Free Republic

EJ Dionne has been writing this same "See? See? The wheels are falling off the Republican bus!" story three times a week since 1994. It has different subjects on a day-to-day basis, but it's the same general story. If it's not outrage over Clinton's impeachment, or outrage over the "stolen election" of 2000, then it's outrage over Terry Schiavo, or outrage over the war, or outrage over a dozen other issues.

According to him everybody is always outraged at Republicans. Except on election day. Then, miraculously, people aren't outraged anymore. Until they're done voting for Republicans and then they get outraged again!

As usual EJ Dionne overestimates the outrage of the American people. And as usual EJ Dionne selectively uses polling data to make his point.

According to Democracy Corps, if Congressional elections were held today Democrats would win by 26 points among Moderates. Oh mercy! Hold on while I take my heart medication! That number is so stunning I can't wrap my mind around it!

And I love how Dionne delights in the poll showing that Bill Clinton is more popular (among respondants in this Democracy Corps poll) than Bush. He then goes on to gloss over the caveats of the pollsters: "Democrats are not yet integral to the narrative" of American politics and that the decline in the Republicans' public image "is not accompanied by image gains for the Democrats." Democrats still have a lot of work to do."

You'd never know it reading this piece. According to EJ the Republicans might as well pack up and go home. the Democrats are in now running the show!

That's such a bogus argument. Is she even able to swollow food if it's put in her mouth? Why not next say that the fact that she's breathing on her own demonstrates her consent to live? They reason you don't make that argument is because breathing, and sometimes swollowing, is a reflex.

These arguments are BS. You say his guardianship "should" have been revoked when he shacked up with that other woman.... well then why wasn't it? Why don't the parents take that issue to a judge RIGHT NOW? Becuase it wouldn't make a difference, that's why. He's been convicted in the court of public opinion, and now you want to take away his legal rights.

That's bullsh!t. It's not a communal decision. Her parents are no longer her guardians, and thus they have absolutely no right to made decisions about her well being as long as the husband is still legally in the picture. Until the time Michael Schiavo is proven unfit as a guardian, he's in charge.

It's disconcerting to know that you all would be willing to step in and run my life for if my wife (God forbid) was ever in such a situation. Frightening. It makes me question if you're actually conservatives, or just thugs who want to step in and make decisions on my behalf because you feel that I'm not capable of doing it myself. You're no different than the Liberals who think the Government should be making all the decisions.

Well then let me ask you something.... why haven't the courts (and the courts have made 20 some odd decisions in this case) revoked his guardianship? Why isn't there a petition in front of the courts RIGHT NOW to revoke his guardianship? I'll tell you why... because there is no legal basis for revoking his guardianship.

The law doesn't state that a husband will be his wife's legal guardian unless he's found guilty of being a louse in the court of public opinion.

And do you know why there's no pending legal action on this point? Because it holds no water. The Federal Judge ruled that Congress's subpoena did not trump the myriad court rulings on this matter, all 20 of which have have had exactly the same result.

I don't want to see her die. I wish her husband took care of her better than he has. But HE IS HER HUSBAND, and as flawed as he might be, he's still the one who gets to make the final call.

Maybe you should write your congressman and tell them to pass a law that says a husband is the legal guardian of his wife, except in cases where the husband is found guilty of being a louse by the public.

Except that they didn't violate the law Congress passed. That law gave the jurisdiction of the case to the Federal Court. It did not require the reinsertion of the feeding tube.

When has this been proven in a court of law. The rights of a guardian are a legal matter, and when the guardian abuses those rights, or fails to act in good faith, then that is something that can be proven in a court. When has someone proven in a court that Michael Schiavo has not acted in good faith?

And yes, I'm aware that he has kids with another woman. But that's not enough to legally strip him of his rights as a guardian. I'm sorry but that's the law.

The courts have decided that it's his decision to make. And if it were me, or my wife I would not want the government stepping in to make that decision for me.

Let me ask you a serious question. If my wife told me that she didn't want to be kept alive with a ventalator, or with a feeding tube, and then she became completely incapacitated, would you support my right as her husband to remove her from the ventalator or remove the feeding tube once every attempt to revive her had failed?

This case wouldn't involve a written will, it would only be my word about her wishes. Would you support my right to carry out her wishes?

I see. So we should look at how Cincinnati botched their deal, and use it as an example of how building a stadium with public money is a bad idea? No thanks. I'd rather look at all of the cities that have thriving sports teams with vibrant stadium venues as examples, not the few botches. Baltimore comes to mind. There is no reason why DC's baseball venue couldn't be just as successful as Baltimore's. DC would even have more convienent public transportation options.

