Nevertheless, if anyone who is in favor of what is contained in that 1000 page bill still has an open rather than shut mind, he or she should be able to read and digest some thoughtful commentary and insights, and remain open to alternate viewpoints:

Here is one I ran across. A rather long read, but interesting:

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200909/health-care

LOL. Yes, I know the demographic of Dancing With The Star and was using it as an example of the failed efforts of the Republicans to capture an important demographic…. the sad thing is that some Republican strategist is surely behind DeLay’s calculated appearance.

Pythons are a problem, but not one you are likely to encounter. They have no natural predators here, but gators will eat pretty much anything that moves.

As for the .357 or 12 gauge, I guess it depends on your aim and what you want to do with the carcass. They don’t move very fast, so you’ll have time for a couple of shots if you need them.

Boddingtons isn’t bad, I think I remember Castle Eden being pretty good to. In that area, almost every town has a brewery, each geared to the local palate (or vice-versa?). Just about anything beats Budweiser, you must have been very thirsty.

I’ve read that those pythons are really messing up our Everglades ecosystem. And spreading like wildfire – and unlike other snakes, can view humans as “prey” once they get big enough.

If I see a big 16 footer near my house, way too big to kill with a rake – and it starts making a move towards me — do I go for the 12 gauge, or the .357? I’m thinking shot gun and then if I miss real bad I can still use it as a club. At least the Gators are mostly scared of us.

I’m getting to be an Ale guy too. Ever try Boddingtons? Went to a Fins pre-season game last night and paid $8 for a glass of flat Budweiser. Ugh. And sat in the rain. Not a white wine vendor in sight! No wonder the elite and effete Annemaries of the world think we’re just a bunch of dumb rubes. Lordy Lordy, the truth shore do hurt sometaahms.! Gotta run, don’t wanna miss Jerry Springer.

Ah, my culturally impaired friend – you may jaunt all over our fair land doing your Ozzie business thing – but you have much to learn, much to learn, my Down Under compadre.

The demographic that watches DWTS (as my spouse, a DWTS devotee calls it) already consists primarily of housewives aged 35-55, who like to swoon over sexy male bodies, while pretending to be interested in the dancing. Alas, and woe is me, I know of what I speak. I am stuck in front of DWTS each season – the remote kept far away from my grasp. My spouse, her sisters, my sisters, the neighbor ladies – et cetera – the world stops for them. You can catch a glimpse of a cross-section of these women….where? At the next Tea Party event near you, that’s where. Those 45 year old suburban white women with their “Read the Bill” signs? All DWTS fanatics.

All Tom Delay and his twinkle toes will do is LOCK up the demographic that watches DWTS. By having him on, they’re preaching to the choir – feeding red meat to their core audience, so to speak. Having suffered through 3 seasons of this, he’ll be gone by week 3 anyway. Old non-athletic guys never last long. The gals in the t.v. audience will all be rooting for Donny Osmond anyway, who I have been informed is going to be on this year.

I spent a week in NZ once. Much prettier than Victoria, Aus – but that is just me being subjective. Nothing but Eucalyptus trees everywhere takes getting used to.

10 years ago I flew into Christchurch, NZ to meet a friend who was camping with his family on the South Island. Later that night we were at a pub somewhere on our way to Picton. I stood at the bar looking at the beer tap; there were only two choices, neither of which I was familiar with. I stood there considering and noticed an odd looking guy next to me trying to catch my eye. I looked at him and he nodded to one of the beers as if there was no other choice and so I got that one. Later I learned that the beer of choice was the one made on the South Island. The other, of course, was made on the North Island. When I told the man I was on my way to Wellington (on the North Island) the only thing he said was ,”You don’t want to go there.”

I believe Tom Delay’s decision to appear on Dancing With the Stars is a strategic move by the Republican Party to capture the demographic they missed out on during the last election. Expect to see Newt getting out his dancing shoes as well soon.

Iconoclastic, adventurous–really??

I had you pegged for a fervent zealot. Have you read tarran’s latest post?

Dr’s from the AMA? They have a vested interest in keeping prices high. That’s why the AMA exists.

You mentioned the FAA earlier, do you realize that the Wright Brothers would not be allowed to fly today; and if someone who was allowed flew their plane would have to plaster “EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT” all over it? That’s great way to drum up business. But of course they don’t know what they are doing and the FAA has to approve their equipment before we can allow them to take flight.

Cutting and pasting is a great way to share what other people think or wrote. Has it occured to you that anyone might be interested in what YOU think as an individual, being an iconoclast? Intellectual collage — must be NewSpeak. I never got my dictionary. I didn’t think that was possible.

Jetsam always comes before flotsam, you have throw it over the side before it washes up.

I’m sure Ellsworth Toohey will approve of your latest script. Don’t worry.

As for your choice in beverage, you say you love beer, so there is still hope, but I can’t be the only one who finds your choice in wine humerous. White burgundy? I know why it is named such, but it does appear to be a contradiction.

Myself, I prefer a good Scotch Ale, but will settle for a decent lager.

Everyone else, I should know better, but the gators aren’t hungry since it’s ok to feast on the pythons now. We Florida boys have to take our entertainment where we can get it.

Understood. I suspected it was a spam filtering procedure for exactly the reasons you state.

I shared with you my own personal experience with Millenials, to illustrate that I am not as completely ignorant about this demographic, as I believe you think I am.

I make no assumptions about who you know and don’t know – but if you are a foreign national working here — but whose family, relatives, and friends all live on the other side of the globe 20,000 miles away, I doubt if there are all that many American millenials you intimately, as opposed to casually, know.

