Let me try this again. You're demanding that I comment about France for some reason.
Posted By: Or the conversation is over? Wow. on 2009-05-02
In Reply to: That's funny, a refusal to comment is an end to a discussion as far as I know. - lall
Have it your way, though. I certainly have better things to do. Our side of this conversation is over. I'll continue to discuss this with others who don't have a "French fixation" though.
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Why should I comment on France - or avoid doing so?
We're not France. It's not like you can take a system from one culture and parachute it into another culture. This isn't Leggos, or buying off-the-rack clothes.
There are many, many factors to take into account when a society fashions something like government-paid healthcare because it will impact, and be impacted by, that society in many ways. We don't have the same culture that France has, we don't have the same tax rates, we have a different healthcare delivery system in place, and on it goes.
No, I won't be commenting about France, except to say that I watched an extensive documentary about government health systems around the world and neither England, Canada, France or Sweden were rated very highly in terms of efficiency or patient satisfaction. Japan's system was considered the best on most metrics, so if anything I would comment on that system - which I won't do either for the reasons mentioned above.
Only one religion is what they're demanding.
I like the fact that I live in a nation where people are free to worship as they choose.
But those who **know the truth** demand that it's their way or the highway (heaven-wise).
You're right. I wouldn't attempt to reason this through with anyone...nm
x
Roosevelt is the reason we're in this mess
xx
Yeah, and you're ALWAYS the voice of reason
Oh brother!
and telling everyone...no demanding
that everyone feel the way they do. Yes...ugly and evil. UNPATRIOTIC AND ANTI-AMERICAN.
France is burning.
Radical fundamentalist Muslims are rotting Europe from the inside out. They know it and they are actually starting to admit it. But their country had to burn before they took their cowardly unappreciative heads out of their hairy armpits. France especially should be ashamed of their actions. If ever a country should show some appreciation for the tens of thousands who died to liberate them...but then, they are French. The only country in the world where every citizen can say *I surrender* in ten different languages. Phooey on them.
Protests going on all over France like this.
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/base/international-2/124092166956780.xml&storylist=health
More on that note....France, that non...
judgmental open-minded country....their Prez says France cannot accept Burqas...this is just part of it....PARIS — President Nicolas Sarkozy said the Muslim burqa would not be welcome in France, calling the full-body religious gown a sign of the "debasement" of women.
In the first presidential address to parliament in 136 years, Sarkozy faced critics who fear the burqa issue could stigmatize France's Muslims and said he supported banning the garment from being worn in public.
"In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity," Sarkozy said to extended applause at the Chateau of Versailles, southwest of Paris.
"The burqa is not a religious sign, it's a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement — I want to say it solemnly," he said. "It will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic."
Hmmmm. Oh my. Muslims world wide (not to mention the 5 million that live in France) are going to LOVE that.
And people say WE aren't open-minded? LOL. Where is the French version of the ACLU?? Hey...they can borrow ours. HEY, Sarkozy...take THEM ALL. :-) lol
France is getting universal healthcare right...
Great post piglet. I so agree with what you all had to say in support of changing our current system. Canada probably has the worst universal healthcare system, and yet the average Canadian lives 3 years longer than the average American. People always point to the flaws in their system and just assume that we will make all the same mistakes. Of course their system has flaws, just as our system has many fatal flaws. England and France actually have great universal healthcare systems. Here is an article I found about France's successful program:
"France's model healthcare system
By Paul V. Dutton | August 11, 2007
MANY advocates of a universal healthcare system in the United States look to Canada for their model. While the Canadian healthcare system has much to recommend it, there's another model that has been too long neglected. That is the healthcare system in France.
Although the French system faces many challenges, the World Health Organization rated it the best in the world in 2001 because of its universal coverage, responsive healthcare providers, patient and provider freedoms, and the health and longevity of the country's population. The United States ranked 37.
The French system is also not inexpensive. At $3,500 per capita it is one of the most costly in Europe, yet that is still far less than the $6,100 per person in the United States.
An understanding of how France came to its healthcare system would be instructive in any renewed debate in the United States.
