It is worth the effort that caring for animals takes in order to keep them part of our lives -0.5

Killer whales should not be kept in captivity.

Reasons to agree:

Over seas zoos are cooler,
because they let you have
more of an experience with animals

1. Our pets put up with our kids playing with (tormenting) them. See video below for proof.
2. Cats are good on a farm for killing mice.
3. Dogs are good for scaring away possums  raccoon  and field mice.  
4. No one's house needs to be so clean that they don't have animals. 
5. Having animals can help you prepare for your death, and the deaths of those you love. Animals usually have a shorter life span than we do. We don't talk about death enough.
6. It is true that the sun will burn out, and we are the only species that has a chance to escape this earth, but we will be lonely if we can't take any other species with us.
7. Animals experience human emotions. 

Reasons to agree: 

1. Pets are a mess.
1. Pets shed.
2. Pets poop and pee in your house or in your yard.
3. Pets kill grass, when walking on it all winter long
2. Animals are work. If you think the work is worth it, good for you. If you don't, then you will probably have time for other stuff. You shouldn't feel bad if your not an animal person. You aren't missing anything that great.  For instance if you have young kids, you can just know that your life will already be frazzled, dirty, and chaotic. Perhaps you can wait until your kids are a little older for a dog, or your house is better suited for an animal. 
3. Cats make people crazy. They actually give you a disease that makes you crazy. 

Score:

# of reasons to agree: +4

# of reasons to disagree: -3

# of reasons to agree with reasons to agree: +0

# of reasons to agree with reasons to disagree: -3/2 = -1/5

Total Idea Score: 4-2-3/2 = -0.5

Videos that agree: +2

My son chasing our dog on his tricycle 

"Well, bless my soul! Take it out! Take it out! Take it out! Remove it!" James and I noticed this on the way to drop him off at day care.

Kids get all excited about geese at the zoo

Wolves, at the zoo

Kids want to have interactions with the natural world around them, including anmils. 

Dred

I am trying to paint a picture of me being a sophisticated-Idahoan. Me telling stories that involve the use of the barter system may not be a dandy way for me to implement the sophisticated-Idahoan campaign. Oh well.

My Dad taught drivers-ed during the summer. Some guy gave us a baby cow instead of paying us with regular money. So we called the calf "Dred" for Drivers Education.

Dred was a childhood pet of mine. For a cow, he made a very good pet. I remember having a leash and walking him around the pasture. When we installed an electric fence we put some food on it to draw the cow to it.

We did not realize how long it would take for the electric elements to warm up. By the time the fence turned on Dred had wrapped his tough completely around the food and was trying to swallow it.

It did not take long for Dred to realize the basic operations of the electric fence. Dred jumped with such surprise that he nearly knocked over the fence. Needless to say Dred was never the same after that, and never seemed to trust those who witnessed what has come to be known as the "shockening".

Images that agree: +7

Walking around a pasture without shoes! Not too smart. 

I didn't have dogs growing up but we had a couple
of cats

Megan's dog Finley wearing my glasses

James enjoying Finnley's new dog house

Me in my back yard with my cat, about the age that my son is now. She had a great back porch that it lived under. I had a great back yard, and a pasture, and a cool tree near the ditch that I had a tree fort in. I had a telescope and could watch the birds from my tree fort. I think I had the perfect balance of living right on the outskirts of town... Perhaps I'm overly nostalgic about how important it was for me to have unsupervised time outside to just think, and wander along the ditch, and go for walks, away from buildings, and people... I remember going in the winter time, through the snow too... I mean there is nothing that I can point at and say how it has helped me in my life for sure, but I miss it. I miss the time out of time... the time with just the earth, sky, water, plants, and me. I feel guilty living in a neighborhood. for my kids... I wish for them to have the exact childhood I had. It seems weird not being able to go back in time, and bring them up in the same house, and place that I knew... I feel like a stranger in my neighborhood away from my family, and I don't know how to point to the world, and say this is something I understand kids, go enjoy it... I am hear for a job, I got this house, because it had more room than some of the other houses, I don't know any of our neighbors, and I don't really like the cars that drive up the road, and I don't want to let you wander around the neighborhood, but we can do the best we can with this place that is thousand of miles from where I grew up, where your grandparents are from, and hopefully you can make wherever you are feel like home, and hopefully wherever you go you can find people that understand, respect, and make room in their lives for you...

