all this posting is making you seem a bit upset "malcanis"! dont be mad bro.
all this posting is making you seem a bit upset "malcanis"! dont be mad bro.
You missed the 16% money didn't you
Never mind mate, I know how it feels when you're trying to get a mortgage for a sensible investment. Bloody banks just take all the time in the world, right?
Still, never mind, even at 20%, you'll still get back 4x what you put in. So how much did you go for? 50 grand? 75?
Don't be silly, he obviously has all his money on Jill Stein to win 100% of the electoral votes because who gives a shit, Obama is getting reelected and therefore apocalypse 2012 USAUSAUSAOriginally Posted by Malcanis
You missed the 16% money didn't you
Never mind mate, I know how it feels when you're trying to get a mortgage for a sensible investment. Bloody banks just take all the time in the world, right?
Still, never mind, even at 20%, you'll still get back 4x what you put in. So how much did you go for? 50 grand? 75?
PPP's newest Wisconsin poll finds a big debate bump for Mitt Romney in the state. Two weeks ago he trailed Barack Obama by 7 points there, 52-45. Now he's pulled to within two points, with Obama's lead now just 49-47.
If you say so.
No and it makes no difference to me that it's rebranded Romneycare.
EDIT BTW Manfred, I can't seem to find your answer to this question, which is quite important, since it seems to be the central line of your problems with Obama
Sorry Malcanis. I honestly didn't notice your question. I do try to answer where I can... except for the Grath one and you seem to get why.It's also not the "central line" of my problems. It is a very major part but I have other concerns with the guy as well. No, it's not his race or whatever other stupid reasons that involve him personally (I think he's a decent enough guy and missed a chance to be an excellent senator).
I hope my responding wall of text will be sufficient apology.
Obamacare isn't fully in effect until 2019 but the clock started in 2010. That's six years of gradually increasing costs and this allowed for the admin to claim that the costs would be low over a decade. The CBO agreed with this assessment and stated that or the '10-'19 period the cost of the program would be 938 Billion addition to the deficit in these years. See below page 22.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/fil...dreconprop.pdf
That deficit increase is offset by Penalty taxes, An excise tax, and other revenue and outlay changes (again page 22). These offsets cause a reduction in cost to a mere 788 or a bit over three quarters of a TRILLION over ten years added to the deficit.
An updated estimate came out in July of this year. It addresses the changes forced by the USSC on the medicaide mandate. It also addressed a change in years (2012 to 2022) moving the slider closer to the actual decade cost of Obamacare (eight instead of six). In this decade the net cost of Obamacare will be 1.17 Trillion dollars over this new ten year period. If you extrapolate that cost to ten full years of ACA cost (ignoring inflation) the cost increases to abourt 1.4 Trillion. (see the link below from the CBO).
The CBO estimates on page five show a decade cost of 1.168 Billion. That is a decade increase on the deficit, not a cost savings. It's funny because from what I've been able to find, the "savings" were the 84Bln reduction to medicare costs that the USSC decision allowed. So instead of a 1.2Trl deficit increase we had it reduced to 1.1Trl and change.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/fil...eEstimates.pdf
One other funny thing. The number of uninsured drops from 50 million non elderly people to 30 million. We're only getting about 40% of what people actually think they're getting (government mandated health care).
Nowhere in the CBO estimates did I see any reference to how overall costs are offseting the ACA. It's not a saver and it's not even revenue neutral.
That's not to say I might have missed something. If you know of an analysis that I've missed, please feel free to link it and I'll reevaluate.
**************************************************
I've separated this from the CBO docs because you need to take these sources with a grain of salt.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/28/opinion/horwitz-levy-obamacare/index.html
A couple of things here.The individual mandate by itself will have little effect on costs. This is because the main effect of the mandate is to add a relatively small number of people, about 15 million, to the insurance rolls. The vast majority of Americans, more than 250 million, already get their health insurance on the job or from public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
The 15 million who are added to the insurance rolls will be done so at government expense. Secondly, the 250 million who have healthcare (mostly empoloyer based) have to guarantee of this insurance coverage going forward. The small penalty for not covering employees costs much less than the price of subsidising employee premiums.