That's because the French share Americans' distaste for restrictions on patient choice and they insist on autonomous private practitioners rather than a British-style national health service, which the French dismiss as "socialized medicine." Virtually all physicians in France participate in the nation's public health insurance, Sécurité Sociale.
Their freedoms of diagnosis and therapy are protected in ways that would make their managed-care-controlled US counterparts envious. However, the average American physician earns more than five times the average US wage while the average French physician makes only about two times the average earnings of his or her compatriots. But the lower income of French physicians is allayed by two factors. Practice liability is greatly diminished by a tort-averse legal system, and medical schools, although extremely competitive to enter, are tuition-free. Thus, French physicians enter their careers with little if any debt and pay much lower malpractice insurance premiums.
Nor do France's doctors face the high nonmedical personnel payroll expenses that burden American physicians. Sécurité Sociale has created a standardized and speedy system for physician billing and patient reimbursement using electronic funds.
It's not uncommon to visit a French medical office and see no nonmedical personnel. What a concept. No back office army of billing specialists who do daily battle with insurers' arcane and constantly changing rules of payment.
Moreover, in contrast to Canada and Britain, there are no waiting lists for elective procedures and patients need not seek pre-authorizations. In other words, like in the United States, "rationing" is not a word that leaves the lips of hopeful politicians. How might the French case inform the US debate over healthcare reform?
National health insurance in France stands upon two grand historical bargains -- the first with doctors and a second with insurers.
Doctors only agreed to participate in compulsory health insurance if the law protected a patient's choice of practitioner and guaranteed physicians' control over medical decision-making. Given their current frustrations, America's doctors might finally be convinced to throw their support behind universal health insurance if it protected their professional judgment and created a sane system of billing and reimbursement.
French legislators also overcame insurance industry resistance by permitting the nation's already existing insurers to administer its new healthcare funds. Private health insurers are also central to the system as supplemental insurers who cover patient expenses that are not paid for by Sécurité Sociale. Indeed, nearly 90 percent of the French population possesses such coverage, making France home to a booming private health insurance market.
The French system strongly discourages the kind of experience rating that occurs in the United States, making it more difficult for insurers to deny coverage for preexisting conditions or to those who are not in good health. In fact, in France, the sicker you are, the more coverage, care, and treatment you get. Would American insurance companies cut a comparable deal?
Like all healthcare systems, the French confront ongoing problems. Today French reformers' number one priority is to move health insurance financing away from payroll and wage levies because they hamper employers' willingness to hire. Instead, France is turning toward broad taxes on earned and unearned income alike to pay for healthcare.
American advocates of mandates on employers to provide health insurance should take note. The link between employment and health security is a historical artifact whose disadvantages now far outweigh its advantages. Economists estimate that between 25 and 45 percent of the US labor force is now job-locked. That is, employees make career decisions based on their need to maintain affordable health coverage or avoid exclusion based on a preexisting condition.
Perhaps it's time for us to take a closer look at French ideas about healthcare reform. They could become an import far less "foreign" and "unfriendly" than many here might initially imagine."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial...lthcare_system/
I thought it was working in France? nm
.
I agree. If not for the US, France would be speaking German. nm
nm
Have you studied the healthcare system in France?
I have not seen you remark on it once. It seems you are avoiding it. The young person who opts out is not an issue.
Yep...and today he is holding a town hall in France...
yukking it up with Europe as his own country circles the drain....pittiiiffullll.
No. Latest news is that costs for France rising too
nm
U.S., France join in cease-fire call in Lebanon war..sm
So we are back bumping elbows with France. If only we would have taken their advice on Iraq too.
Comment on Bush comment
I heard Bush this morning saying that no one predicted or knew that the New Orleans levees would give way. Well, that is not true. This was widely predicted by engineers and meteologists. The engineers predicted it for years if/when a major hurricaine hit, as well as engineers and meteorologists predicting this 1-2 days before Katrina. I even told my boyfriend last Sunday night that they were predicting some levees would break, that New Orleans would be in water the same depth as Lake Pontchartrain and that thousands could die. Gee, guess I should be a White House advisor.
My other gripe is that this federal response seems a bit slow. Like maybe Monday afternoon things should have been put into motion instead of......Thursday? But then, I'm sure not an expert.
too ignorant a comment to comment on...nm
nm
This is the reason we are in Iraq and it's the same reason I didn't vote for him in 2000: Didn't
his own personal reasons.
