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Post by Christian K on Apr 6, 2009 21:17:14 GMT -8
...at least in some places...
...like Iowa!
Why?
Iowa bans the ban on same-sex marriage! www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090403/NEWS/90403010
Major kudos to them Iowa folks. Makes you wonder that a state in the Midwest can get this accomplished, while California cannot. Anyhow, quite cool beans.
Ta & tata, Christian
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cheno
Conductor
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Post by cheno on Apr 6, 2009 21:54:32 GMT -8
Definitely surprising. Iowa would have been low on my list of states that would do this. Kudos.
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Post by indy2003 on Apr 7, 2009 5:45:32 GMT -8
Great news, but I heard on NPR yesterday that it's quite likely the citizens of Iowa will overturn the court's decision by including some sort of "Marriage is Between a Man And a Woman" proposition on the ballot this year or next year.
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Post by Jens Dietrich on Apr 7, 2009 8:49:57 GMT -8
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cheno
Conductor
Posts: 1,012
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Post by cheno on Apr 7, 2009 16:23:40 GMT -8
Nah, New England is New England. Iowa!
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Post by Brendan Anderson on Jun 23, 2009 9:42:44 GMT -8
Sorry to turn this thread away from gay marriage discussion, but this is also something that is very right with the world: happywaffle.livejournal.com/5890.htmlA heartwarming tale of three nerds and their gps-tracking-enabled search of a lost iPhone.
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Post by Hook on Jun 24, 2009 21:48:05 GMT -8
I read in the local newspaper (online, I mean, who reads them in print in anymore?) about a rural 70-year-old man who has spent his entire life taking care of livestock. Recently, lighting struck his cattle and killed the whole lot, leaving his entire livelihood dead on its tracks. He attempted a loan from the bank, but with the economy such as it is, that was a long shot. He was really depressed. He wouldn't have imagined that, days later, upon hearing the news, fellow countrymen would deliver cattle, more than enough pregnant to allow him to continue business and take care of the family, no strings attached. They did this out of their own good will and without the use of all this "Social media" crap that's supposed to bring people together. Just goes to show, if you have values, real values, you don't spam them in the internet, and you don't need Twitter, of all things, to pursue a noble act. Also, this story brought me to tears: Pixar grants girl's dying wish to see 'Up'
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cheno
Conductor
Posts: 1,012
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Post by cheno on Jun 24, 2009 22:02:15 GMT -8
I think Sanford will still get impeached. You can't get away with disappearing like that for any other job.
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Post by Hook on Jul 4, 2009 16:16:08 GMT -8
And, as weird as this may sound as a follow-up to the previous two stories, Governor Sanford has admitted to having an affair during the media's obsession with filler headlines over his "disappearance". But think about it (other than GOP leaders thanking God it was a woman this time, given their PR track record during the past years). He didn't have to. He seems genuinely heartbroken, not at the news of his affair (after all, he's the one responsible for disclosing it), but that the affair took place. Which is more than I can say for Clinton, Edwards, and those guys in the men's bathroom of an airport. He also resigned from the Governors Association (not the governorship, a group I don't quite know its purpose). I don't know what it is about Sanford's case in particular, but it doesn't strike as phony to me. Ok, I definitely take this back. Reviewing this guy's history and looking at his pathological need for attention, I can safely say now that he's full of it, the worst kind of it, himself. Shows me for trusting a politician. Anyway, Sarah Palin will have a new talk show, apparently, to unite America. I can't wait to see it! (ok, yes, that sarcasm + irony)
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Post by Hook on Jul 11, 2009 5:40:58 GMT -8
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Post by Hook on Oct 20, 2009 18:08:48 GMT -8
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Post by Christian K on Oct 22, 2009 10:12:40 GMT -8
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Post by Jockolantern on Oct 22, 2009 23:09:05 GMT -8
Nice work, Mr Franken! Of all the things right with the world, Franken is close to last on the list. He has no place being anywhere close to this thread.