The individual mandate means these people who end up getting kicked from their employer subsidized care will be forced to purchase from a government approved list of insurance. If they don't, they face a fine, err tax for not buying from the government approved companies. Since the costs of insurance are higher than the tax for not covering, I won't be surprised to see we actually have LESS enrollment and mostly among people who are solidly middle class. (any family making 30 grand or more will be liable).
This is scary to me and If you've been paying attention to my previous posts, you'll know why. This is essentially saying Medicare won't be paying for procedures it (it being the bloated HHS) will only pay for procedures it deems cost efficient. It's ok fellas. We're cutting the number of angioplasties a year because we think you're not THAT bad that you need care. Good luck and come back in six months!The value-based purchasing program, for example, will change the way Medicare pays hospitals for inpatient care. Instead of paying hospitals for the amount of care they provide, Medicare payments will now also depend on the quality of care provided. The idea is that by following best practices, hospitals will forgo unnecessary care, help patients recover faster and spend less.
The ACA is planning to lower costs by lowering payments to hospitals and doctors for service. This isn't strictly a "How much does the ACA cost" thing but it's important to note that this reduction in service payment can ONLY lead to cost cutting by the providers in question. This means lowered research, less aggressive care, and even a reduction in available providers because some of them are just going to kick medicare people to the curbs so they can stay operational. The ones that don't do so will have to increase charges to private insurers; the opposite of what the ACA aims to do.
How does the ACA lower the deficit (A claim I've seen used many times)?
From what I've been able to find, this claim seems based on the USSC decision to let states not enroll people in the expanded medicaide programs. This leads to a deficit reduction of 84Bln over a decade.
Except it does not reduce the deficit. Obamacare still will cost 1.1 trillion instead of 1.2 trillion. Unless there is some other data I'm missing, this is the CBO estimate most people are using to say the ACA is going to save the government money and reduce the deficit.
http://www.philly.com/philly/health/...s_deficit.html
As a result, taxpayers will save about $84 billion from 2012 to 2022. That brings the total cost of expanding coverage down to $1.2 trillion, from about $1.3 trillion in the previous estimate.
Democrats immediately hailed the findings as vindication for the president. "This confirms what we've been saying all along: the Affordable Care Act saves lots of money," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Reid is jizzing his pants claiming that the ACA is going to "save lots of money" but he's misrepresenting the facts as I've been able to find them. What he really say is Obamacare will cost about 10% less than it originally would have or It will cost 1.2 Trillion more than toe budged had to spend pre AVA.
I hope this was detailed and clear enough for you. I spent about 45 minutes trying to sift through websites filled with shit (pro and anti) about the ACA. If you want a more thorough assessment, you'll need to fucking pay me. LOL
http://bostonherald.com/news/us_poli...m__pit_of_hell
Georgia Rep. Paul Broun said in videotaped remarks that evolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell" meant to convince people that they do not need a savior. The Republican lawmaker made those comments during a speech Sept. 27 at a sportsman’s banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell. Broun, a medical doctor, is running for re-election in November unopposed by Democrats.
"God’s word is true," Broun said, according to a video posted on the church’s website. "I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. And it’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior."
Broun also said that he believes the Earth is about 9,000 years old and that it was made in six days. Those beliefs are held by fundamentalist Christians who believe the creation accounts in the Bible to be literally true.
Broun spokeswoman Meredith Griffanti told the Athens Banner-Herald that Broun was recorded speaking off-the-record to a church group about his religious beliefs. He sits on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
It seems unlikely that Broun’s remarks were supposed to be kept private. The banquet was advertised, Broun spoke before an audience and the video of his remarks was posted on the church’s website.
I can't wait for the debate that will focus on foreign diplomacy. It's likely to be an even bigger ass pounding.
I hope he remembers to bring his trolling hanky.
My younger brother is working the debate this Thursday.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Except, in the most technical terms, it's not a deduction. Heck, it's not even a deduction in even the loosest terms, to me. What it is (please correct me if I'm wrong) is when a division of your corporation makes money in another country, that income isn't taxed if the monies from that division doesn't make it's way back into the states or used by other divisions of that corporation. If the money is brought back in, it's taxed. That income is also taxed in the country that it was made in, so it's not really a tax deduction, one could say it's a 'tax shelter' if they are in a country with less corporate taxes than the US. It's kind of the same thing as when you invest in the stock market, you don't actually get taxed on your gains unless you draw the money from the investment.
