pdf

Now tell me when that document was written, and what the budget deficit for 2009 is in that document.

Do you, or do you not, understand what that means? WHOSE budget deficit is that?

You know... I rather wish you could, just for the rude awakening you would get when reality clashed with your nostalgic fantasies.

We also had the Reagan adminstration illegally selling arms to Iran and funelling money to Nicaraguan contras... if you want to feel all nostalgic. If Reagan hadn't been showing early signs of alzheimers and a total inability to remember anything relevant when he was called to testify in front of the federal prosecutor after he left office we might have had the second ever case of a president having to pardon his predecessor to keep him out of prison.

Oh, and thank Reagan for financial de-regulation too. That worked out great.

And massive unnecessary budget deficits. He was great at producing those.

Yay Reagan!

please...

I'm unsure how you think that constitutes a response, but whatever.

I'm sorry... "widely disseminating" to at least 6 people? According to... oh look! Something Ann said! How surprising. And she knows this how? I don't see a CC list on her e-mail. And who exactly were they? Were they, by any chance, university officials that he was supposed to be copying these kinds of notifications on? Let me guess, she doesn't mention that part?

Coulter is the one who took this public. That is so absurdly ridiculously clear it's not worth further discussing. She's the one who slapped the letter up on the internet and started whining to anyone who would listen about it. And there was NOTHING about it in any news or blog or media source prior to her doing that. Houle did not publicize the notification, Coulter did.

And no, it will not "come out in trial", don't be absurd. No judge in the country will do anything but take one look at this and dismiss it instantly.

So in your world "Not nationalized" = "nothing".

Great. So the only way for the government to do ANYTHING is to nationalize whatever they're working on. Gotcha. That's just brilliant.

No, he did not. The e-mail was privately sent to Coulter. SHE then published it online. Right here:

http://biggovernment.com/acoulter/2010/03/21/canadian-university-provost-wants-to-send-me-to-jail-for-a-speech-i-havent-given-yet/

That's her posting a screenshot of the PRIVATE e-mail and making it public on Mar 21st at 3:39pm. Want to show me where Houle made it public before that? Go ahead. I'll wait.