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050620/why_george_went_to_war.php
The Downing Street memos have brought into focus an essential question: on what basis did President George W. Bush decide to invade Iraq? The memos are a government-level confirmation of what has been long believed by so many: that the administration was hell-bent on invading Iraq and was simply looking for justification, valid or not.
Despite such mounting evidence, Bush resolutely maintains total denial. In fact, when a British reporter asked the president recently about the Downing Street documents, Bush painted himself as a reluctant warrior. "Both of us didn't want to use our military," he said, answering for himself and British Prime Minister Blair. "Nobody wants to commit military into combat. It's the last option."
Yet there's evidence that Bush not only deliberately relied on false intelligence to justify an attack, but that he would have willingly used any excuse at all to invade Iraq. And that he was obsessed with the notion well before 9/11—indeed, even before he became president in early 2001.
In interviews I conducted last fall, a well-known journalist, biographer and Bush family friend who worked for a time with Bush on a ghostwritten memoir said that an Iraq war was always on Bush's brain.
"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and Houston Chronicle journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He went on, 'If I have a chance to invade…, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'"
Bush apparently accepted a view that Herskowitz, with his long experience of writing books with top Republicans, says was a common sentiment: that no president could be considered truly successful without one military "win" under his belt. Leading Republicans had long been enthralled by the effect of the minuscule Falklands War on British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's popularity, and ridiculed Democrats such as Jimmy Carter who were reluctant to use American force. Indeed, both Reagan and Bush's father successfully prosecuted limited invasions (Grenada, Panama and the Gulf War) without miring the United States in endless conflicts.
Herskowitz's revelations illuminate Bush's personal motivation for invading Iraq and, more importantly, his general inclination to use war to advance his domestic political ends. Furthermore, they establish that this thinking predated 9/11, predated his election to the presidency and predated his appointment of leading neoconservatives who had their own, separate, more complex geopolitical rationale for supporting an invasion.
Conversations With Bush The Candidate
Herskowitz—a longtime Houston newspaper columnist—has ghostwritten or co-authored autobiographies of a broad spectrum of famous people, including Reagan adviser Michael Deaver, Mickey Mantle, Dan Rather and Nixon cabinet secretary John B. Connally. Bush's 1999 comments to Herskowitz were made over the course of as many as 20 sessions together. Eventually, campaign staffers—expressing concern about things Bush had told the author that were included in the manuscript—pulled the project, and Bush campaign officials came to Herskowitz's house and took his original tapes and notes. Bush communications director Karen Hughes then assumed responsibility for the project, which was published in highly sanitized form as A Charge to Keep.
The revelations about Bush's attitude toward Iraq emerged during two taped sessions I held with Herskowitz. These conversations covered a variety of matters, including the journalist's continued closeness with the Bush family and fondness for Bush Senior—who clearly trusted Herskowitz enough to arrange for him to pen a subsequent authorized biography of Bush's grandfather, written and published in 2003.
I conducted those interviews last fall and published an article based on them during the final heated days of the 2004 campaign. Herskowitz's taped insights were verified to the satisfaction of editors at the Houston Chronicle, yet the story failed to gain broad mainstream coverage, primarily because news organization executives expressed concern about introducing such potent news so close to the election. Editors told me they worried about a huge backlash from the White House and charges of an "October Surprise."
Debating The Timeline For War
But today, as public doubts over the Iraq invasion grow, and with the Downing Street papers adding substance to those doubts, the Herskowitz interviews assume singular importance by providing profound insight into what motivated Bush—personally—in the days and weeks following 9/11. Those interviews introduce us to a George W. Bush, who, until 9/11, had no means for becoming "a great president"—because he had no easy path to war. Once handed the national tragedy of 9/11, Bush realized that the Afghanistan campaign and the covert war against terrorist organizations would not satisfy his ambitions for greatness. Thus, Bush shifted focus from Al Qaeda, perpetrator of the attacks on New York and Washington. Instead, he concentrated on ensuring his place in American history by going after a globally reviled and easily targeted state run by a ruthless dictator.