The other interesting thing is that it seemed like Obama didn't even believe his own statement regarding the tax deduction because he didn't even respond to Mitt when he was countered. This makes me think that it was a hellishly weak argument in the first place - and it really does seem so. Arguing with such a weak base argument would have probably gotten him into more trouble.
Also, both of these politicians lie and stretch the truth, people need to really step back and realize this because you aren't going to get an angel from any of them and the degrees of the stretch are pretty close to each other. Both of them made weak arguments and statement but the difference is, Mitt took charge, which is what I'd expect from someone who has lived the business/corporate culture for the good part of their life. Every politician flips on hot button issues during the political season, fingering one and not the other gives off a hint of bias (which we all do have, admittedly).
Additionally, I'd like to state that Obama may have inherited the debt and economy, in a literal sense but he and alot of other congressman were in office before and during the time when things were going bad. So one could say that Obama inherited the position that everyone looks to for a solution but to say he was somehow blindsided would be a gross miss-characterization, hell, his VP has been in congress for what, 20 years?
Finally, it's Mitt's belief that his tax proposal doesn't raise taxes on anyone. He won't be increasing the tax burden on the rich, middle or lower class. He wants to slash the actual tax rate but remove deductions. He believes that will help small business and help jump-start the economy. The 'big study' that came out about how the only way his tax proposal will not increase the deficit was made by a liberal think-tank that made a set of assumptions that are not factual but theoretical, which is pretty much what any proposal or plan is until it's put into practice. Now, you may or may not believe that it will or will not be able to live up to that promise but that's what is given. It's the same situation that Obama was in when he told us that his health care plan would be budget neutral but the CBO said it wouldn't be. Everyone on the Left said it would, everyone on the Right said it wouldn't.
Turns out, we've seen increases in health care costs, mostly in the form of increased co-pay or less benifits - at least my family, close family, friends and my own. People say, "it's the long run that we need to look at" and that's fine, there is a bit of faith that is attached to such things and politicians but the same thing should be afforded to Mitt's plan until it's proven that it can't live up to the promise instead of regurgitating everything that one side of the political spectrum continues to state.
Does that include the 700 bill that "Obama cut from Medicare"?
:CryingEagle:
Seriously? That's your response? I expected something more than one line to a question that is quite important enough you needed to ask me a second time when I missed the first.
Given the CBO looked at the entirety of ACA, I'd say it does include the 700 billion removed from future medicare budgets.
Broun, a medical doctorevolution, embryology and the Big Bang theory are "lies straight from the pit of hell
It's not my "response", it's a question. I was asking for information.
Incidentally, I saw this comment from someone who understands money and stuff a lot better than I do. He's a lawyer for a Private Equity outfit, in fact:
"I think there is a really serious misunderstanding here about the ACA that I want to correct. Despite imposing additional regulations on insurerers, and despite their complaints about the ACA, it is the single largest hand out to the insurance industry in American history. The amount of good risk that they are going to pick up with the exchanges (especially the "young and invincible" under 30 population that currently undersubscribes to insurance and almost never uses the medical system) will drive their profits so high that the ACA literally contains a provision designed to keep non insurers from buying up all the insurance companies.
But it's bad for employers, right? Actually, most employers are likely to see drops on health insurance costs long term, especially since the IRS is on the cusp of approving HRA only plans (where your employer just funds $2-4k a year into an HRA and tells you to go to the exchange and get any plan you want) which will radically transform the entire employer provided insurance market, and save employers millions.
But what if you don't want insurance. Then it's terrible, right? Not really. Despite all the talk about the individual mandate, in the end it's really just a $700 a year tax if you don't get insurance. That is cheaper than even the cheapest 60% value plan that will be offered on the exchange.