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Post by Hook on Oct 22, 2009 23:21:18 GMT -8
Jocko, man, you're slipping on the meathead meter. I'd love to have a Legislator like Franken, someone who does his job, does not have rehearsed speeches prepared by his party, consults people who actually know what they're doing when writing a bill, does not introduce purely political legislation that wastes everyone's time, explains his reasons and listens to what other people (constituents) have to say, has some really hot aides working for him. Disagree with him all you want, but I think I'd rather have someone like him to disagree with than, well, you know: www.republicansforrape.org/legislators/ On the subject of health care, this is by far the best article I've read: www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200909/health-care
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Post by Jockolantern on Oct 22, 2009 23:58:49 GMT -8
Jocko, man, you're slipping on the meathead meter. I'd love to have a Legislator like Franken, someone who does his job, does not have rehearsed speeches prepared by his party, consults people who actually know what they're doing when writing a bill, does not introduce purely political legislation that wastes everyone's time, explains his reasons and listens to what other people (constituents) have to say, has some really hot aides working for him. Disagree with him all you want, but I think I'd rather have someone like him to disagree with than, well, you know: www.republicansforrape.org/legislators/Fortunately, I have a couple of representatives just as you described; I just feel quite sorry that the people of Minnesota lack such a man in Franken. Though, in all honesty, they had two awful candidates to choose from last fall-- Franken just happened to be the more loutish of the two. It's going to take more than early political posturing on his part for me to believe that a man as vile and hateful as he has proven to be in the past truly had some magical change of heart and is now an honest, trustworthy Senator. He has six years to change my mind; we'll see. I'm also quite damn sick and tired of people who lambast the thirty Republicans for voting on legal principal against Franken's "rape" bill (a bill shrouded in four years of odd evolution as is) when the Democrat party are the very ones who have for decades supported the legalized murder of a million babies every year. It doesn't help their cause that the larger portion of leftist Hollywood was putting their full support behind Polanski, in spite of the fact that the man drugged and raped a thirteen-year old girl. I suppose the lesson learned is that if you drug/rape a minor and only get in trouble for it decades later, having become a well-reputed artistic film director in the meantime, you're clean and deserve to honored and absolved. But if you're a Republican senator who votes against a piece of legislation on legit grounds of not letting big government seep its claws deeper into the private sector, you must be pro rape and your wife and daughters better run for their lives! Yeah, that's the kind of moral equivalency I can get behind. A fine article which expresses the concerns hovering about the current debate quite efficiently; that closing paragraph is an especially marked point on the efficacy of placing health care in the hands of those to whom it matters most: the sick and families of the sick. Should the government take control of 1/6th of the U.S. economy, let's see just how many more of these kinds of stories sprout up (it'll be more than a few, I'll wager). Let's soak the American taxpayer of even more of their hard-earned money during a time of near-10% (closer to 20% if you factor in part-time employees and those who have given up looking for work) unemployment, raise their insurance premiums elsewhere should they not choose the public option, fine them if they opt out of the government option, and barrage the medical system with tens of millions more patients without the doctors or nurses to care for them, much less the incentive (I can only imagine the astounding number of doctors and nurses who simply opt for other careers since the squelching hand of government will undoubtedly flatten salaries and do away with career incentives to make more money which doctors and surgeons certainly deserve for their vast talents and tireless work). Oh yeah, those are grand ideas that are sure to breathe some much-needed life into our economy, the dollar, and the American out of a job. All it does is create more and more dependency on government. More and more dependency on that welfare check, on that government handout, on that government-insured health treatment, etc. Where does it stop? Where does the government really want it to stop? Benjamin Franklin said it best when he stated that those who would trade essential liberties for temporary securities deserve neither. That's never been truer than today. The issue here isn't whether or not health care needs reform; it does. And there are better ways to do it, like getting some serious tort reform in action and letting insurance companies trade on a national level. Government only manages to botch up and bankrupt every institution they manage to get their perverted hands on; particularly their own. And yet they continue to spend and spend without any regard to logic or common sanity. I trust my care to a doctor who knows what he's doing; I do not trust it to a beaurocrat whose bottom line is what procedures he deems to be fiscally "feasible" on his end. It won't end well and that's the truth. However, I am merely one backward, racist, homophobic, fascist, hatemongering, ignorant conservative meathead who has the audacity to disagree with elites like Franken and the larger majority of the gang here at MMUK. I suppose I simply care too much about seeing every last egghead in Washington selling my future, my childrens' future, my buddies here at MMUK's futures down the river for their own corrupt favors, special interests and gains. Though I suppose it was also Ben Franklin who said that nothing in this world can said to be certain, except death and taxes... The more government weaves its tentacles into and around our personal health care decisions and outstanding day-to-day livelihood, the more we shall have of both. (My sincere apologies for completely derailing this thread. I felt the need to rant. To get this thread back on track, perhaps I should point out that the very ability and freedom for people across the world to express their opinions in so vast a forum as the worldwide web, of which I am a constant demonstration, is yet another example of what is right with the world.)
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