Obama Finalizes Health Care, Student Loan reform

[RIVERS]

I already caught you lying, remember?  Are you ready to post that information yet?  Just more baseless claims, it's getting to be a theme with you.

This is SHOW and tell.  If you don't have show, don't tell.  Your word carries nothing, you saw to that.

What happened to the "Show and Tell" Show?

I want to hear what you have to say...Please talk about my word meaning nothing and how I make baseless claims.

It will be fun.

Sorry, that was mean and uncalled for. (I deleted the bad words)

I like you 'Poe'..your a good-guy for the most part.

 Stop fighting me. I know you love me.

Or we could argue on the Net for what?...the next 40-50 Years until one of us dies?

[Poe]

What happened to the "Show and Tell" Show?

I want to hear what you have to say...Please talk about my word meaning nothing and how I make baseless claims.

It will be fun.

Sorry, that was mean and uncalled for. (I deleted the bad words)

I like you 'Poe'..your a good-guy for the most part.

 Stop fighting me. I know you love me.

Or we could argue on the Net for what?...the next 40-50 Years until one of us dies?

Argue with yourself.  Everyone else is tired of you.

[501]

 

[Poe]

 

Make sure you cite your source.....for both the image and the smiley.

Which reminds me, I'd like to cite the internet as the source for the otf smileys.

Also, I'd like to point out that Massachusetts is the source for Rivers.....which explains A LOT. 

[RIVERS]

I refuse to be baited into another useless, pointless, meaningless argument with you, Rivers.  I'm done.

Cool,..I suppose that is your way of saying...I give-up.

Smart move by you.

[declaration of independence]

It's "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."  But that's neither here nor there.  And for Rivers, it's William Shakespeare.

That's the original quote; I was applying the more-commonly used derivative, which I'm sure you've both heard and used yourself. Either way, the meaning is the same.

Why the jab at Rivers, though? I thought you were, “done” being “baited into another useless, pointless, meaningless argument” with him. Guess you baiting him into one is still on the table, huh?

It was just a sidebar.  Petty is subjective.

Ummm…yes; I believe I mentioned it being a side-bar. Shall we continue to repeat that or can we put that one to rest?  And, true, it is subjective. I chose/choose to use my subjectivity to call your comment petty. You’re free to object, agree or ignore. Makes no difference to me.

Your ability to do business in this country is a privilege, not a right.  The whole of the population is necessary for you to maintain normal business and hang on to your wealth.  If I remember correctly, they said you were endowed by your creator with certain unalienable rights and that among them were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Notice the rhetorical nature and intentional vagueness in those words?  They weren't really guaranteeing you the right to anything.  The founding fathers are America's original lawyers.

My ability to choose the lending institution from which I get my student loan is a privilege?!?  Really. Funny, I don’t recall having to get a permit for that. And, nope, haven’t needed one when shopping for groceries, or clothes, or computers, televisions, radios or…well…for anything else, come to  think of it.

The phrase was originally drafted as “life, liberty and property.” It was changed because of concerns about the short- and long-term impacts the word “property” would have in context of the slavery issue.

But, you’re right; the Declaration didn’t guarantee anything. That wasn’t its purpose. It was a declaration of independence (“Uh…hey, George. Yeah. Over  here.  Listen. We’re a little tired of you and those other limey bastards back there in Merry Ol’ …soooo… we’re just gonna start our own country now. Okay?”). With that phrase, the Founders were conveying the model upon which they would later build the new country they were declaring themselves to be (it was a vision thing ).


Your premise completely misses the meaning and intent, though. By proclaiming their belief  “that [we] are endowed by [our] Creator with certain  inalienable rights”,  the Founders were expressing their understanding that these basic rights were innate in all humans and that no government, king, potentate, poobah, etc  could bestow them upon us nor could they remove, revoke or repudiate any of them. And I’m confident the Founders understood the fallacy of assuming they (or anyone) could guarantee anything to anyone. They could recognize your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but they could never guarantee absolutely that no one would ever  deprive you of any of them; that’s an absurd standard (due to it being unattainable)  by which to measure them or their words. You’re confusing codification with enforcement.

Funny you refer to the Founders as America’s original lawyers, though. They were actually a pretty diverse group. True, many of them were lawyers or had some legal education, but they also included farmers, soldiers, merchants, doctors, etc. But using the term “lawyers” as a pejorative generalization against the Founders is pretty silly considering they wrote the entire founding document of our system of government in four pages. To see what real “lawyering” is all about, look at the 2000+ pages of the health “reform” act.