Finley was a very good dog, and a great friend for our son

Portrait of Steve Irwin with his daughter by Hugh Stewart. He experienced animals in their natural habitat, and gave his family a good life. So great that he took his daughter with him into nature, but let her still be a princess.

Websites that agree:

1. http://www.peta.org/
2. http://www.succeedsocially.com/coolanimals

Related Posts:

• Its alright to let your young kids chase geese +5 
• The Shed Aquarium is cool
• Trips to the zoo are good for kids
• Kids like (are are like) wild animals

All Paths to Conservative Health Care

All Paths to Conservative Health Care seem to lead through Mitt Romney. Though none of the other canidates seem willing to give Romney any praise for innovating the consumer-centered approach, the all seem to have adopted it into their plans.

“Credit for starting from a consumer-centered approach goes principally to former Governor Mitt Romney and his administration.”-Edmund F. Haislmaier, Heritage Foundation

Fred Thompson

"Every American should be able to get health insurance coverage that is affordable, fully accessible, and portable. Coverage should meet their individual needs and put them in control."

"I am committed to a healthcare system that:""Increases competition and consumer choice while streamlining regulations through free-market solutions that benefit individuals and reduce costs for employers."

Rudy Giuliani

"The radio ad which begins running in New Hampshire tomorrow emphasizes the need to find free-market solutions that facilitate consumer-driven health care"

Mike Huckabee

"I value the states' role as laboratories for new market-based approaches."

"It is time to recognize that jobs don't need health care, people do, and move from employer-based to consumer-based health care."

John McCain

"I offer a genuinely conservative vision for health care reform, which preserves the most essential value of American lives - freedom."

"When an American family controls its own health care financing, has a wide variety of low-cost, innovative choices, and receives insurance through a sponsor they trust"

Romney and Obama Cross Paths

 

 

Romney and Obama Cross Paths

03 Sep 2007 01:59 pm

MILFORD -- After a devastating flood last April, Milford needed a boost, and the Labor Day parade here, one of the oldest in the country, did the trick. There was Barack Obama and his moving rope line greeting students. Mitt Romney pausing to shake hands with firefighters. Chris Dodd holding his beautiful young daughter.

This is a Republican town; no other Republican had a presence here, except for a pair of signing-waving Guiliani backers and a truckload of veterans for McCain. This day, it seems as if his GOP rivals were yielding New Hampshire to him.

Romney, cheerful, suntanned, dressed in a polo shirt, came prepared with a few sound bites for the reporters. At a brief press conference,he teased Ex-Sen. Fred Thompson, who has decided to announce his presidential candidacy one day after an important debate here.

"I guess the only comment I'd make to Fred Thompson is, 'Why the Hurry?' Why not take a little longer to think this over? From my standpoint, if he wants to take 'till January and February, that's ideal."

Romney noted that the rest of the Republican field "would have had five debates without him."

Of this Wednesday's debate, which Thompson will skip, Romney said: "I think it will boost the ratings for the Jay Leno show, but I'd rather be doing well in New Hampshire."

He also tweaked Sen. Hillary Clinton, whose speech yesterday made the newspapers here for her assertion that she'd bring change to the country.

"I have no doubt in my mind that she would do her best to change America, but she would not take us in the direction that would lead to a strong America," he said. "Hillary Clinton: she'd bring change, it would be a sharp left turn..."

Done with the press, Romney walked about 20 yards to his east. There, Barack Obama was greeting a small crowd of wellwishers, mostly high school and college kids wearing "Department of Peace" tee-shirts. A Secret Service agent guarding Obama's rear tried to stop the phalanx consisting of Romney, several camera crews and Romney aides from slipping right behind Obama, but it was to no avail. Romney stuck his head in the camera shot and gave Obama a big "Hello, Senator!" Obama seemed mildly amused. "Well, let's wait until we debate," he said.

Romney jaunted off.

