if you mean literally surviving on its own, i'm laughing picturing a baby hunt for food lol

edit: but i get what youre sayin, though i dont agree.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

I mean without outside medical assistance for breathing, keeping the heart pumping, etc.. To clarify the respirator, I would say it's when the child can breathe on it's own, but perhaps they would use a respirator because it's "safer", that would be able to survive on it's own in my opinion. (That's probably somewhere around the 8 month mark but I'm not 100% sure on that since I haven't really looked).

There were some other aspects of the debate I kind of want to talk about just because they left me unsettled.

1. The issue of outsourcing jobs. Okay, so I get that you have to look out for the citizens of your country and not give away their jobs to people overseas. This makes sense. But at the same time, isn't it a good thing to create jobs in developing countries? I'm not sure how to explain what I'm thinking about. Hopefully someone will get it and will be able to explain this issue.

2. And, I'm completely in the dark about the Affirmative Action issue. I thought I knew what affirmative action was, but now I'm not sure because I thought it was a good thing.

I was against this as well, until I read a fact check on it. Apprx 300,000 jobs are outsourced from the US to other countries. At least 2/3 of these are industrial manufacturing jobs, and manufacturing of commercials good(Nike shoes are not made in the US). The rest are Computer Programmers, IT Services, and Security for Computer Primarily. Those jobs are going into India.

So why do I no longer consider it a huge issue? We are outsourced 9 million jobs TO the US.

So we gain 9 million from it, and lose 300,000. We can't ban it one way and not the other without being hypocrites.

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Dark is banned from ever touching my computer again.

And I'm also a bit confused by the hate towards lawyers on the part of Bush and Cheney.

I do agree that people are overly litigious. But, shouldn't you be able to sue people if they compromise your health or cause you harm? I mean, we're not talking about Macdonalds making you fat...I just don't think all the lawyer hate is justified; it seems like a smoke screen.

Edwards was a lawyer who made his fortune on bullshit "ooh the doctor came on to me" cases, and now Edwards is against those cases heavily(FLIP FLOOOPPP lol).

They are just trying to destroy his rep then drop the bomb on him once they get a popular opinion against lawyers.

Step 1: Edwards is a lawyer, makes his fortune debanking doctors in bullshit cases.

Step 2: Edwards says he's against those types of cases and acts like his past never happened.

Step 3: Bush and Co. Let it roll, knowing that they can attack these lawyers and Edwards can't say anything about it or they will attack him.

Step 4: Once people totally aggree(or believe it because both candidates do), Bush and Co will make a strong verbal attack for a few days on Edwards, stating that he is one of these people we all hate.

That's their plan, I believe.

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Dark is banned from ever touching my computer again.

That's interesting about the outsourcing. And you're absolutely right that it would not be fair to ban it just one way.

I just read an article in last months cosmo pointing out that a lot of people in India specifically are benefiting from outsourcing, and it seemed like kind of a good idea.

I think that Kerry is wrong on this issue. Hopefully he will drop it.

who ever said he liked what he did?

as for outsourcing, i really don't have an opinion, but if it weren't for outsourcing i wouldn't have been able to visit my dad in barbados where his company put him in charge of setting up a branch that employs the native labor here for $3 /hr

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Affirmative Action has become a negative concept to some people because it employs based on skin color rather than skills. Can you see the unconstitutionality in that? I can. But I'm not against Affirmative Action personally, because it counteracts some of the unconstitutional racism in hiring in America. now people shout "reverse racism!" it's a sticky situation, as you can probably tell. didn't clinton put an end to it or make it a state's rights issue?

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Outsourcing has been happening in this country for years, and it will happen for years to come. You can't stop it unless you want to artifically decrease the price of labor (at government, Read: Taxpayer) expense.

Kerry has talked about tax penalties for companies that outsource. I'm not necessarily against that idea, but I doubt it will have a substantial effect. Perhaps generate some extra tax revenue, but unless it's a substantial penalty (which would just drive the companies to other countries), it won't have any meaningful effect.



There are a variety of Affirmative action programs in the United States. Some states for example require that businesses that bid on contracts, subcontract out a certain percentage of work to Disadvantaged business enterprises, Minority business enterprises, and Women business enterprises (Looking at bids you'll see DBE/MBE/WBE percentages listed with the contracts). The idea being to artifically generate business due to an allegedly unfair playing field due to racial, sexist, hate against handicaps? discrimination.

Other forms of affirmative action are lesser requirements for minorities for college entrance. Example: a Caucasian male would be required to have a 1200 SAT, a female (minority) would be required to have an 1150, a Black/Hispanic/American Indian might only be required to have an 1000 for admission. This is based on the premise that Caucasian males enjoy a better education system than the minorities, or that the minorities are in some way educationally disadvantaged due to their environment.