Yes Ren, we all get what you're saying.

Good. Maybe you’ll stop abusing the claim of ad hominem victimhood . Now, if you could work on stopping using them yourself, that would be great!!

There is a difference between having a superiority complex and actually being superior.

True, but what does that have to do with you. 

 

Ah, I see.  It depends on your definition of the word 'profit', aye?  I'll stick to the one in Webster's if that's ok.

 By all means, do that. And if you had, you wouldn't have had any trouble with my original meaning; it's the first definition listed in Webster's online version:

Main Entry: 1prof•it
Pronunciation: \?prä-f?t\
Function: noun
Usage: often attributive
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French, from Latin profectus advance, profit, from proficere
Date: 14th century
1 : a valuable return : GAIN

Well I was using the phrase ad hominem in the broader sense but that didn't seem to be ok.  I think we're approaching a double standard here.

Ad hominem has no broader sense -- certainly not in context of one’s (perceived)  tone. Condescending, patronizing, demeaning…any of those would have worked for your intended meaning.

Yes, and all people who get in to politics do this well.  Refresh my memory, which logical fallacy is that one?  You know, the one where if it's true in one instance it must be true in all instances?

Never said or implied this to be a universal truth. Didn’t have to either. All I needed was one example to refute your claim that no politician – in particular, no Democrat politician –  profits from being a politician; in your words, that such at thing “doesn’t exist.” I came up with five examples -- including three from “your Party” – without any effort at all.  Running out of straw, yet?

And besides, aside from Palin, all of these people you mentioned are people who would've made a lot of money in their lifetimes anyway.  They are all ambitious and well educated.  And Bush started out with more than most will ever make.

As did Gore. But I already acknowledged it was quite possible the politicians I named would have done quite well in other fields. This presumption still doesn’t refute the fact that they all most assuredly profited from becoming politicians.
But, if we’re talking about politicians at the federal level, their base salaries alone are enough to place them all well above the median income and firmly into the upper-tier, financially. It requires a big leap of faith to assume they all would have done so well outside of politics.
 

America's system of universities is one of the few things that have worked since the beginning and is still working quite well.  If the same could be said for Oil and Health Insurance I doubt we'd see people calling for the government to make changes to them.

Well, President Obama tacitly disagrees with you. While he may never lay the blame for skyrocketing university tuitions where it should be laid – at the feet of the universities --  by taking over the student-loan program, he’s, at least, acknowledging that there is a problem there. Regardless of his reasoning for this maneuver, it’s foolish and disingenuous to overlook the role played by the $200,000 debt (the part attributable to the university)  -- as opposed to that played by the 6-7% interest rate  on that debt (the banking industry’s part) – in the financial burden faced by graduating college students. You could eliminate the interest all together and the debt alone would still be a heavy load.

And the oil industry – as a whole – is working quite well, too. That fact is easy to overlook or dismiss in light of recent events, but imagine your life without oil or any of its by-products. Health insurance would be fine, too, if we used it as it should (and used to be) used – for catastrophic hospitalization. Instead, we use it in a way that’s equivalent to filing a claim against you home owner’s insurance every time you paint a room.

Listen, Confucius.  The 'that was sarcasm' comments were for the benefit of Rivers who has a tendency to take my sarcasm literally and then quote it back to me later.

I see; your negligence is my error – right? Never change, do you? Here’s a suggestion. Next time you’re replying to one person and you throw in a “helpful” comment directed at another, consider letting us both know by announcing that switch in audience.  That way, there won’t be any confusion and you won’t appear to be just covering your ass after the fact.

There is a difference between profiting and profiteering.  Universities are providing a valuable commodity to the public.  The sale of their product is producing results that are beneficial to the country.

Sure. Two-hundred thousand for a BA in Art History. Well worth the investment. And quite beneficial to society, too.

Pretty sure the public considers oil/gasoline to be a valuable commodity. Don’t you? And if health insurance were worthless, why all the fuss over trying to make sure everyone has it (even those who have already decided it isn’t that valuable to them).

Did you read the article 501 posted? The gist of it was how universities are plying their commodity to the public under the guise that you have to have a degree to be successful. Many grads are finding out that this is a bill of goods, particularly in the current economic climate. The article was overly wrought with angst and self-pity for my taste, but there is a kernel of truth to its premise that universities are culpable in feeding the frenzy that is helping to drive up the costs of an education.