CNN's Candy Crowley asked Obama what he thinks he should do differently to jar Hillary Clinton out of her seeming lead in the state and nationally. (Note: Obama's campaign would dispute the premise). "People know me in terms of my name, but you get a sense that I sort of popped on the scene two years ago, instead of knowing my track record, working as a civil rights lawyer, as a community organizer and a state legislator," he said. "What we're doing is describing to the American people my background, why I think I can bring something new to the American political scene, why it's so important for us not to just change parties in the this election but to change politics in Washington."

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From Paul

And then this from Obama's overpaid wife:

 

"The heavy presence of security around Obama was also a silent reminder of the change that took place with the announcement. Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife, acknowledged it in an interview to air on CBS' "60 Minutes," in which she was asked if she fears for her husband's life as a black candidate.

"I don't lose sleep over it because the realities are that . . . as a black man . . . Barack can get shot going to the gas station," Michelle Obama said in the interview, set to air Sunday night. "You can't make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen."

 

ref: http://hotair.com/archives/2007/02/11/video-obamas-wife-plays-race-card-on-60-minutes

 

As if "as a white man" I couldn't?

You stay up for 16 hours.

It may take you two minutes to read this, but if you do not take the
time to read this you are one of the people that we are talking about.

You stay up for 16 hours.
He stays up for days on end.

You take a warm shower to help you wake up.
He goes days or weeks without running water.

You complain of a "headache", and call in sick.
He gets shot at as others are hit, and keeps moving forward.

You put on your anti war/ don't support the troops shirt, and go meet
up with your friends.
He still fights for your right to wear that shirt.

You make sure you're cell phone is in your pocket.
He clutches the cross hanging on his chain next to his dog tags.

You talk trash about your "buddies" that aren't with you.
He knows he may not see some of his buddies again.

You walk down the beach, staring at all the pretty girls.
He patrols the streets, searching for insurgents and terrorists.

You complain about how hot it is.
He wears his heavy gear, not daring to take off his helmet to wipe his brow.

You go out to lunch, and complain because the restaurant got your order wrong.
He doesn't get to eat today.

Your maid makes your bed and washes your clothes.
He wears the same things for weeks, but makes sure his weapons are clean.

You go to the mall and get your hair redone.
He doesn't have time to brush his teeth today.

You're angry because your class ran 5 minutes over.
He's told he will be held over an extra 2 months.

You call your girlfriend and set a date for tonight.
He waits for the mail to see if there is a letter from home.

You hug and kiss your girlfriend, like you do everyday.
He holds his letter close and smells his love's perfume.

You roll your eyes as a baby cries.
He gets a letter with pictures of his new child, and wonders if
they'll ever meet

You criticize your government, and say that war never solves anything.
He sees the innocent tortured and killed by their own people and
remembers why he is fighting.

You hear the jokes about the war, and make fun of men like him.
He hears the gunfire, bombs and screams of the wounded.

You see only what the media wants you to see.
He sees the broken bodies lying around him.

You are asked to go to the store by your parents. You don't.
He does exactly what he is told.

You stay at home and watch TV.
He takes whatever time he is given to call, write home, sleep, and eat.

You crawl into your soft bed, with down pillows, and get comfortable.
He tries to sleep but gets woken by mortars and helicopters all night long.

You sit there and judge him, saying the world is probably a worse
place because of men like him.
If only there were more men like him

If you support your troops, resend this with a "Hooaahhh!"
If you don't support your troops well, then don't resend, it's not
like you know the men and women that are dying to preserve your
rights.

From Paul: Romney unplugged

I know this has been covered already but David Reinhard did a great job... Here it is.

 

Romney unplugged By David Reinhard ( bio)