Don't let the rhetoric fool you. If you read the bill and all the regulations and talk with the regulators (as I have extensively) then it becomes very obvious that the ACA is very radical in a way that no one talks about (if successful, it will probably end the employer provided insurance model in America, meaning people will have more control over their health care (by choosing plans that make sense for them) and less of a reason to stay locked in at their job just to keep their insurance). But it is also very pro business (especially for the healthcare industry) in a way that no one ever talks about. The exchanges will help employers, insurerers, and hospitals to make more money. In fact, the only companies that will really be hurt are PE funds that wanted to buy insurerers but can't for fear of increased taxes based on compensation payed at insurance companies."
While I don't agree with his views, I don't see too much that that committee does that his views would impact. Even if he doesn't believe in the Big Bang theory (please remember that it is just that) I doubt he's stop research and funding for space exploration. Just because he's a creationist doesn't mean he's against science and research of a variety of topics. Being such a devout believer doesn't suddenly make his views different from that of other religious believers regarding things such as stem cell research and the like.
So even though he seems like a religious zealot, I don't see it negatively impacting the, probably lackluster, set of policies they oversee.
The biggest problem I have with the health care laws - aside from the massive expansion of the federal government in an area that didn't need such - is the increased taxes/fees and decreased payouts associated with it and then the ramifications of doing so not accounted for in theanalysis of it's financial impact. The fees put upon medical devices not only reduces the attractiveness of purchasing new medical devices to stay up with modern and improved technology but any added cost will find it's way to the end user - to this, there are no exceptions.
A scientific theory does not mean the same thing as an everyday theory.
I'm not sure why you picked that single comment out. It seems like you are reading into my comment for meaning that I didn't mean to imply. People tend to state the Big Bang Theory as fact, which it isn't. It's actually quite far from provable fact.
I'm sorry, but it does.
Males commit most of the crimes in the world, therefore all males are criminals.
This has to be a quick hit and run. I'm off to the gym and shopping for the weekly food. A single dad's work is never done. LOL
So you don't dispute the premise behind your original question: How much does the ACA cost?
I don't generally buy the rhetoric from either side. I'm simply not trusting enough. Experience dictates that the American government doesn't often get ANYTHING right when they institute a huge new program like this. Sure, Germany and other EU countries might actually have dome a decent job of implementing and without the red tape and bloat in the US but that's a huge difference.
My prediction is that ten years from now fewer people will be insured via their corporations (something you seem to agree with) and that the average care of what you can Afford to purchase with your voucher (heh. I didn't think the left liked those) will be very much diminished.
I also predict that if you are one of the unlucky minority who actually PAY taxes, you'll be hit with numerous income tax increases over the year to fund the government slush account that is sent to insurance companies that in return goes into paying for not only you but those who don't pay federal income taxes. Basically, you'll be hit with stealth premium increases.
If you do manage to get affordable premiums, it'll be because you're getting shittier care than what was offered from your employer. If you want the same coverage, you'll have to buy up and pay more than you did previously, all while your employer gets an income break for having jettisoned you from it's insurance expense. I don't blame the companies for doing this. The government made it possible to increase their profits, something most businesses are in the business to make.
The question is less "Do I want insurance" and more "Will I afford insurance". If the latter, then I get to pay 700 dollars in tax penalties for not being able to properly provide for my kids. I would probably be able to manage bronze coverage but that's a 60/40 split rather than my current 80/20 split. Essentially, I'd be able to afford catastrophic coverage rather than the coverage I have now. I'd likely have to pay quite a bit more. In fact:
http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidyc...ncomeAgeTables
If my employer were to fund 3000 per year (midpoint of your estimated figure but I think wrong as the ACA restricted HRAs to 2500) It would reduce my out of pocket for premiums to roughly what I pay today. If the max is 2500 as HRAs are defined starting next year, I pay more per month. Now, that's more for less. You see I'd have to move from an 80% plan to a 70% plan with the attendant higher deductibles (more out of pocket) and copays (even more out of pocket) until I reached the maximum out of pocket.
This was puzzling: "The exchanges will help employers, insurerers, and hospitals to make more money."
Now, who the hell pays for this better profit for industries? Money is a zero sum game and if all those people come out ahead (I disagree they all will but insurers are getting a windfall) then someone has to pay. Pretty much the only group you left out was the taxpayers and the gov't (taxpayers by another name).