I understand the benefits of an education; I have a dual degree. But there’s no substantive difference between universities and oil companies or health insurance companies. All are out to turn a profit. And universities turn a much heftier profit than either of the other two industries with far lower liabilities.  You, again, create a superficial distinction without identifying any substantive difference.  If you believe Big Oil and health insurers are profiteers, why not universities?

And your completely off topic attack of universities is Straw Man.  I was merely employing rhetoric in response.

Ummm…it appears I need to remind you that the topic at hand (at least one of them) was the takeover of the student-loan program by the government. Pointing out the double-standard of condemning private industries like Big Oil and Health Insurers while ignoring the culpability of universities in the exorbitant cost of a college education is not off-topic. But, even if it were, it would still not be a straw man argument. “Straw man” refers to a logical fallacy whereby one party misrepresents – purposely or otherwise, but generally, purposely – his or her opponent’s position on a subject in order to more easily refute it. Hence, the name “straw man,” -- as an easy target that only vaguely resembles the real one.

For example, we can take Rick’s claim that Tea Party members (and conservatives in general)  want “no government” – a tired, old argument I’ve heard and read a thousand times from a thousand liberal “pundits” and posters (so much for Rick’s additional claim that only conservatives repeat the same old lines over and over).  I don’t know anyone – myself included – who wants no government whatsoever (or who wants government to be inefficient or dysfunctional, as CK believes of Republican politicians). There are a relative handful of fringe cases on both ends of the political spectrum who may want this, but they are just that – fringe cases. So, my “attack” on universities -- as you call it  – wasn’t a straw man at all. Let’s see, now. I better add “Straw Man” to the list of logical fallacies you don’t understand – just so we can keep track.

Well that really kind of depends on the situation, doesn't it?  I mean, if your company is you and your boss there's really not a huge difference, is there?  On the other hand, if you're a janitor at a Tyco plant then yeah, it's a pretty big difference.

Are you the boss of your own company? If not, then your response has little bearing …just another of your attempts to distract-–nothing more. If you do own your own business, then I’d like to know how many times you’ve referred to yourself as an employee of that business as opposed to its owner.

Yes, Ren, I know that Word Perfect is still available.  Again, I work in this business.  I haven't seen a single installed instance of it in 10 years.  Not one.  Believe me, it's dead.

Funny, they’re still selling products, still making money, still signing multi-million dollar contracts with the government, still serving  tens of millions of customers world-wide – odd seeing as they’re dead and all. But, hey, I guess I’ll take your word for it; you’re the expert.

Microsoft's dominance has to do with the machines their OS shipped on being cheaper, period.  Nothing else.  How they were able to enter the market and compete at all is another story.  But make no mistake, they were all thieves.  There were no wronged parties, just sloppier thieves.

That would only explain Microsoft’s early dominance over Apple. Up until the early- to -mid-90’s, Microsoft was not yet the dominant software company for office applications. WordPerfect can operate on DOS machines as well as on machines running other OS; there’s no inherent advantage to using Microsoft in that regard.  But, the fact that Microsoft was able to get its OS and basic office suite pre-installed on so many machines was a huge advantage and the primary reason it soon overtook WordPerfect and others.

It also provided Microsoft the foundation from which to destroy Netscape and other competing Internet Browsers by allowing them to bundle IE with Windows. If they did not hold a dominant share of the OS market, through deals they had made years earlier with Intel and other OEMs, that strategy would not have been as successful as it was (and they may not have ended up in an anti-trust lawsuit).

No, it wasn't an apples to oranges argument.  You said "free downloads", not free fixes.  Either we're using the definitions in Webster's for both of us or for neither of us.  If I get no leeway then neither do you.

So…am I to understand you’ve never “downloaded” a software “fix” before? They aren’t mutually exclusive terms, you know? I mean, do the companies from whom you buy software send you out a CD every time they create a fix for a bug? Or do you just purchase a new version?  Because, if either of those were the case, then I could understand why you might have been confused. Me, personally, if I haven’t gotten an update automatically, then I go out to the company’s website and download what I need manually. What, again, is it you do in this industry?

As for the “apples-to-oranges” bit…of course that applies to your comparison of free downloads of MS Office to free downloads of Y2K bug fixes. On the one hand, you’re providing free downloads of a product you hope will have a long, and viable life in order to establish market share you hope to exploit later. On the other, you’re providing a contemporaneous, free download of a fix for a one-time bug with no expectation of ever being able to sell that fix at a markup somewhere down the road. Two completely different scenarios.
 