The Herskowitz interviews add an important dimension to our understanding of this presidency, especially in combination with further evidence that Bush's focus on Iraq was motivated by something other than credible intelligence. In their published accounts of the period between 9/11 and the March 2003 invasion, former White House Counterterrorism Coordinator Richard Clarke and journalist Bob Woodward both describe a president single-mindedly obsessed with Iraq. The first anecdote takes place the day after the World Trade Center collapsed, in the Situation Room of the White House. The witness is Richard Clarke, and the situation is captured in his book, Against All Enemies.
On September 12th, I left the Video Conferencing Center and there, wandering alone around the Situation Room, was the President. He looked like he wanted something to do. He grabbed a few of us and closed the door to the conference room. "Look," he told us, "I know you have a lot to do and all…but I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything, everything. See if Saddam did this. See if he's linked in any way…"
I was once again taken aback, incredulous, and it showed. "But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this."
"I know, I know, but…see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred…" …
"Look into Iraq, Saddam," the President said testily and left us. Lisa Gordon-Hagerty stared after him with her mouth hanging open.
Similarly, Bob Woodward, in a CBS News 60 Minutes interview about his book, Bush At War, captures a moment, on November 21, 2001, where the president expresses an acute sense of urgency that it is time to secretly plan the war with Iraq. Again, we know there was nothing in the way of credible intelligence to precipitate the president's actions.
Woodward: "President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, 'What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.'"
Wallace (voiceover): Woodward says immediately after that, Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to develop a war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam—and that Rumsfeld gave Franks a blank check.
Woodward: "Rumsfeld and Franks work out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs. And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the necessary preparations in Kuwait specifically to make war possible."
Bush wanted a war so that he could build the political capital necessary to achieve his domestic agenda and become, in his mind, "a great president." Blair and the members of his cabinet, unaware of the Herskowitz conversations, placed Bush's decision to mount an invasion in or about July of 2002. But for Bush, the question that summer was not whether, it was only how and when. The most important question, why, was left for later.
Eventually, there would be a succession of answers to that question: weapons of mass destruction, links to Al Qaeda, the promotion of democracy, the domino theory of the Middle East. But none of them have been as convincing as the reason George W. Bush gave way back in the summer of 1999.
You're entitled to your opinion. I guess it depends on what side of the spectrum you're on.nm
x
We're not defending Bush we're pointing out the obvious
All you see in your view is Bush, Bush, Bush. Nobody else exists. You have yet to answer any of the questions I posed yesterday. We're not the one obsessing about Bush. I'm sure you'll counter that with I don't owe you any answers! It's really telling that for five or six days this board was mute about the Israel/Lebanon situation. You were too busy posting trash news about Bush like nothing was even happening, but I know that the left has wait for its talking points. You all cannot formulate opinions on your own. You have boilerplates ready to go though. *This is Bush's fault because _____________ but you have to wait on Howard Dean, Bill Clinton, etc. etc. to fill in the blanks for you. It's not just a phenomenon here but with all the left. You can count on at least two days of silence when something unforseen breaks out in the world, because they have to retreat to their bunkers to get their talking points straight, but it will always start with *This is Bush's fault because....
Hey, if they're smoking cigs, they're paying for SCHIP.
xx
They're too lazy to show patriotism......they're waiting
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Comment
Why did you choose the Hilter comparison?
Here is what I saw in Hitler:
1. Megalomania - yes, possibly in Bush.
2. Skillful use of the propaganda of hate to unite a nation and incite a lust for war. Blaming of select ethnic group for Germany's woes -- yes, I see some similarity there, but Bush seems more like "oops, sorry I accidentlly killed you" to the Iraquis (Islam nations) rather than "I will place you in concentration camps until you are all exterminated."
3. Hitler was mentally ill but still capable of great, inspirational speeches and inspiring confidence in the masses -- Bush is kind of dopey and I'm not sure who he inspires, really, if much of anyone.
4. Hitler seemed to have an agenda to exterminate -- as mentioned, I don't see that in Bush.
Well, I had fun with this. WWII is an area that I know quite a bit about.