The most controversial system of Affirmative action is Quotas. To my knowledge these have been ruled Unconstitutional. They basically required that schools, businesses, etc.. have a certain percentage of workers/students from various backgrounds. This of course led to many schools dropping even the minimum entrance requirements above and just accepting basically anyone they could to fill their quotas.

Affirmative action in my opinion is a backlash by the public against the obvious racism that existed in our country after the civil rights era. Some of that racism still exists today, but I think I can confidently say that as more and more of the old racists are dying, not all of them are passing on the hate to their kids, and some of the kids are just plain intelligent enough on their own not to buy into the hate of their parents. I don't really think affirmative action fixes anything, it's just a bandaid to cover the wound. The only thing that will stop racism is time and education of children.

I don't really think you can educate a totally racist person to be more understanding. Sometimes they learn compassion over time, but I rest easy knowing that if they don't, eventually that motherfucker will die some day. Hopefully we'll have been good enough to educate their kid not to be a prick like their parents.

Sheesh, gone for half a day and two pages appear...

Divav, as for having children and taking advise from others, the person with that newborn has no clue on how to parent. To be honest, most parents even after thier children have left the home still do not know how to parent.

Abortion, should be reserved for expectant mothers whose lives are put in jeopardy due to the pregnancy and victims of sexual abuse.

Affirimative action is discrimination, plain and simple. I work with someone whom is severely underqualified, but because this person is a minority is income bracket was shifted up to a near executive level.

Outsourcing is okay by me. I, personally, don't have a problem with companies looking for the cheapest labor. Cheap foriegn labor != quality products or meeting production quotas. I believe the fear in outsourceing is the fear of competition. Now some things should not be outsourced, like technical or sales assistance because of the language barrier. But that is outside the economic sphere.

*Edit* teh spelling

I don't appreciate people who don't know Kailyn and just talk crap about him. -- This is mainly for ponuh.

For you new people who are on this board and don't know the history, Kailyn is a male played the female toon and I am a female played the male toon - Peejo.

We are also real life husband and wife. We are expecting our first child due next April. Speaking of abortion, K and I been together for 4 years, we didn't get married until we found out I am pregnant. I asked K what he wanted to do, he said he'll leave the decision to me (the woman). Last week, we talked about what was really going through our minds when I broke the news to him. He said secretly he hope I'd say keep it because he didn't think abortion is a good choice and he would really like to have a child.

At the beginning of the first presidential debate, I can tell Kailyn was actually leaning toward Kerry since Bush hasn't really done a great job in his first term. However, if you really watch a debate from a neutral stand point (as undecided I guess), I don't see how anyone can support Kerry by the end of the 3rd debate. I don't particularly like either of them and I can't vote (I am not a US citizen yet). However, I love all of the ideas Kerry brought to the table how he can do a much better job than Bush. But the reality is he can't pay for it. There's no way he can keep all of his promises without raising tax (which is one of his promises as well - I will not raise tax). So until Kerry can really show what he has to offer and how he's going to do it, I don't see how he can win the election. Well, I guess if Americans are really brainless then maybe Kerry will win the election.

What's funny is that I was leaning towards Kerry too, until the debates happened. <3 Kailyn & Peejo

kerry said "I won't raises taxes..." the rest of the sentence was, "on the middle and lower classes." he's made it pretty obvious he will raise taxes on the "Top 2%" back to where the taxes were pre-himynameisdubyawhatsanationaldeficit. Being brainless isn't the only method by which people come to the conclusion they should vote for kerry. another mindtrail is "Anyone is better than bush, and the only person who stands a chance against him is kerry."

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Actually I think the next guy who runs for president will have a good shot. Hohoho. Last term for bush! >.>

i compiled this list of politicians whom i think are worse candidates for president than bush jr.:

1. David Duke

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

I compiled this list of people whom I think pander more than Senator John Kerry.

1. Heidi Fleiss.

Touche

Clearly we need a new candidate:

http://www.cthulhu.org/

The choice is clear

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/ ... index.html

Do you guys agree with this?

yea i agree with that article. america is extremely polarized right now. for every clearheaded intellectual there are about 50 people who are stuck to one side of the political spectrum and tend to believe anything the media says about one candidate while the other candidate is an angel. this election year is clearly the worst i've ever seen. what caused it to be so polarized? talk radio, fox news, and michael moore, in that sequence.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

Politics, like entertainment, are trending towards being more grotesque.

Talk radio above Fox and Mr. Moore? Would seem to me that Fox and Moore would have a far larger target audience.

well i was thinking along the lines of a time-sequence. over a year ago, it was talk radio hyping it up constantly. after that the Fox news channel started to play it up, then Fahrenheit 9/11 came out.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya

i tend to see all the other news channels as having both left and right biases playing at the same time. but fox news is overwhelmingly to the right.

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RIP Shiloh - I'll never forget ya