Thank you for pointing out the obvious before the argument is presented to you.  The 'free fixes' came out of that year's PR budget.

Well, I assume the expenses associated with creating those fixes had to come out of some department’s  budget; software developers don’t tend to work for nothing. But whether or not the costs of those fixes all came out of the PR budgets of every company involved is irrelevant to the question of whether or not they were free to the customer.

Let's cover this all in one statement to avoid more confusion.  I never said that Y2K would not have caused a problem.

Actually, that’s exactly what you said. But, I’ll be generous and give you leeway – allowing for the possibility you misspoke in the heat of the moment.

 I said that the vast majority of the problems were intentionally constructed.  The fact that chipsets would have trouble rolling over to 01/01/2000 has NO binary explanation.  There is NOTHING in the computing world related to the Julian calendar that isn't intentionally put there.  In binary, 01/01/2000 would be 01/01/11111010000.  My Commodore Vic20 could do multiplication into the quadrillions and only stopped there because of it's 5k of ram.

There was less concern that Y2K was going to cause massive, widespread failure of computer chips; it was more of a software concern. For example, there was a question whether  the software SSA used to calculate benefits would improperly resolve 01/01/2000 as January 1, 1900.   

The date was chosen.  Don't be so foolish as to believe it was a coincidence that so many chip manufacturer's chose that date or that it was random.  They KNEW it would cause a panic among the knuckle draggers about god returning or some other nonsense.  Apple chose to sell it's first order of computers, 1000 of them to a company in the midwest, for $666 apiece.  Think that was random?  They're making fun of the religious.  They were all happy to profit from Y2K.
 

Now which date do you mean? January 1, 2000 or the 2025 date when all these chips are supposedly going to fail? Whatever the motivation for the 2025 date, it simply doesn’t stand to reason that anyone associated with choosing that date did so for profit, as you claim.  Again, how many chips built in 1999 or prior are going to still be in use in 2025?

As for the $666 price for the Apple I, you have your facts a little mixed up. Apple’s first sale was made to a local electronics store in California. Wozniak explained that he picked the $666 unit price (it was actually $666.66) because he likes repeating numbers and $666.66 covered basic expenses plus 33% markup. He claims he didn’t know the biblical connection. Whether that’s the truth or CYA is open to interpretation. I couldn’t really care less.

I hold the SSA in high regard for one reason and one reason only, because it deserves to be held in high regard. 

Do you also have a poster of Bernie Madoff in your room?

In a hundred and a couple of days, FDR created the American middle class and the SSA was a big part of that.  And here we are all these years later and it's still functioning perfectly.  You take from that whatever you like.  I chose to believe it's a microcosm of what could be if people would put down their bible's and think with the brains instead.

Nonsense. The American middle-class existed long before FDR and did quite well without his “help.” All the machinations of the New Deal did precious little to aid  the ”little guy” Roosevelt claimed was the object of his efforts . Unemployment remained a problem throughout his first two terms – only improving significantly with the outbreak of WWII. Many of Roosevelt’s policies actually hurt the middle-class by failing to resolve unemployment, extending the depression beyond any previous depression/recession, destroying exports, artificially inflating prices and driving out of business small businesses that wouldn’t or couldn’t comply with the Codes he authorized large corporations like Firestone to establish, which regulated all manner of business practices within various industries. These Codes violated anti-trust laws and were used by the big corporations to drive out competition from smaller companies. Who do you think that hurt?

Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary, political defender and ally as well his neighbor and close, personal friend recognized the failure of FDR’s policies when, in May 1939, he told the Democrat members of the House Ways and Means Committee the following:

“We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work…I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…and an enormous debt to boot!”

SSA is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme and it hasn’t been operating perfectly since its inception. It’s required numerous tweaks and at least one major overhaul in our lifetime alone just to keep it afloat. It’s facing a looming debt crisis that shows little promise of being resolved without increases in payroll taxes and/or cuts in benefits. At least Madoff’s investors had a choice to give him their money.

How about instead -- I'm gonna wait for you to tell me which logical fallacy it is to believe all things must be a certain way because one thing is a certain way, K?

You’re the fallacy expert – well expert at using them; not so good at understanding , recognizing or avoiding them.  But if I were to say the fallacy you’re describing could be categorized as biased sampling leading to hasty generalization , would that impress you more than the fact I understand what it is, can recognize when it is used (or not used, as is the case in the politician discussion above), and know how to avoid it?