This is a classic red herring thrown out in this argument. "We should be spending this money on schools, not stadiums!" Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. There IS NO POOL OF MONEY out there waiting to be spent. The money doesn't exist yet. The money to pay for the stadium would be generated during, and after the stadiums construction from increased tax revenue, liscencing fees, etc...

This model works in other cities, it can work in DC. But this nonsense about how DC should spend its money differently is just that.... nonsense. Good, so MLB is going to leave, and the Anacostia waterfront can remain a crime-ridden hell hole just as it is now. Filled with strip joints and check cashing stores.

Congrats DC, you're about to get exactly what you wanted! A populace dependant on the city council for its wellbeing.

Wanna bet? The DC City Council as a whole NEVER wanted a baseball team in DC. Mayor Williams did, and he had to move heaven and earth to get it done. He negotiated on behalf of the City Council, but now at the 11th hour they're going back on what they agreed to because in reality they never wanted the team to begin with.

Cropp is killing the deal.

Would you be willing cough up $350 million for a franchise that has been left for dead by MLB? And if you could get past that, would you then pay an additional $150 million to pay for half the park? When it's all said and done this thing is going to cost somebody upwards of half a BILLION dollars! Would you want to sink that kind of money into a place where the city council has a long history of screwing over team owners? I wouldn't. No way. If I were an investor there would need to be SIGNIFICANT public funding before I went anywhere NEAR this deal.

Rich people don't get to be rich because they make stupid financial deals.

I don't think the DC City Council is nearly creative enough to come up with a scheme like that. Besides, all of the proceedings yesterday were open to the public, and there were plenty of reporters. None of them said anything about Cropp devising such a plan. She herself admitted that she just came up with the ammendment at the last minute after hearing the debate all day.

Exactly. Suddenly the DC City Council have become deficit hawks? That's laughable. This is nothing more than a personal powerplay by Linda Cropp because Major League Baseball didn't kiss the ring.

If this deal gets derailed DC will have missed its best opportunity ever to become a real city. Right now DC is a joke. A crime ridden joke that ran itself SO poorly that Congress had to take over. It looks like they're sliding back down that slope.

Cities do this all the time, and not just with pro sports teams. They legislate tax breaks to bring in big business, and they subsidize manufacturing and construction for them too.

It is done with the understanding that having a business (in this case a baseball team) is going to generate far more revenue for the city in the long run than it's going to pay out to build that $200 million stadium. Hotel revenue, restaurants, employment, public transportation will all see sharp increases. And the renovation of the Anacostia Waterfront in this case is going to lead to a bunch of high-end housing units being built in the area, luxury suites will be sold, and so on down the line.

It's easy to say that the tax-payers shouldn't have to foot the bill for this, but it's way more complex than that. DC can't afford to NOT build that stadium. If baseball leaves they'll take countless millions of dollars out of the pockets of DC residents.

Read the paper. The article was sent to me by an Evolutionary Biologist as evidence that Natural Selection has been demonstrated in the laboratory, and hence Darwinian Evolution has been proven.

Not at all! In fact it's more unreasonable to say that "Evolution occurs because of natural selection.End of story" Which is what many Darwinian advocates think. I feel that teaching evolution as a highly complex process occuring by a number of methods is far preferable to just teaching what Darwin says in his book. Science has evolved so much since then, yet it seems like people still only believe in "Evolution=Natural Selection. End of story." And a little dose of "By the way, this is just a theory, we're not exactly sure how this all takes place" would be good too.

In a pig's eye they are! Joshi A, Wu WP, Mueller LD. 1998. Density-dependent natural selection in Drosophila: Adaptation to adult crowding. EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY 12 (3): 363-376.) This study showed that when these fruit flies are grown in conditions of high humidity the wing phenotype of offspring changes almost immediately to suit the conditions.

You can't tell me that's random chance. That's an environmental pressure that's being applied, and the result is a change in phenotype. It's anything but random.

Well this is exactly why there is so much confusion on this subject. If I asked "what is evolution" I would get several different responses. I would get your response, which is perfectly reasonable. Then I would get the Natural Selection answer saying that evolution occurs in response to catastrophic events, and only those species that adapt and survive are able to live. And then I would get the genetic drift answer saying that natural selection isn't necessary for a species to evolve.

The main reason there is so much argument on this subject is because everyone is arguing about something different! Personally my opinion on Darwinian evolution (as it's spelled out in his book) is that I'm skeptical. I'm not willing to say evolution doesn't happen because that's absurd. but at the same time I'm not willing to say that everything happened due to random chance because that, IMO, is equally absurd.

Can we get a unified theory of speciation? Is that too much to ask? :)