Personally, I think that the President has more important things to do than spend his time memorizing every individual speech he gives. Maybe his critics would be appeased if he were less obvious with the teleprompters, but I somehow doubt it.

I loved the way he made fun of the controversy during the Correspondent’s dinner.

I also watched the whole thing, and I found it both inspirational and realistic. There were no tired slogans, no blind optimism, no blowing sunshine up their butts.

I do not see how anything he said could even remotely be viewed as arrogant or narcissistic. It seems that some people are still determined to see only what they want to see. What a waste.

If we got rid of the penny, think of all those prices that would have to be rounded (up) to the nearest nickel. Sales tax would also be rounded by more than a penny.

I agree that it is time to use a different alloy for pennies. It’s not like they have to be compatible with intelligent vending machines.

GuyPartisan looks like the political version of a fight club, or extreme dinner theater. This is where you are right about taking two to argue/fight. Seems like it would do more harm than good.

I suspect that the women who could help solve the abortion issue have been marginalized by the RNC. You might find them in Republicans for Choice, or on the WISH list. You might also see what Christine Todd Whitman is doing these days.

I need to do some research to give your longer post the response you deserve, so please be a little patient with me.

In the mean time, you might find this amusing: (Monty Python - Argument Clinic)

” bok-bok-Barack “

So funny! Now you’ve gone and made me think of something…from the past…

“as they say it takes two to argue, it takes two sides to tear the country apart”

On this point, I must disagree with you. Social conservatives are making a well-organized, well-funded, long-term assault on the existing rights of others. Everyone has the right to defend themselves, and that is all the other side is doing - defending their rights. There is no parity of purpose, no shared blame. There is a clear aggressor, and a clear defender.

It is the intransigence of the aggressors that is tearing the country apart. They leave no room for conversation, debate, or compromise. No room for opposing opinions or beliefs.

To go completely off-topic for a moment, I hope you had a nice Mother’s Day.

A very vocal and powerful minority have taken the most extreme view possible, and carved it in stone. They are doing all they can to force their view on everyone else, enshrine it in secular law - and that is not right.

Because they are approaching this issue the wrong way, they are tearing the country apart.

Perhaps people are getting numb to the idea. The airlines have been in and out of bankruptcy almost since they were deregulated, and have survived (with a merger here and there).

Once overextending credit became popular, the bankruptcy laws were changed to better protect the lenders from moral hazard. In 2006, there was a negative savings rate - meaning the country as a whole was living on credit.

Then foreclosures took off, credit tightened, jobs dried up, loans underwater. Belt tightening for some, desperation for others. The recession has changed a few rules, including how the economy works.

How much “stigma” can the economy afford? How much will it slow the recovery?

And yet, bankruptcy needs a certain stigma because it offers relief at the expense of others. Without a personal penalty, it would become the easy way out instead of the last resort it should be. Heaven help us if it ever becomes “trendy”.

As far as I have seen, the conservative viewpoint is based overwhelmingly, if not entirely, on religious beliefs. Unless we give up on democracy and submit to theocracy, religious beliefs are not valid grounds for secular law.

When does the right to life begin? When does behavior go from organic stimulus-response to the random firings of a developing nervous system to involuntary actions to conscious actions? What constitutes conscious thought, and when does it begin? When does a developing fetus become viable? How much technology can be used and have the fetus still be considered viable, and how much is artificial support? What is a soul, and when does it arrive? There are too many unquantifiable factors involved to legislate when human life begins.

"protect traditional breasts." LOL! What would they call it, “The Defense of Second Base Act”?

Try Googling “Bulgarian Airbags”.