Until we saw it sitting on the tarmac, it was defiantly a UFO

Now if he supports teaching creationism on schools, in the other hand, then we have a problem.

I tdo believe I said I’d not done any significant research on the other candidates. Merely that I’d discqualified Ms. Clinton from my list of choices.

Also, once a candidate declares he’s running – *everything* he says can be much more easily measured. Take a look at his history. In such instances where the candidates statements disagree with his past action trends, you can attribute a negative value (i.e. it’s not only a lie, it’s a damn lie). In the event where his statements agree with the past, you can assign a positive value (nothing new here, it’s just a lie).

If there is no past activity on an issue to measure, anything said is of null value. In polite company, this is referred to “a political promise”. Where I grew up, it was referred (to use a euphemism to keep this board family safe) as “Bovine Excrement”

Further, I didn’t mention any particular politcal party. I focused specifically on an individual who, – based on a past history of opportunism and protectionism, not to mention questionable judgement – I consider unfit for the office.

Since you bring up parties, how about you find ONE that HASN’T done more than its share to pin you into a tiny box of regulations in the past 75 years? Hrm… can’t be the socialists/fascists… er Democrats.. nor is it likely to be the fundamentalist/isolationists..
um.. Republicans.

————

Clay,

Such is certainly *my* take on it. If you say “UFO”, I don’t immediately think of some amorphous fuzzy blur in the sky or some aricraft-looking thing that flies funny. My first thought is of the proverbial ‘flying saucer’.

I think it’s deeply ingrained enough in our culture that, despite what the acronym actually is supposed to mean, unless it is clearly stated otherwise, UFO = Unimaginable Space Boogie.

Given that Ms Mclaine’s testimony is so above reproach… do we have in evidence anything from Rep Kucinich, from roughly the date of the observation, that might indicate whether he’s doing the cat-covering-up-on-linoleum trick now, or whether that’s been his stance since day one?

Was that an intentional misspelling? If it was, it’s brilliant….and I laughed out loud. I’ve got to remember that one.

REP. KUCINICH: I did. And the rest of the account — (interrupted by laughter) — I didn’t — I — it was unidentified flying object, okay. It’s like — it’s unidentified. I saw something.”

Ok.. so I thought that what I said was open to criticism as we all spend time w/ some people who have odd beliefs. But this takes it to the next level and justifies, or at least validates the suspicioun of, my first comment.

Second thought: Isn’t UFO, in spite of its plain meaning, a euphemism for belief that someone has seen some sort of alien spacecraft? I don’t think that most people use the phrase “UFO” to mean that they don’t know what they saw, they use it to mean that they saw E.T.

C

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/skepticsguide/podcastinfo.asp?pid=105

If we wait for some sort of True Man ubermenschen, we’re going to be waiting a long time. As far as the system goes, we have to rationally make our choices, warts and all, in foreknowledge that said choices will have their positives and their negatives, and that the positives in our reckoning outweigh the negatives.

If Dennis wants to believe he saw something that may have been extraterrestrial, or if any other candidate wants to be a practicing member of a religion, that’s fine. Kennedy got to be President and he didn’t turn the United States into a puppet of the Vatican, as some people feared. Do we have to stay alert and wave elected officials away from pushing their irrational agendas? Yes, but disqualifying people based on relatively unimportant events probably does more harm than good.

As opposed to who?

Name the party which has consistently done the most to expand the role of government in our lives, and spend us into bankruptcy. (Hint: Bush is a member.)

whatever else thre is going on – I think you are missing information here. Doing away with everything but the department of defense would have little effect on highways (Interstates in particular), fire/police/ etc. Local services. Local services get very little funding from the federal government – it’s almost entirely… local taxes.

By my philosophy, the federal government has two jobs: Defense of the Realm, and enforcement of contracts.

They have no business getting involved with anything else.

no, it’s not reasonable to assume that my desires will be met – and certainly not by one individual. But anybody who’s in favor of drastically reducing the federal government and in favor of restoring civil rights (The Constitution), is somebody absolutely worth a second look.