[Poe]

[declaration of independence]

That's the original quote; I was applying the more-commonly used derivative, which I'm sure you've both heard and used yourself. Either way, the meaning is the same.

Why the jab at Rivers, though? I thought you were, “done” being “baited into another useless, pointless, meaningless argument” with him. Guess you baiting him into one is still on the table, huh?

Ummm…yes; I believe I mentioned it being a side-bar. Shall we continue to repeat that or can we put that one to rest?  And, true, it is subjective. I chose/choose to use my subjectivity to call your comment petty. You’re free to object, agree or ignore. Makes no difference to me.

Let's kill the sidebar thread.

Rivers has earned a lifetime's worth of jabs.  My argument with him is fairly permanent.  In the statement you quoted I was saying I wasn't getting baited into a specific argument.  But all this has to do with Rivers, not you.

My ability to choose the lending institution from which I get my student loan is a privilege?!?  Really. Funny, I don’t recall having to get a permit for that. And, nope, haven’t needed one when shopping for groceries, or clothes, or computers, televisions, radios or…well…for anything else, come to  think of it.

Everything is a privilege, Ren.  The government exists to ensure that you don't fall under the rule of another government.  Anything else is fluff.  The currency is the property of the government.

The phrase was originally drafted as “life, liberty and property.” It was changed because of concerns about the short- and long-term impacts the word “property” would have in context of the slavery issue.

But, you’re right; the Declaration didn’t guarantee anything. That wasn’t its purpose. It was a declaration of independence (“Uh…hey, George. Yeah. Over  here.  Listen. We’re a little tired of you and those other limey bastards back there in Merry Ol’ …soooo… we’re just gonna start our own country now. Okay?”). With that phrase, the Founders were conveying the model upon which they would later build the new country they were declaring themselves to be (it was a vision thing ).


Your premise completely misses the meaning and intent, though. By proclaiming their belief  “that [we] are endowed by [our] Creator with certain  inalienable rights”,  the Founders were expressing their understanding that these basic rights were innate in all humans and that no government, king, potentate, poobah, etc  could bestow them upon us nor could they remove, revoke or repudiate any of them. And I’m confident the Founders understood the fallacy of assuming they (or anyone) could guarantee anything to anyone. They could recognize your right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but they could never guarantee absolutely that no one would ever  deprive you of any of them; that’s an absurd standard (due to it being unattainable)  by which to measure them or their words. You’re confusing codification with enforcement.

I was just spouting rhetoric.  And you're confusing freedom with entitlement.

Funny you refer to the Founders as America’s original lawyers, though. They were actually a pretty diverse group. True, many of them were lawyers or had some legal education, but they also included farmers, soldiers, merchants, doctors, etc. But using the term “lawyers” as a pejorative generalization against the Founders is pretty silly considering they wrote the entire founding document of our system of government in four pages. To see what real “lawyering” is all about, look at the 2000+ pages of the health “reform” act.

Again, this was just rhetoric, said for effect.  And it wasn't really intended to be a pejorative either, just funny.  Thomas Jefferson intentionally obfuscated the declaration.  That's all I was saying with the 'original lawyers' crack.

 

Ad hominem has no broader sense -- certainly not in context of one’s (perceived)  tone. Condescending, patronizing, demeaning…any of those would have worked for your intended meaning.

Really?  Then I suppose you shouldn't have started this with "your ad hominem attempts to insult my intelligence."  Because ad hominem refers to an argument tactic that is comprised of two assertions: refuting a person's position by launching an attack on a person's character and then asserting that because of the character flaw the person's positions cannot be correct.  I was not attacking a position by attacking your character with the deluded and diluted crack, just making a joke at your expense.  So you were using the term incorrectly in the first place.

Never said or implied this to be a universal truth. Didn’t have to either. All I needed was one example to refute your claim that no politician – in particular, no Democrat politician –  profits from being a politician; in your words, that such at thing “doesn’t exist.” I came up with five examples -- including three from “your Party” – without any effort at all.  Running out of straw, yet?

I never said that.  I specifically said that politics wasn't the place to look for ROI.  So you found five, did you?  Well there currently a couple of ten thousands.  So you're in the less than 1 percent range.  Who has the straw?



At this point I feel compelled to begin breaking these into multiple replies.   It's getting to be too much.

[RIVERS]

I't always nice to know folks are thinking of you.

'You like me...you really like me' 

Italian Apples

South American apples. Meant to post this a while ago...