Comment
Did gt actually say there were NO socialist Jews? I took her to mean that Jews in general should not be categorized as socialists. There are probably socialist Irish, socialist Catholics, socialist African-Americans....but that doesn't mean you label the entire ethnic group as such. Common sense would dictate this. Just as I keep saying, you cannot label all liberals or all democrats as having the same ideals and belief systems. You seem to keep trying to put square pegs in round holes here....or, as also has been mentioned...thinking only in black and white when the world and all its people are shades of gray. It makes me very sad to see this and I end up feeling hopeless about the future of our country and of the world.
As far as Chomsky, I haven't read tons of his writing but what I did read a few years ago I very much liked. Could it be a case of you taking some things he wrote out of context? Or perhaps some things he wrote were more fiery or radical than you were comfortable with? Perhaps you didn't survey his writings as a whole and only picked out a few you didn't like. When you make an accusation as you did, please provide examples to back up your comments.
Your comment...
I think I do your understand your point....basically you are saying his comment was taken out of context? It did seem that what I read of this quote was more that he was careless in his comments - they touched a nerve, as I said. It seemed he was looking at a cultural problem from a tongue-in-cheek statistical line of reasoning, and perhaps spoke before thinking. At least, I HOPE that's all it was. I have not read this all that carefully, I must admit. I also admit I know NOTHING about him personally or his past.
Thanks for your intelligent commentary.
Comment
Obviously your beliefs bring you solace and comfort and that is a benefit that religion offers, in my opinion, and that is very good if it helps you.
However, perhaps you should not generalize. I was a hospice worker as well as watching my mother die from cancer. She was a life-long agnostic and I don't believe it ever even crossed her mind to call out to Jesus or Zeus or any other deity. She made the most graceful exit from this world I have ever seen and was at peace with that process.
I do agree though that in times of extreme stress many folks may want to enlist the aid of a higher power, but please don't assume that we all turn to Jesus.
Just a comment
Does this apply to anyone who helps a specific region? That would certainly limit a lot of programs that target specific groups of the poor. So when President Johnson launched his War on Poverty targeting Appalachia he should have been required to live there? I am just so happy to see interest and help provided for the most downtrodden sectors of our society (as well as worldwide) that I can see no good reason to require that the folks contributing have to change their place of residence.
Had to comment
The story about your prescriptions rings so true! My insurance company sends me these little papers after every x-ray, lab test, etc. that outlines what I paid, what they paid, and whether or not the price was reduced. I had blood tests that I was initially told cost $1,150. (I almost passed out!) After a few months of arguing with the insurance company and the lab, I get one of these little papers that says my $1,150 bill was knocked down to $150 - without my insurance paying anything. The lab went ahead and reduced the price since my insurance was obviously not going to pay for it. I've had this done with hospital bills, too. I just love looking at those numbers. Someone is making a HUGE profit somewhere for them to be able to cut the price down that much. Kinda like when I worked in retail and I got to see the difference between what the store paid to the manufacturer and what the price tag said. Sometimes I'd almost rather not know...
Just another comment
I've been watching all stations of the news. I'm not voting for Obama. I don't trust him. I also don't trust McCain and not voting for him. I'm sure I will write in someone's name. With that said I have seen no "love fest" with Obama (watch CNN, MSNBC, and FOX). I'm not seeing this "love fest", however it was so obvious with Clinton. It was so obvious and so nauseating that I always had a bucket nearby to retch in.
As for McCain..who is saying that he is supposed to "hide" the fact that he was tortured. I've never heard that on any station. However, McCain keeps playing it over and over and over. This is not the Vietnam war and I don't care what anyone says...just because he was tortured doesn't make him qualified to be President. What makes some qualified is having your "faculties" together. Know what country you are talking about and know what's going on with the countries. DH and I were looking at each other funny when he's talking about Iran and says the Israeli people and vice versa. He doesn't know where the Taliban are, and for sure he has no idea or plans to get this country back on its feet. He is a war mongerer and that's all he's planning for. If its not one country he'll start up a war somewhere else. It's what he thrives on.
As for September 11th - the truth will come out one day and people will be shocked and in denial.
First of all, i appreciate very much your comment...
about her daughter.
That being said...there are women in high places who have young children. I do not think that precludes Sarah Palin from serving. She has been managing as governor, including firing the state chef because she wanted to cook for her own kids.
