That's ever been their problem, never mine.

Well, it goes along with my basic thinking on the issue; if a guys snub nosed .38 falls out of his pants in front of a cop when he's on the way to a bank job, he can do a couple years in the state pen for that instead of robbing a bank. In an age when law enforcement frequently "asks" to search vehicles during routine traffic stops it's not an entirely hypothetical or even rarely applicable point. The one time I've denied permission to search, I was asked, "why?" and when I said it was because so many have bled and died for my right to say no that casually surrendering it would be spitting on their graves, I wound up standing by the road while a cop field tested one of my cigarette butts he was SURE was weed. So, yeah, I think laws against concealed weapons can do a lot to prevent more serious crimes, just as laws against felons having a firearm under any circumstances do.

I don't know that everything was "fine. " Some have noted a correlation between Reagans discovery that a hyper-realistic European war game managed to convince MOSCOW to nearly launch a first strike and his subsequent shift from "TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!" to a more measured and engaged policy toward the Soviets, a cooperative approach to perestroika born of "oops, I almost destroyed the world. " Beside which, I remain convinced that after a year of frozen Iranian assets and a special ops raid on the hostages captors, categorical refusals to trade the Ayatollah guns for hostages, the hostages were about to be released when a man willing to deal if it would win him the 1980 election offered Iran all they wanted. We'll never know what really happened, but we do know a few things:

The hostages were released immediately after Wheels Up on Carters last flight on Airforce One, and Iran got guns funnelled through the Contras in the biggest scandal of Reagans administration, the one where he went on national TV to say, "this administration did not trade arms for hostages" and again shortly thereafter to say, "well, OK, maybe we did, maybe I knew, and maybe I lied to all of you about it; sorry.... "

Oh, and we know the man widely believed to be Reagans point man during the 1980 negotiations had a stroke and died right before he testified to Congress about it.

Nothing like a little treason to put "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" in perpsective, eh? Having set the precedent that the US would negotiate with terrorists if it was to the advantage of the right individual, there are very things I put past St. Ronnie (I thought only I called him that) and certainly seeking a third term when he was already suffering reduced faculties isn't one of them.

The government isn't obligated to bill you at cost, no, but if they don't you have real recourse, at least potentially. I've got a lot more beefs with Prudentials CEO than with Perry right now; guess which one I can vote out of office in March or November (I get TWO chances with Perry if I vote in the primary!) There's no law that says just because the government offers a given service private companies can't, and that consumers are somehow magically prevented from taking a better private deal if one exists (this, by the way, is what keeps getting lost in the healthcare debate; every socialist country on earth has both public and private healthcare, but the difference is the former insures EVERYONE gets SOME minimum level of care. ) I don't have a problem with people paying more to drive on a government maintained but privately owned road if they so desire; I just don't want to be forced to do so.

Fair enough; I honestly don't know the mans resume myself, but if he had better legal options in government I'm sure he would've taken them.

*shrugs* They weren't talking about A HPV vaccine, but specifically about Gardasil (I believe there is one competing vaccine, but contracts being contracts, it was the only one they were going to administer here. ) They didn't need tort reform, just a private hotline to the Governor. Though that's a great way in itself to get tort reform.

Heh, I suppose so; that's actually not a bad counterexample of why "leave it up to mom and dad" isn't exactly a panacea, though it doesn't seem any lasting harm was done in your case. I'm not unsympathetic to the critics position; I think it incumbent on parents to do at least as good a job teaching kids about sex as schools, or at least inform them as much as they're able, but even among we who are sympathetic there's a certain perplexity at people who decry welfare for single mothers of eight AND decry comprehensive sex ed. And make no mistake: I'm a veteran of that debate on wotmanias CMB, and used to taking fire from both sides for my position sex ed SHOULD be comprehensive, meaning kids are taught

1) The only 100% effective way of avoiding pregnancy and most STDs is abstinence,

2) If you INSIST on sex many birth control measures are available, of variable efficacy against STDs,

3) There's a right and wrong way to use each of them and

4) None of them has the success rate of abstinence.

It's the right way to teach the subject in schools, IMHO; it's also an equal opportunity offender, offering something for both the "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll111" crowd and the "my kids will never have sex unless someone tells them about it" groups to hate.

Likely so; the days when people brought popcorn to watch the back and forth are likely behind us, at least for now.

Why? This is still a democracy, or at least a constitutional republic, right? Even in a republic, if we legislate it we're still talking about what the public as a whole thinks fair; why make it the always awful one size fits all solution instead of letting them decide on a case by case basis of merit? At least a jury will have all the legal and particular facts if the plaintiffs attorney does his job (you can bet the firm on retainer will do theirs. )

The right tends to be a lot more monolithic, in my experience, though, no, not absolutely so. Typically when I see calls for "change" from the right it's "change BACK" and repeal reforms that were instituted for very real and grave reasons. Thus my old quip that Republicans too often want to "reform" a flawed government program the way vets "treat" horses with broken legs. Throwing out the baby with the bathwater may keep your tub clean, but it's not worth the cost.