Free Republic

> ... Cain, who is African-American, says in the video ...

Actually, no. Obama is African-American. Really, he is. Cain is American.

Don’t be silly. Only Republicans can be racist. By definition.

While I would be happy to vote for any combination of Republicans other than perhaps Hunter/Romney, the dream team (which I do realize will not happen) is West/Ryan. In that order.

> “These revolutions are going to spread over the summer throughout Europe. By the winter it’s going to go global.”

>> “2011 AD—On May 21st, Judgment Day will begin and the rapture (the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people) will occur at the end of the 23-year great ...”

>>> “3 Nov 2009 ... Environmental Justice Foundation report says 10% of the global population is at risk of forced displacement due to climate change.”

Personally, I think this is a silly argument. Of course there are beautiful places in Japan, same as in every other country and region. The decision to stay or leave does not depend on the quality of the local statues.

I hope and pray that the reactor situation will be contained. I also understand that far too many people are making political points out of this crisis. On the other hand, I also hear TEPCO and Japanese Government claiming that the temperature in the reactors has been falling since Saturday and the radiation levels have been falling steadily since Sunday. On Monday there was a fire in unit 4 (the storage facility). TEPCO promptly claimed that the fire is under control. On Tuesday morning (Japan time) there was an explosion and more fire at unit 4. Was it the same fire that was under control on Monday? On Tuesday TEPCO spokesman said “we can not deny that there is fire in unit 4”. How encouraging! Presumably if there was an opportunity for them to deny it they would.

To make an informed decision you need reliable information, and information (especially of the reliable kind) has been in short supply.

The final paragraph is important!

I spoke with too many friends in Tokyo who feel they can not leave because their companies decided to keep working.

> I’m not going to carry a tracking device that records where I go all the time, and I’m not going to carry a surveillance device that can be turned on to eavesdrop.

I have a lot of respect for the developer of Emacs. However, Mr. Stallman needs to get out more. There are many places in this world where you can buy a cell phone with a prepaid sim card and no id of any kind. Pay cash.

> If they’re quoting TEPCO or government officials at this point, I’m willing to at least listen to it

There is absolutely no reason to trust either TEPCO or Japanese Government. After 4-5 days of the situation being under control, constantly decreasing temperatures and minimal radiation release, we have 6 reactors close to melt down and low level of radiation detected at Yokosuka. Yokosuka is South of Tokyo - 200 miles from Fukushima!

> If it’s the MSM blathering on, I pay little heed.

Media, including Fox News have had far too many anti-nuclear activists on camera. In fact, I found CNN to be better than FOX. At least CNN seems to indicate that the “expert” is an activist, from what I’ve seen Fox has not provided this information.

Having said that, I am very sorry to say that this might turn out to be very, very bad.

> Twenty odd responses on here and it did not occur to anyone that perhaps there is something geneticly superior in African genes to handling stress? My ancestors stopped running from large animal pedators a thousand years ago. They still encounter that in Africa.

There just isn’t enough information in the study to reach this conclusion. As I mentioned before, they did not bother to adjust for economic standing. Also, the data are self reported. So the only meaning you can derive from this study is whites CLAIM to be more anxious than blacks/hispanics.

> Whites more anxious than blacks

Anxiety is a rich man’s disease. I would be willing to make a large bet that these guys did not bother to adjust for economic status.

I find the evolutionary angle interesting. I wonder what the researchers would say about the evolutionary fitness of homosexuals.

Sorry about an off-topic reply.

> I disagree its obvious enough how to add Obama and the congressional democrats.

It might be obvious, but the poll results will be reported as: “Most responders (X%) blame Republicans.” I would bet that very few readers will be checking the questions and doing the arithmetic.

By splitting the Democrats and Obama, Politico made sure that Republicans will be blamed in this poll.

> Or we could simply recognize that pills cannot and do not cure anything

What an absurd statement. Of course pills cure. At times they can do it significantly cheaper than the alternative - for example, since doctors realized that peptic ulcers are caused by a bacterial infection, treatment comes down to the right antibiotics and does not require surgery.

> but make hundreds of billions of dollars for those that use those pills to kill.

Talk about a non sequitur. Are you claiming that pharma companies some how trick patients into taking medicine designed to kill them?

What a convenient article! We could save gazillions by having bureaucrats rationally and intelligently decide which tests and pills are useful and which are not. And you thought ObamaCare would not save money.

Sorry for the sarcasm.

You have a very strange view on business. Clearly not from personal experience.

BTW, does your handle refer to President Jackson?

> It is your intelligence I am insulting, in the hope that you will wake up, realize that ...

Not a great way to bring people over to your side either ;-) .

> If you look at all the ways that Wall Street got itself into trouble through malinvestment of liquidity that was publicly provided, requiring continuing massive public bailouts,

I realize that I am wasting my writing effort. However, its a holiday ...

Financial mis-investment did not cause the 2007/2008 problem. It was caused by mis-direction of investment due to government interventions. No private enterprise would willingly invest into losing causes. It is government subsidies funneled through the Fannie/Freddie monstrosities that created the ground work for the disaster. This was made worst by the bailout. Keep in mind that even in 2007/2008 there were many well managed and profitable financial companies. Under normal circumstances, we would have had a massive cleanup taking place on Wall Street. Bad firms would go under and their resources would be absorbed by those organizations that were well run. Unfortunately, the bailouts made sure that this cleanup would never occur. The really horrible mistake of the Bush bailout is it effectively transferred financial resources from well run companies to the the mis-managed once.

> It’s irrelevant where a company is domiciled. What’s relevant is where they are doing their new hiring, and for what positions.

Actually, company’s domicile provides an extremely important insight into the economy. It is in the United States that the new companies are created. Today, in spite of all the gloom and doom there are thousands of new companies formed in this Country. Many of them will become tomorrow’s leaders. It is this dynamism that will drive American economy. All that is required is the removal of the economic uncertainty introduced by Obama’s regulations and massive spending binge. If Republicans can limit the damage over the next two years and if we can manage to elect a conservative President we will see the recovery as strong as the one under Reagan.

Granted, these are two very big “if’s”. But I can hope.

> You’re talking about an industry in which I have worked for over 30 years, and I know personally that you are completely mistaken. My own employer no longer hires software developers and data base administrators in the USA, just in other countries. Maybe that will change after the dollar collapses further, but that’s where we are now.

While I do not have your experience yet, I have worked in this industry for over than 20 years, and for every piece of anecdotal evidence you supply I could provide one that argues the opposite.

Instead, we could do a simple mental exercise - name 10 top software companies, then cross out all American corporations. You would be hard pressed to have more than 3 names left on the list.

Did 4 thousand-some-odd pages of regulations that Obama pushed through in the last 2 years harmed American competitiveness? Yes.

Does the uncertainly about debt and the uncertainty about the future tax rates further erode the attractiveness of United States as the place to do business? Yes.

While the damage is severe, it is most certainly not irreversible. America remains the most dynamic and competitive society in the world. Things looked equally bleak under Carter and it took only a few years under Reagan’s leadership for United States to convincingly win the Cold War.

I remain optimistic. This country will continue to prosper through all the long years of Obama’s ex-presidency.

> It is so nice to see that there are so-called adults who still believe in Santa Claus. Touching really.

FYI, sarcasm does not win arguments.