JFK had young children. Both John and Caroline were very young. Jackie did a fine job raising them. They were/are fine young people.
the difference is that Sarah is VP, not president, and her husband will be taking a larger role. There are a lot of husbands who stay at home more to take care of children because of the wife's career. I don't remember how old amy carter was...13 maybe?
At any rate, that is not an issue for me. Those children seem happy and well adjusted after their mom being a mayor and then a governor, and I have no reason to believe they will suffer if she is VP.
I think that just brings her closer to understanding career women, who can have both without excluding the other. I think that makes her closer to mothers, period. She understands.
But that is just my opinion...and you are certainly entitled to yours.
Just a comment
Having offspring is not the only reason to get married as your post suggests (not saying it says that, just saying it "suggests" that). You said "If same-gender marriage was to be then where would there be offspring". There are a lot of man/women couples who cannot have children (like me), should that have stopped us from getting married? Loving a person and wanting to spend the rest of your life with them and share the same rights every other human being get to have should be the basis for a marriage. Just leave the offspring to couples who can have kids. The world will still be fruitful and multiple.
Well, my comment on that is ---
If you don't believe in abortion and you don't believe in gay marriage, then don't get an abortion and don't get married to a gay person, and you will still get to pay less taxes!
Thanks for your comment..nm
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Comment
(Basically, Russia wants to be able to trust the USA again but is deploying "short-range missiles near Poland to counter U.S. military plans in Eastern Europe" in response to Bush's missile placement in Poland and the Czech Republic.)
From:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_medvedev
After the speech, the Kremlin announced Medvedev had congratulated Obama for winning the U.S. presidency, saying in a telegram he was "counting on a constructive dialogue with you on the basis of trust and taking each other's interests into account."
So, no comment on JTP?
x
I think we both know better so why should your comment
))
Thanks. I appreciate this comment.
I was beginning to think I was hallucinating hate speech after hours and hours of defending the other side of the coin. Guess that means I should pack it in for the night. After all, the Israelis will still be attacking Gaza in the morning and I guess it wouldn't hurt to say a few prayers, begging for mercy and hoping the gound invasion will not take place.
My comment is to anyone
who lived that carefree, don't worry about tomorrow attitude that got them in the situation they are in now. Who in their right mind would agree to an interest-only mortgage, an ARM, or any other harebrained idea to own a home. I am more irritated with the ones who knew they made $50,000 a year and bought a $300,000 home and can now plead stupid and irresponsible and the gov't will bend over backwards to help them out. I am sick and tired of my money going to those who have no clue as to how to manage money, can't better themselves without the gov't helping out, and just plain expect someone else to pay for their mistakes. Believe me, I am tender hearted, feel for the children, etc, I don't want to see anyone lose their home but for cryin' out loud, take some responsibility and quit blaming the lenders; they did not FORCE people to buy homes. Sure, they made an attractive offer, but that does not preclude common sense going right out the window just because you want something. Shelter is a right; owning a home is a privilege when you can afford it.
no comment.....nm
nm
So you're not racist but you're most definitely SEXIST and AGEIST!!!
"Someone more in our age group..."
"She should be taking care of her family."
Your true colors are showing, and they're truly ugly.
Just because they're LOSING doesn't mean they're VICTIMS.
What is it with people these days? You think that just because Hamas is getting its fanny handed to it that that magically makes them victims, and we should all weep and throw cash at them?
From the dawn of time, lesser civilizations have fallen to stronger ones.
It's why the human species survived and the neanderthals didn't.
It's why Rome conquered the Celts.
It's why the Barbarians conquered the Western Roman Empire.
It's why the British conquered the American Indians.
It's why the Spanish conquered the Aztecs.
It's why the Muslims conquered Israel the first time. But, since their societal progres seems to have permanently parked in the Stone Age, now Israel is conquering them right back.
Deal with it.
You're right. They're simply not worthy of a reply.
I'll take the ignorant comment
as a compliment....believe or not I do read a lot and from different perspectives. What people like you can't stand is that some people don't take the same perspective as you. If you want to live in a doom and gloom and defeatest mindset go ahead...you are certainly free to do so, but calling me ignorant for my perspective on the whole situation shows that you cannot accept other's views on the whole subject. Again, where's the tolerance and understanding? 