And forgive me if I misunderstood that your points were NOT about who is going to vote which way, but instead is about “a larger movement” or a “cultural revolution.”

I guess I read too much into your statements such as:

“… the Republicans are playing catch-up to the Democrats in reaching out to this generation.”

And “Obama won 66% of voters 18-29 and the Republicans are not tapped into this demographic at all.”

THAT is what I was responding to. I, for one, am not throwing the panic switch on that issue. Because I am old enough to have seen history repeat itself a number of times.

Instead, I am suggesting that it is perhaps wishful thinking on your part, that their may be no way for the GOP to capture its fair share of this demographic over time. The death of conservatism, and pronouncements over how “out of touch” it is with the young, etc., is proclaimed every other election cycle or so. Mostly by liberal journalists and academics, hoping against hope, that it is finally true.

Every new young generation that comes along wants to be cool, “hip” and new. I recall (I was only a kid then) the absolute swooning by American youth over Bobby Kennedy. Those folks are now in their 60s’ – and watch Fox News and listen to Rush, and attend Tea Parties.

Obama HIMSELF and how HE was packaged, was the appeal – and not his left of center policies which he disguised as centrist (like all leftist politicians must do, in order to win elections). Politicians with that sort of charisma and packaging and breathless MSM support, do not come along every cycle. In spite of that, and in spite of the immensely unpopular outgoing president, and in spite if the immensely UNappealing opponent he faced, he STILL only managed to get 53% of the vote. And would probably get 48-50% if the election were re-held today.

Don’t know about Viagra. I’m waiting until the public option gets passed, and then I can all I want, for “Free.” :)

I do know that since all I can ever find from your country is Fosters, I have to go Irish instead, and drink Harps.

And SouthernJames, thank you for sharing with me the all the young people in your life but why assume that I don’t know any? Or that I am as old as you (God forbid!)?

But I am not speaking of socialists, conservatives or liberals. The Millennials are part of a larger movement that is bigger than who votes for who.

I am tempted to give you an example that will make Tarran’s d*** hard about 50 million Americans many who are Boomers but also the Xers and Ys who seem about ready to “pop” in a way that will give us the next cultural revolution but will leave it at this.

BTW, does Viagra really work?

Now both are there. I suspect someone must have reviewed the submissions first, given the number of URLs.

In spite of my gul-durn batteries going dead in both my electric wheelchair and in my hearing aide just as I’m about to crank up the old Vitriola for a rousing dose of “Right Wing Hate Radio” immediately following the Jack Benny Show, I am not completely unfamiliar with Millenials – the 18-29 year-olds who “voted 66%” for The One.

In fact I have a bit of intimate and personalized experienced with that demographic. My son is 22. A defining moment in his life for he and all of his friends was 9-11. More so than people like you could ever imagine, unless you TOO have spent a LOT of personal time, like I have, with young people like that. As opposed to reading “studies” by policy wonks.

My secretaries who I spend 8 hours a day with are aged 24 and 29. One of them (the 29 year-old) is Jamaican-American. She is completely apolitical – but voted for the first time ever in 2008 – and (literally) almost fainted with rapture when Obama won. Didn’t get a damn thing done all day (grumble, mutter under my breath) – but in sharp contrast to the stereotypes about conservatives RELIGIOUSLY held by the AnneMaries of the world – I was compassionate about it – and very happy for her. (She did not even see me shit my own pants — pretty damn deft, I must say).

My junior associate colleague,who I spend 10-11 hours a day with, and who I’ve trained since she started with me at age 25 is now 31. She transformed from being a Clinton Dem in the 90′s to being a “moderate” Republican who could not stand Kerry – and who became politically active for the first time in her life in 2008 – by volunteering for the Guliani campaign in Florida. And then almost literally held her nose to vote for Grumpy Gramps in the general.

And I have five neices and nephews in that demographic. So I do occasionally emerge from my rocking chair perched in front of Glen Beck, (nice and close so that I can slobber and drool at his wingnut talking points right onto the screen) – and engage the young whippersnappers.

IMO? Getting that 66% figure down to 50-50% is not that daunting a challenge. It drops by 10% right off the bat, if not more, when you remove the “hip” and “coolness” factor affiliated with voting for the urbane, seemingly very intelligent, smooth talking, young guy with a cool, hip and good-looking wife, who was going to make HISTORY(!!!) by being “the first black president”….and who, as luck for him would have it — is opposed by Grouchy Old Grandpa who holds NO appeal to young folks. And reminds them of the neighbor down the street who used to turn off all his lights on Halloween so that he wouldn’t be bothered by them when they went trick-or-treating, and would yell “get off my lawn,” when they’d play ball.

66%? I’m surprised it wasn’t even bigger.

But pendulums (pendula?) swing. This one shall swing back again too.

I wasn’t trying to “drown you out”, raise my voice or knock you off your wheelchairs….just sent two items one or other of you had requested; a proof of Death to Obama shouts at a Town hall meeting and then responding to sarcastic quizzing re the 450,000 doctors, challenging the number, presumably thinking I’d added it myself..so I very kindly sent you the letters from the doctor chaps lui-memes at AAFP. Wish I hadn’t bothered.

I’m sorry you don’t stoop to cut & paste. Think of it as intellectual collage…

Must run. Working on a script. Got to consult my list of favorite non-sequiturs.

Flotsam comes before jetsam. Sounds gauche other way round.

I love good beer, but prefer white burgundy
Salut
AMC

“If you are not a liberal at the age of 20 you have no heart, if you are not a conservative by the age of 40 you have no brain.”

Jolly good summary, chap!