I'm sure by now you've heard about her having notes written on her hand in a debate, a worse offense then Palin's, so I'll spare the analogy, just wanted to remind you I said people would dig up someone on the left who'd done it too. Personally I don't think have some not eon your hand during a political debate is immoral, so I couldn't care, except to point out the obvious, it wasn't what was done, it was that Palin did it, and I think you'll agree that where that is the motive for criticism, it is wrong.



Well, it takes a lot of training to learn how to use a rifle for close-quarters self-defense. And even then, elite troops carry sidearms not just as a back up but for close quarters work, it's much easier to traverse a pistol onto the target and time is a critical factor. Most self-defenses cases don't arise in the middle of a large field or woods. Inside a house, with two equally trained people, the guy with the pistol will be able to get off the first shot on target. Now if we're talking about needing a permit to carry a concealed firearm, I'm fine with that, so long as such permits are reasonably available. I just don't subscirbe to the idea that any weapon is a 'murder weapon' because murder is mental thing, now some weapons are cruel, and I've no pro banning them, or far beyond any reasonable level of self-protection (a howitzer or bazooka) but I feel the burden of proof to remove a wepaon as acceptable is all on the plaintiff, not the defendant's job to prove a pistol can't be used for purposes beyond self-defense, plaintiffs need to show the weapon has no legitimate use.

Term limits are sticky issue. I'm sure you and I both know and understand the arguments for and against, I strongly favor term limits, especially for executive positions, you know why and I know why you don't, so probably a moot point, there's no 'fundamental flaw' in either sides reasoning that I've ever seen.



Well, I agree, as long as roads are paid for in any way by the general fund, there is no excuse to put a toll in place on any road where no alternative route exists. Franklly I don't really like the idea of toll roads at all, but they do tend to keep traffic on that route down, making it easier, faster, and safer to do longhauls. Like I said, your case sounds weird and wrong, bridges, yes (assuming there is an alternate route) long stretches with few exits, yes, your paying for a convenience then, and it's fair to say that those benefitting from that convenience the most should pay an extra junk of the bill. Using them for profit? No, no publically funded toll-anything should ever be taking in more than it's operating and maintenance costs - but, I don't know if that's the case Joel. Local issue and not one with any abuse going on that merits exterior attention, unless maybe Perry deicdes to run for POTUS.



If they're banking a huge profit off that, then it's bad, of course, they should be getting some profit. ANd capitalism being capitalism, they can probably bank a healthy net profit for as cheaper or cheaper than a public department could.



Seems pretty stupid to me, I'll say that.



Well, to use the buffalo example, I-90 turns into a toll road just past the PA border, runs till the suburbs, then turns into a normal freeway again and breaks into various sub-roads (I90, 290, 190, etc) and then on the other side, a syou leave the area, it turns back into a toll road until you hit Rochester. Now thatere are tons of back roads you can do 50 on and don't meander much in the area, and in the city and subrubs there's no toll, except on a couple of bridges, and it's not stupid high. In ohio, I-80 is a toll and runs parallel to I76 most of the time, and 422 and a few others, but it is a straighter shot, few exits, less traffic. There's been talking of making the expressway of I90 around cleveland (two lanes that run parallel to I90 but have no exits except a few places to merge back in) into a toll, and that's understanable, so's the reasons why they didn't do it. Local affair really. Not to say I want some town with the only bridge over the river in fifty miles to be able to fleece me for crossing, but...



It's a tricky issue, I'm pretty libertarian on things like this, but I'm also a ruthless draconian bastard. I'd have no problem forcible vaccinating the populace during a full blown plague even if it killed 1% of the people taking it, if quarantine were not an option. Same as I'd have no problem forcibly diasrming someone running around a mall with a chainsaw even if I had to shoot them to do it. Leaving yourself as a major infection vector during a massive plague is, to me, a form of negligent homicide. Obviously, cases like this don't apply, kids aren't falling over dead left and right from the vaccine, nor from a lack thereof, so it's not a national crisis and doesn't justify government forced vaccination. Government financed vaccination now, that is fine, it's blatanlty in the public's interest to pay for it, including propaganda pamphlets on it's benefits. I also don't believe parents have paramount rights over their children's lives (since I'm pro-life) so I have no problem with doctors giving blood transfusions to minors even if the parents object. There's a thing grey line in there somewhere, but whenever those pop up I always remember the 'we know it when we see it' ruling.





I'm not sure we do. Never bother teaching people (across the board) more than the minimum they need to get the point. I don't like public venue because it's teaching morals through commitee. Any parent who can't teach it, or can't send them to someone for it, is pretty much my defintion of 'awful parent' anyway, so the kid's probably screwed. Let me point out though, that privatizing schools and giving parents vouchers to cover it would slice out a lot of these problems, and by a lot, I mean all of them. You just set some minimum standards and some price controls and bag, all good. 'Bussing would be a big problem' always seems the only logical objection, except people deal with that for every thing besides schools anyway, and the answer would be having facilities that were just central locations and daycare/latchkey faciltiies all in one.



Well, the FDA is hardly perfect. By I tend to agree with John Stossel, a lot of consumer protection doesn't get much done and often makes things worse in the process. This is a whole different can of worms though.



I very much doubt she'll run, Palin might though. If she does, it will have been something the left brought on itself. Prior to '06, people said Hillary had a snowball's chance of winning the White House, and we both know that wasn't ultimately true. If Palin ends up in the WH in '12, it will be because of sympathy and attention generated by all the attacks on her. Outrageous attacks tend to override legitimate ones. A politician who walks past a Klan rally on his way to a brothel, then get's accused of being a racist, is likely to float free from the whole brothel fiasco. If she wins, it won't be love of her, but anger at her accusers, that did the trick. As is, if the left had kept their attacks on Palin strictly to policy and experience, and left out the personal attacks, Palin would be old news, and a lot of female mods and right-wingers would have one more thing to assocaiate with her on and depsise the left over. Personal attacks trump everything.