Fuck. This was supposed to be a quick post. I'm out.
The standard argument of anti-intellectuals is that the science behind things they don't agree with is "just a theory", and you are being an apologist for that. A Scientific theory is the best science we have to explain something, Gravity is still a scientific theory. I'd expect that with enough time to research most people could assemble a critic of BBT, but this rep wouldn't. His response would be that BBT is a fraud because God created everything in 6 days and then wrote it in a book.
I don't agree with him or his view and I also think he takes a medieval stance on the entire subject but such things like the Big Bang theory are far more out there in terms of scientific theory than gravity. Gravity theory has been pretty standard for decades whereas the Big Bang theory has continued to evolve. Quoting physics and all that stuff for such an event doesn't really work either because at that point, the laws of physics may not even exist, so what the big bang really seems like is a creationist stance on an event with scientific observation backing. Now, before you get all up in arms about it, I state it like that because the big bang is such an unknown that people are putting blind faith into the theory without much more than we think this is what happened.
My point or intention isn't to be an apologist for anyone or any ones' stance on any one subject but to highlight that things aren't as black-n-white as people believe and absolutely love to state on these forums. I'm a big scientific believer, whether or not you want to see science as my religion/belief system is totally up to you. However, there are alot of things in our universe that we are only scratching the surface on. We used to think that black-holes were incredibly rare, now we believe that they are all over the place and even keep our galaxies intact. We used to believe that the moon was a captured orbital body but now we think that it was formed from a massive planetary collision which then allowed the moon to form from ejected debris. These things have been introduced within the last coupled of decades and those theories are unbelievably young in terms of time scale.
I guess my point is is that it's not enough to just hear what we believe, I like to challenge preconceptions in a public forum as well as have my own challenged. Unfortunately, it's hard to find a good place to do that because nobody likes to be told they are wrong and their beliefs may not be factual/true. Ben Stein made a cool documentary that went around and essentially documented how suborn people are when it comes to their belief systems regarding intelligent design and it's not that I believe we were created by a God-like deity but that it's definitely in the realm of possibilities that we were somehow biologically seeded, whether it was intentional or not.
If you are interested in watching or at least reading up on the film I referenced, it is Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
https://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/E...9?trkid=438403
Also from what I understand about this 700 billion, it has something to do with the elimination of subsidies to either insurers or drug companies. I don't quite get what they meant because the tax code is like an alien language but from what I've been led to understand is that its not really what its being made out to be at all.
I can't believe we're actually debating whether or not this Congressman is off his rocker. He believes the Earth is nine thousand years old. What the living fuck.
That's not a cogent analogy at all - saying "Someone is for Abortion therefore he can't be a Christian" would be probably more pertinent - but just don't use analogies like this because they rarely work
I disagree with Malcanis - while someone who goes against a theory that is a fundamental part of our scientific understanding of our origins in favour for one that states "Things are because they are" really shouldn't be claiming they are a champion of the sciences... he could still be a supporter of research in the medical field, for example. I can't even begin to fathom the logical disconnect that is required for someone with such an extensive education in his field to ignore no small part of what he has observed, but there you go. The mind does crazy things to square circles sometimes.
Subscribing to a religious doctrine which explicitly asserts the primacy of scripture over human investigate is the very definition of being "against science". It's hard to think of how he could be more philosophically opposed. His doctrine is very simple: if "science" says A and (his churche's interpretation of) the Bible says Not-A, then the Bible is unquestionably correct, and science is unquestionably wrong, regardless of evidence, observation, prediction and Theory. How much more "anti science" do you want it?
Let's be clear here: he's a harcore Young Earth Creationist. That puts him at direct, religiously inspired odds with... well with pretty much all of Biology, Quantum & Atomic Physics, Astronomy, Geography and probably quite a few others. He's probably OK with Chemistry I guess, which is something I suppose you should be grateful for.
And you can't get away with "Oh well he probably doesn't let it affect his work". Sorry bro, but no. He's quite open about his values and his philosophy. He's no more in the right job than a vegan hardcore militant animal-rights activist would be working as a butchers assistant. He openly and strongly opposes the very job that he's supposed to do.
