Demise of Big Bird

Plenty of scoopable cat litter and a snow shovel? From the photo, Big Bird might want to see if there is an "Occupy Sesame Street" movement. Otherwise, just add some Sta-Bil and put her on jack stands so the tires don't flat-spot.
 
483109_286855264764128_978745066_n.jpg
 
Whoa there Mr Administrator...

Kevin B (Asheville said:
Mitt Romney is an idiot.

PBS only gets 20% of its funding from federal monies.
Click to expand...

I thought this stuff belonged in the NFC forum. I'm perfectly content to have this forum totally apolitical. If I want mudslinging political crap, I'll tune in to facebook.

Mike, I understand you were just going for humor, but it seems some topics can't be approached without the insults flying, and I think this whole thread ought to be moved/removed.

Moderators can I get an "Amen!".

Pete
 
Pete,

I agree with you. Although I normally just try to bring a little laugh to folks and not stir the pot, this thread has the potential to bring unintended results.

Mike
 
While I will not be voting for him, I don't think Mitt Romney is an idiot. I do agree that it is politically unwise to mention the specifics of cutting any federal spending, as there always is a vested constituency enjoying their free lunch that will vocally howl at the mention of cutting "their" program.

If you want to actually cut federal spending, you have to do it at the level Ron Paul proposed, slashing cabinet departments wholesale and rolling back empire spending. Killing a couple of programs and crowing about it while the national debt grows by a trillion bucks every year is just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
 
Gary Johnson is advocating...

a 43% wholesale cut in the 2013 budget. His arithmetic on the deficit and debt is probably pretty good actually. He said-in no uncertain terms-that both candidates are simply lying about their proposed means of dealing with spending and taxing. On this he is without doubt correct too. BUT! being correct is not what it is about, is it?:(:confuse2:
 
But NASA has not been...

entirely deprived of all government funding. The definition of 'Public' is not without its ambiguities, but generally we tend to draw a line between 'publically (taxpayer supported) funded' entities and everything else. The value of PBS as a public institution can be argued until the proverbial cows come home I suppose, but the beard of public 'ownership' does keep the system from being just one more commercially driven outlet. I personally see some value in that on account of cutting my teeth on Bill Buckley's Firing Line program on PBS. Maybe the leaning leftward of PBS is in part a result of the lack of Buckley quality conservative commentators-maybe:brow:
 
The moral roots of liberals and conservatives..

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc"]Jonathan Haidt: The moral roots of liberals and conservatives - YouTube[/ame]



Bernice
 
I watched the entire presentation, but frankly the guy lost his credibility with me when he defined liberal and conservative from strictly a "social issues" perspective, which by definition excludes the "economic issues" perspective.

I'm amazed that some smart people can still only perceive a one-dimensional political "spectrum."
 
I don't agree with everything in this video but I don't think it's terribly unfair to break down the differences on social issues alone. I would suggest that the vast majority vote based on social views and little else. This would explain why conservatives stood by GWB while he violated every conservative economic principle you can think of (except tax cuts). It also explains why liberals have stuck by Obama even while he is essentially the third term of GWB except on social issues. And all this while social issues are not something the presidency has much of a role in. In reality political thought is much more complicated than this video suggests but as a practical matter maybe not.
 
Yes, I think he confounds a couple of ....

concepts. His categories of Liberal and Conservative are not convincing except within the context of his particular argument.
Right off the bat you would need to accept the idea of 'moral phsycology' which I don't see as being a self evident truth and then would further have to accept that self reporting by his sample of individuals as 'liberal' and 'conservative' lined up in some fashion with those categories at the political level. All of which is possible but I'm not certain it can be shown. Also, to reduce his main argument -that liberals are violating their 'open mindedness' with regard to more 'consevative views'-to its absurd end would demand that liberals accept an open mindedness that would require acceptance of closed mindedness. This is of course self defeating from purely analytic perspective. I'm sure he would reject such a reduction but that doesn't relieve his argument of the obvious flaw.
None of which is to say that there isn't something to his perspective.
Part of the problem in using 'liberal' and 'conservative' is that historically there isn't much basis for the distinction we seem to regard as fundamental-but an explanation of that would have to start at 1517, at the latest, with stops at the 1640s, 1776, 1789, 1848, 1861,1917..........
 
may be even simpler than all that...

"Political tags – such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth – are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."

- Robert A. Heinlein
 
Why "..unfortunately.."?

:brow:
And shoudn't it really be "...willing to be controlled..." ?
This being the Hobbesian bargain to avoid the war of " all against all.."
All due respect to Heinlein, though.
 
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