Tell a Friend Printer Friendly Font [+] Font [–] The canned events, dog 'n' pony shows, sound bites and photo-ops — no wonder voters become desperate for authenticity, real emotion, a true look into a would-be president's heart and soul? We turn to candidate debates hoping for a bit of spontaneity. Some candidates oblige with a seemingly spontaneous line. But most often these bloodless affairs are little more than serial press statements hurled at barely related questions, slogans in search of car bumpers. We're left asking what's this or that candidate really like when the tape's not on — or when he thinks it's not on. How does he or she react in unplanned or uncomfortable situations? We came close to seeing that last week in Iowa with a candidate in need of letting down his perfect hair on an issue he has every right to vent on. Enter Mitt Romney into a cramped studio in Dowling. He was there for a sit-down with talk-radio host Jan Mickelson. Romney has two problems as a candidate. One is that he's almost too perfect. He has a stellar resume, a storybook family, movie-star looks and no hint of scandal. He speaks in crafted paragraphs and conducts himself with cheer and decency. But even if you're an admirer, you still ask: Is this guy for real? His second problem is he's a Mormon. Some think that matters. I don't. His character, ethics and views on public issues should matter; his Mormonism should be no more significant than other candidates' religious views — but Mickelson and others do. Not only did he want to talk about Romney's religion, but also this non-Mormon was soon telling Romney that he didn't understand his own church's strict views on abortion. "You happen to be incorrect on this," Romney said before adding, "I'm not here to discuss a religion or discuss the principles of a religion." That was while they were on the air. The earphones came off at the break, but the talk continued — and Romney was being taped on the radio studio's video cameras. The host began by telling the candidate he was making a big mistake "distancing yourself from your faith." It was too much for Romney. The prominent jaw jutted even farther, and there was a hint of anger in his eyes. "I'm not distancing myself from my faith," he shoots back. "I'm proud of my faith." Romney attempting to tell Mickelson there was a critical difference between running for pastor or pope or rabbi and running for president. Still off the air, Mickelson returned to instructing Romney on Mormon doctrine. What ensued was a real-time, unscripted scrap and peek into the real Romney. (See the whole thing at www.youtube.com.) The GOP candidate was clearly irked. He asked Mickelson to grant that I might "understand my faith better than you do." Mickelson wouldn't do that. "Well, then it's hardly worth having a discussion," Romney shot back, waving him off. After a short return to the air to bid Romney farewell, Mickelson told Romney he'd like him to come back to expand on these issues. Don't bet on that. "I'm not running as a Mormon, and I get a little tired of coming on a show like yours and having it all about Mormon . . .," Romney said. "I'm not running to talk about Mormonism." Exactly. Romney's obliged to clear up any confusion or misinformation about what impact his faith has on his political views. That's a legitimate area of inquiry, and it's politically prudent for Romney to address this. But he's right to take sharp exception to efforts to engage him on the particulars of the Mormon faith. That is, unless we're going to ask Catholic presidential candidates to debate the Immaculate Conception, Jews to discourse on the Levitican code or Protestants to pontificate on the Reformation. What's was most telling about the dust-up, however, was what it revealed about Romney. There was the decency, restraint, verbal skill, steadiness and humility — "I've made other mistakes," he said when telling Mickelson he's been a faithful Mormon on abortion. But there was also a reassuring intensity, scrappiness and measured anger. Romney was not going to play patty-cake to get along at all cost. The real unscripted Romney turned out to be just like the real scripted Romney — only not too perfect. Perfect.

From a Paul

Due to the climate of political correctness now pervading America , Kentuckians, Tennesseans and West Virginians will no longer be referred to as "HILLBILLIES."

You must now refer to them as "APPALACHIAN-AMERICANS."

And furthermore;

HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT WOMEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:

1 She is not a "BABE" or a "CHICK" - She is a "BREASTED AMERICAN."
2. She is not "EASY" - She is "HORIZONTALLY ACCESSIBLE."
3. She is not a "DUMB BLONDE" - She is a "LIGHT-HAIRED DETOUR OFF THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY."
4. She has not "BEEN AROUND" - She is a "PREVIOUSLY-ENJOYED COMPANION."
5 . She does not "NAG" you - She becomes "VERBALLY REPETITIVE."
6. She is not a "TWO-BIT HOOKER" - She is a "LOW COST PROVIDER."

HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT MEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:

1. He does not have a "BEER GUT" - He has developed a "LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY."
2. He is not a "BAD DANCER" - He is "OVERLY CAUCASIAN."
3. He does not "GET LOST ALL THE TIME" - He "INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS."
4. He is not "BALDING" - He is in "FOLLICLE REGRESSION."
5. He does not act like a "TOTAL ASS" - He develops a case of "RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION."
6. It's not his "CRACK" you see hanging out of his pants - It's "REAR CLEAVAGE.