EDIT: To follow through with your rather inflammatory example, he's not just a male but a convicted repeat rapist working in a women's shelter. Raping the truth. And speaking openly about how the truth is a dirty little slut who loves it.
Are you serious? You'd want this guy having an influence on, say, contraceptive research? You think he'd put his religious principles to the side for veneral disease research? Or viral vaccine research which is predicated on evolutionary theory? Really?
Is "The Big Bang" 100% definitely true? No. Virtually nothing in science really is, because science doesn't work that way. What it is, is easily the best hypothesis we've got, with, as said, abundant evidence, and several successful predictions (eg: background microwave radiation) to it's name.
You don't get to say "Well nuh uh! You can't prove that TBB happened, therefore it didn't, Mr Smartypants Scientist!" You have to say "OK well, TBB matches these observations pretty closely, but I think my new alternative Quesa Hypothesis does a better job, and furthermore if TQH is true then we should expect to find $TESTABLE_RESULT, now here is the maths showing how TQH correlates with all the evidence we have so far, and here is a bunch more showing how it correlates as well or better than TBB".
Science doesn't deal in Absolute Truth. It deals in "if the universe works like this, then we should be able to make a bit of it do that." If that actually does get done when we try it, then this is "true" until someone comes up with a better, more effective one. And over the last couple of centuries, those thises don't tend to be invalidated by their successors as much as shown to be limited special cases (eg: Newtons Laws are a special case approximation of Relativity for small masses at low speeds)
On a related note: Michelle "I'm not a witch!" Bachman on the Intelligence Commitee.
Yeah, I guess politicians like a joke as much as anyone.
You just fucking quadposted malcanis :P
The Colorblind Angel of Kugutsumen - Turning Bad Country into Mad Country one post a time
People may be big headed about creationism/anti-creationism but ID isn't being blocked because we're sticking our tongue out at it. It isn't allowed in science class because it isn't science. The best ID has been able to do is rebrand the argument from ignorance in as many pages as possible. Even if creationists were able to completely disprove evolution they would be no closer to showing their stance as being true. Some ID proponents try to be edgy and say evolution is all true but it's guided and then they have nothing else to add because they can't figure out how to show that it's guided. They know what they want the answer to be and are trying to get the facts to show it rather than follow where the facts take you.
I've noticed that there's a pretty big disconnect between the general consensus of kugu and what's actually happening. It seems enough people have said it in this thread that people are taking it as fact.
Frankly I need to get laid
To add on to this, TBB is the model that cosmology is fitting into. TBB doesn't explain why it happened, only that it happened. Future 'tweaks' and revisions will clarify our view of it but the chances of the entire model being thrown out are close to none. Gravitational Theory is being tweaked too because it turns out that shit goes crazy when you pack the mass of the sun into the size of a pinhead. While that is being tweaked, it doesn't change that gravity still holds true for our reference frame. TBB doesn't get lumped in with M-Theory and other cutting edge theories. It gets shelved with the more 'settled' sciences because it posits claims that have then been observed and verified.
I've noticed that there's a pretty big disconnect between the general consensus of kugu and what's actually happening. It seems enough people have said it in this thread that people are taking it as fact.
If that guy isn't letting his religious belief influence the decisions he makes then what the hell is the point of his religious belief? That's what religion is supposed to do; make you behave in a certain way. A "good" way, as defined by your particular holy book.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/20...is-week-in-god
Might get interesting.
Nothing will happen about it till after the election, and the retardation of doing it and thinking anything but that would happen shows how retarded these people are. Though I would think an Obama win could be fairly catastrophic for all those idiots.
Sooner or later - and I'd say within the next decade - there's going to be a showdown on this issue. Here's hoping that the Scientologists get caught doing something truly outrageous.
I've never much liked that churches had an exemption. They (and every non profit) should be allowed to donate money or provide services and deduct those costs but pay tax on any income not spent directly helping the needy (I'm looking at you United Way). If all of them paid taxes, they would have much more freedom to participate in the political process. It would be interesting and popcorn sales would triple.
TLDR; tax everyone.
Agreed, especially since most of them participate anyway. The best part is that the organisations which genuinely are mostly focused on doing Good Works would hardly be affected.
You know who needs to be taxed? The NCAA.