Dont comment, please
A Xtian, if he/she does not want to look like a fool, should not comment on Israel.
Okay, one last comment (for the time being)
When I spoke of hijacked I meant:
1. I have been banned at times from the Conservative board for comments I've made which seemed pretty tame in retrospect. How many of you conservatives have been banned on the liberal board? I'll bet none, but hope I'm wrong.
2. The conservative board have reminded the liberals posting on it REPEATEDLY that it is their board, no bashing allowed and to go back to their own board - often in a very nasty fashion. Fair enough, but the same rules are NOT followed by the conservatives posting on the liberal board and that is definitely not playing fair and creates a double-standard.
3. It does make me happy to see conservatives posting on this board but I do not enjoy the bashing and the double-standard (see point #2) that I see going on. Worst of all, it turns me into a basher at times, too, out of frustration!!
That's it, didn't mean to start a civil war or anything.
I have learned SO much from both conservative and liberal posts and hope it continues.
Additional comment on this.
Open the website listed and take a look at ALL THE OFFERS. It is WONDERFUL. Some groups are accepting over 1000 people. It will make you feel like people really do CARE and they are all over the country.
Oh yeah, and what about the *pot* comment at the very end
Thought you didn't smoke pot gt? You were all up in arms about that last week So which is it, you do or you don't?
Nuevo California state motto---what grows in Nuevo California stays in California! 
Here is the comment I was talking about....
it was NOT a skit. She has done this twice. The time I am talking about, she said this: ...Rock bottom came when [Randi Rhodes] compared Bush and his family to the Corleones in the “Godfather” saga. “Like Fredo, somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw,” she said, imitating the sound of gunfire.
THIS is the one she apologized for: The announcer said: “A spoiled child is telling us our Social Security isn’t safe anymore, so he is going to fix it for us. Well, here’s your answer, you ungrateful whelp: [audio sound of four gunshots being fired.] Just try it, you little bastard. [audio of gun being cocked].”
Anyone who wants to complain about Ann Coulter should try a little Randi.
If she did it twice, I have no doubt of her intent, no matter how many times she *apologizes.
Just to keep it REAL.
I guess my comment to that would be
Not everyone CHOOSES not to have insurance. Take my father for example - He worked in construction. He had a heart attack this past year. This past month, he was laid off. He will not be able to get private health insurance because of his heart attack. Not all people do not have insurance because they don't want to. Some cannot afford it. Others have it, but it is dependent on their full-time employment. People are getting laid off left and right down here. Those people will now be without insurance until they can find another full-time job. Yes, I do realize that there is Cobra, but the premiums for that are astronomical. How is a person without a job supposed to pay $800 a month for health insurance (for just one person)?
The other issue, is the one I bring up for my situation. I have a pre-existing condition. I cannot get private heatlh insurance. I HAVE to work full-time to keep this insurance. I have only two options - work full time or not work at all and get Medicaid. And yes, I had insurance when I was initially diagnosed, but I was covered under my mother's health insurance because I was in school and under 25. At that point, I got very sick and was not able to get a full-time job to cover the gap in coverage. When I tried to apply, I was denied. When I finally was able to work full-time, I had to pay for 12 months of insurance during which time NOTHING was covered. So, not only did I pay the $300 insurance premiums, but I still have a few thousand dollars in medical bills.
My main point was that the poster above mentioned free enterprise and letting insurance companies have free reign. I was just trying to explain why that is a horrible idea because insurance companies are a business and they only care about $. They of course will choose not to cover someone with an illness. SOME government control over the situation I feel is necessary.
Just had one comment to make...
I agree that we should have stuck with Bin Laden until we caught him, but here is the thing. Bin Laden isn't doing the fighting. He is sending his people to do all the ugly work while he hides and is well protected. The only way for us to win the war on terrorism is if the people in these countries fight themselves against the terrorists. If they stand up and say....I've had enough.....it will be a lot harder for the terrorists to do what they are doing. JMO though. We can't make them stand up to them though and I can't really blame them because I'd be terrified if I were them too, but that is the only way it will stop.
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