[very]

Let's kill the sidebar thread.

Rivers has earned a lifetime's worth of jabs.  My argument with him is fairly permanent.  In the statement you quoted I was saying I wasn't getting baited into a specific argument.  But all this has to do with Rivers, not you

Yeah! Sure, Poe. You're right, "...another useless, pointless, meaningless argument..." sounds very specific. No way you meant that in general terms.   :

Everything is a privilege, Ren.  The government exists to ensure that you don't fall under the rule of another government.  Anything else is fluff.  The currency is the property of the government.

Only if you believe your rights are bestowed upon you by your government. I don't and neither did the Founders.To ensure the sovereignty of the country is maintained...that's one responsibility of the government (although it's abdicating this responsibility more and more). But it also has the responsibility to protect your individual rights as a citizen against assault from other individuals or groups -- even from a majority of your fellow citizens.

Your thoughts here seem a little contradictory to your claims that there is no differece between the government and an individual citizen, though.

I was just spouting rhetoric.  And you're confusing freedom with entitlement.

Not at all, but I'd like to hear why you think I am.

Again, this was just rhetoric, said for effect.  And it wasn't really intended to be a pejorative either, just funny.  Thomas Jefferson intentionally obfuscated the declaration.  That's all I was saying with the 'original lawyers' crack.

It was funny, but I think most people would take it as pejorative as well -- considering the reputation of the profession and all. I don't see Jefferson obfuscating anything. He was declaring independence for the country (or at least the 56 signers) and stating the reasons why he and the others felt the need to do so. There was never any intent to guarantee anything to anyone -- in part because of their stated beliefs that such was not for any governing authority to purvey. 
 

Really?  Then I suppose you shouldn't have started this with "your ad hominem attempts to insult my intelligence."  Because ad hominem refers to an argument tactic that is comprised of two assertions: refuting a person's position by launching an attack on a person's character and then asserting that because of the character flaw the person's positions cannot be correct.  I was not attacking a position by attacking your character with the deluded and diluted crack, just making a joke at your expense.  So you were using the term incorrectly in the first place.

No, you made the comment in response to my point that governments can operate with the effect of a monopoly as easily (more easily, actually, since the government can do so by fiat) as any private corporation. Implying I'm deluded (and, therefore, my argument is diluted) is ad hominem in the short form. Points to you for brevity, and, to be fair, you were painting with a broad brush by implicating all of my posts -- not just the one at hand. But, it was still an example of ad hominem nonetheless.

I never said that.  I specifically said that politics wasn't the place to look for ROI.  So you found five, did you?  Well there currently a couple of ten thousands.  So you're in the less than 1 percent range.  Who has the straw?

Sure you did...in the same paragraph as your ROI comment. Helps to re-read before you make absolute statements like, "I never said that." And since you used another absolute statement -- that profit motive within political parties and politicians "doesn't exist. ... at least it doesn't in [your] party" -- I only needed one example to refute it. Our whole political system is designed such that the political parties are required to think in terms of profit or gain in order to be able to effect any agenda they may have, no matter how pure, true or altruistic that agenda may be. Unless a party gains a majority of seats in Congress or captures the presidency, its ability to enact or enforce the policies it deems important is greatly hindered. 

Regardless of my percentage, this wouldn't have been an example of straw man argument. If I had stated or implied that all politicians were motivated purely by profit and had based this on five examples of politicians who had profited from being politicians, then I would have been guilty of biased sampling -- not straw man. Your continued mistaken assertion that this is what I did -- now that is straw man.

[RIVERS]

[$68 Million]

What was the topic again?

Hey I'm voting for Meg Whitman (or what-ever her name is)...she has spent $68 Million dollars of her personal money to possibly be elected Governor of California, a job that pays about $200,000 a year.

Now THAT is one smart lady I say.

She must know a lot about fiscal responsibility and budgets and such.

[$68 Million]

What was the topic again?

Hey I'm voting for Meg Whitman (or what-ever her name is)...she has spent $68 Million dollars of her personal money to possibly be elected Governor of California, a job that pays about $200,000 a year.

Now THAT is one smart lady I say.

She must know a lot about fiscal responsibility and budgets and such.

She's worth $1.4B; $68M is less than pocket change to her. I wouldn't vote for, but not because of any concerns about her intelligence or financial acumen; when she worked for Hasbro, she was responsible for bringing Teletubbies to the U.S. Enough said; she's done. >