Never Cook Artichokes Association?
Not Cuddly At All?
New Cartoons Are Awful?
Interesting because it's track record seems to be perfect, even when retroactively applied to previous elections. It's not a poll and the margin was much wider than I figured this race will be (and still do).
http://www.colorado.edu/news/release...win-university
That polling system is interesting, however it implies that people vote based off of the state of the economy alone. Added to the fact that it isn't like Obama caused the economic issues, instead he inherited most of it, which can and is used somewhat to Obama's favor. Though it is probably one of the only polls that can be seen as non biased, but at the same time is gauging only a single criteria that voters could base their decision on.
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Don't get me wrong for a moment ; I wouldn't want this whackjob within 500 feet of a government building, and imo he shouldn't be on the congressional committee that he is - but what Quesa said was that "just because he is a creationist doesn't mean that he can't support science and research into a variety of topics", which I agree with. Of course I wouldn't "want" him influencing scientific decisions as he has serious bias issues... but this is Politics. The powerful guys are [s]almost[/s] always vested interests for something.
As for evolutionary theory, TBB with all its evidence supporting it is nowhere near as hotly defended as Creationism. If it turned out that M-Theory (hopefully it won't be because string theory is confusing as shit) was the stronger candidate, and was convincingly shown to be such, you wouldn't see a lot of scientists vehemently defending TBB like people defend creationism. Science is inherently unbiased, and the most suitable theory at the time is just that - the one we think we understand best. Sure, you might get a few bitter guys who have devoted their lives to a theory kicking up a fuss, but you won't get many scientists sticking their heads in the sand, Science evolves (hah!) - from round world to flat world back to round world again (proven), from Aristolean to Galilean theories on heliocentricity and gravity (proven), from "plum pudding" to Bohr models of atoms(proven). The theories are always backed up by observational results.
As someone said earlier, just because it can't be conclusively proven doesn't make it wrong, which is ironically the defense used by some creationists at the same time as they reverse it to attack evolutionary models.
Thing is, it's not a poll at all. It is compared with polls but this is a statistical model built by the Uni students back when I was living there. I don't know the entire set of data they analyze (and I'm not spending an hour looking either LOL) but they apparently have a damned good track record using this model. What piqued my interest was I've been thinking this would be a nail-biter and the count would go well into the night on election day. This model suggests a pretty comfortable margin. Maybe this will be the year the model is incorrect.
Yes, it's statistics and as I already said, I don't have a great deal of faith in this kind of stuff (not the numbers but the way they are presented).
You could very easily call me a creationist (though I think Someone earlier restricted it to the 6000 year old earth) but I see no conflicts in believing in the big bang and the existence of a God who created the universe and the laws that govern it. That being said, this particular guy seems like he probably can't reconcile real science with his religion.
The results of a strep throat swab really depend on what the doctor thinks about Evolution.
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Yeah there is a spectrum of of "creationism", ranging from the straight up "Fuck you, every word in the Bible is the precise, literal truth" type Young Earth Creations (YECs) at one end to the Old-Earth non-intercessionary type such as yourself.
The kind of 'creationist' that says that the Universe is the page God wrote on and it's an aspect of faith and worship to learn to read that page are wholly unobjectionable to me, and some days I wonder if I might not be one myself.
The literalist YECs can shut the fuck up and fuck off, because they essentially believe that everything we see except the KJV Bible is a lie, and people like that (such as they guy we're talking about) should not, as said above, be allowed with 500' of any position with any authority or standing in science, because the whole tenet of their faith is an utter and direct contradiction of what science is.
The trouble with that analysis is that Romney's done a pretty weak job of talking about the Economy, and he's let this election become substantially about social issues - and he and the GOP have been doing a pretty thorough job of alienating every other demographic than rich angry white guys. So it's entirely plausible that people are being influenced by something other than their immediate financial self-interest (or perhaps it's better to say that the scope of their immediate self-interest has been widened from just looking at unemployment and pay rates)
Still if you think those guys in Colorado are correct, or even if they're merely predicting that Romney might "beat the EC spread" even if he doesn't win then as said above, Intrade are offering some extremely attractive odds right now, and you could really make bank. Fancy a flutter?
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