Reducing the size of the federal government will have serious drawback in the short term – assuming any organization were to spin off into the private sector, the first order of business would be to trim dead wood. Ergo, there would be a huge pile of unemployed people running around. On the flip side, there would be a boom market in schools to teach these morays some actual useful skills.

We’d also, each of us, and every company, have loads more money to work with. Instead of supporting government leeches, we could invest in things, start companies, etc. In general, be productive for ourselves, instead of spending half the year supporting BS.

It sounds simplistic – and as written, it is. But would be no more difficult to attain than the welfare state in which we currently live. Just not something that would happen over night (any more than the welfare state did)

to all:
As for the other candidates – the only one at this point I will absolutely rule out as being marked on my ballot is Hillary. Despite her claim to be pro-science, her “The government is here to take care of you” history abslutely eliminates her.

Why? I base all my opinions on the observed and measured evidence available, and I read a LOT. I am skeptical an ALL things, even if I have to wrestle my own biases and preconditionings to the ground first. Maybe I use language in a bit of a provocative manner, but life’s too short, ya know? And “I hate all teh politicos” isn’t exactly a fringe POV these days.

The problem is, I don’t know if hearing voices in your head makes one a better or worse candidate!

What’s with the denigration of hippies? I love them/ They’re so blasted ,,,innocent,,,. Some have even referred to me as a hippy( I guess it’s the long hair and beard), but I’m just a DeadHead, as are a number of Hells Angels, people with 22 inch arms who are anything BUT innocent. I know lawyers, doctors and scientists who are also DeadHeads, which is another way of saying, people who are into excellence in music.

We may somday discover a way to replicate psychic phenomena and identify the origen of such, but for now it seems to be all swamp gas. It’s a wise idea however, to never discount the POSSIBILITY of some phenomena, just because we have no way of explaining or replicating it. It often results in getting ones butt bitten,,,

Anyway, I like everything about Hilary, except her attempts to be more hard ass than that New York ex-mayor dufus( I erased his name from my mental data base, and I’ll thank Y’All not to remind me).

GAry 7

“… he and the rest of the Libertarian faithful want to take it too far in the other direction.”

It scares me when we agree.

I always say that the Libertarians have forgotten the lesson of 18th century France – If the rich don’t take care of the poor, then pretty soon the poor with throw a party with the rich as honored guests.

I don’t expect our current crop of politicians to solve any big problems, but I do want them to watch each other to make sure they all don’t cause any more big problems.

I guess that means I can never be President.

And if anyone thinks that’s a high number, Christianity is 2000 years old and still causing trouble. Islam is 1400 years old and causing more trouble than ever. Politics is probably as old as language, if not older. You can win a lot of debates over mastadon hunt spoils with a good, heavy club and the loudest hooting.

It’s all about balance, folks, and currently we have NONE, and none of the current crop of candidates represent it. The system filters out anyone representing balance before they can even get within femur tossing distance of a major elected position.

Well, you need to change the phrasing. It’s impossible NOT to believe in “Unidentified Flying Objects”. If someone see’s something flying around, but cannot identify it, it’s a UFO.

What most here don’t believe is that any recorded UFOs are alien spacecraft. Personally, I think a *lot* of them are just secret aircraft tests. There were quite a few UFO sightings suddenly explained when the Air Force released the details of the stealth fighter, for example. Same with the B2, which is a favorite of mine because I love me some flying wing.

As for why, well, there’s the whole distance/speed thing.

No-one said that they didn’t believe that there is probably intelligent and sophisticated life “out there”.

They just said that they are extremely skeptical that Earth has been visited by intelligent extra-terrestrials, given the near-total lack of credible evidence to support it.

You cannot go from “there is a high probability that intelligent life evolved somewhere else in the universe” to “There is intelligent life beyond Earth, and these life-forms are responsible for some or most of UFO sightings.” You’re leaving out a LOT of steps.