Wise_Guy_57

Yes, Democrat's screwed up in how they brought this bill to the house floor. However, the bill did not pass due to Republican opposition- the given reason being that it was to be financed by instituting a "new tax", which was in fact closing a loop-hole in tax law that allowed some foreign companies to avoid paying taxes on profits made in the U.S.. The only legitimate reasoning for striking down this bill (which would have provided free healthcare to the responders of 9-11 for illnesses directly deriving from conditions at the disaster site), is more or less that the GOP is dedicated to opposing the Democratic majority at even petty opportunities. Can anyone justify this?

Not much to elaborate on.

In the last election, the term pork-barrel was practically worn to death, and it continues to be tossed around with some frequency. Considering the relatively small portion of federal spending that pork encompasses, as well as a difficulty in defining pork (Is money going towards research pork? Research is listed as pork often, but it seems that the condemnations are based without an understanding of what the research is for, or what benefits is provides.), does it, as an issue, really match up with other pressing issues?

Of course, even for useful research, one could argue that a separate bill should simply be introduced, but is it really worth the effort?

I've noticed this rather frequently lately, that rather than attack Obama for things that he has done wrong, or beliefs he actually has (or in some case beliefs held or wrongs committed by his supporters.), most of Obama's critics have instead defaulted to simply repeating criticisms of Bush, just replacing his name with Obama's.

For example, you have Gingrich, claiming that Obama and Bush are basically the same person economically, and that because Bush spent a lot of money, and Obama is going to spend a lot of money, and that thus Obama will also be a failure.

Of course... basically anyone can find numerous flaws in this statement.

Some are even more juvenile, with 'sheep' rhetoric flashing since before the election. They're, of course, mimicking Democratic claims that Republicans, long after Bush was discredited on a number of issues, continued to support Bush on these issues. Now they claim Democrats are saying the same thing... which makes perfect sense considering the presidents less-than-two-month old hold on the presidency, which has clearly given him enough time to have made errors large enough that they even near Bush's errors in scale, and that continued support of Obama at this point is just as foolish as anyone supporting Bush now?

Am I the only one who notices this?

Basically I'm trying to take a column and a row as the arrays of a sumproduct function, however, it doesn't work as they apparently must either both be columns or both be rows. (Note that both are the same size anyway, though obviously rotated). I could simply transpose the rows I'm working with into columns or vice-versa, however, that would make it very hard to duplicate the sumproduct function in a timely fashion (as you cannot get the letter coordinates to auto-adjust for a cell copied to a higher or lower cell, just to a cell to the left or right).

If I could transpose the row or column inside the function (which would fix the problem when copying the function), I'd be good... but =sumproduct(@#:4#,transpose(^#:*#)) doesn't work.

Can anybody give me some advice? I would just do it manually, but it would take an insanely long time. (The data I'm working with is massive)

If you have ever seen any of my other questions/answers, you can tell this is of a different nature.

Anyway, SSBB is still newly released, and the high point of the story mode is definitely the Pikachu-Samus team up.

Unless you disagree... but why would you be that crazy?

Probably need to explain. In the politics and government related boards I've taken notice of a very significant phenomena- every few days, certain questions, or complaints... or whatever are asked or spoken by several hundred people, and then die out.

I typically notice this in conservative answers and questions, this is likely because as a liberal, the comments stand out because I disagree with them.

What are these? Fads? Organized Attacks? Do they all read the same blog? Or are they picking them up from each other?

Also, does it, or does it not seem that they tend to be a lower quality point than longer standing points... or new original points for that matter?

All of the above is general, and isn't meant to attack any one group- if liberal posts do similar things and I don't notice, then please point it out.

I'd also like examples... those are always nice.

Also, try to differentiate between 'stock' questions, and responses to 'stock' questions...

You tell me. I've seen a great deal of Anti-Islamism as of late- the kind of stuff that if it was Anti-Black, it would be an outrage.

I see a ton of Ron Paul supporters on here. Their seemingly number one argument in his favor is that he is the only candidate supporting "real change."

I don't know about 'only' but I can tell that he would definitely change things. I don't think things would change in a good way, however. So why do many people assume that I would want "real change" even if I felt that the proposed changes are bad?

Is it that people just vote for a candidate running on a platform of "change", because they like the concept of change, and don't particularly care what things change into? Is it something that has been pushed by Ron Paul's campaign actively, and thus is repeated by his supporters? Or is it some third thing I'm missing that causes this reason to be overly hyped?

Note, I'm not going to know much about any political party outside of the U.S. , so if you bring one of them up without going into a lot of background, I probably won't understand what you mean.

Also, I'll clarify that by change I'm meaning more of issues and composition than anything else, though if you have anything else to add, I'm not stopping you.

Tonight (the 17th) the Senate is going into an all night session to debate legislation related to the war in Iraq. The reason for the extended session is because of a Republican filibuster, preventing the legislation form being brought to a vote.

Reading through stories in several major news outlets, I find that the word filibuster is rarely brought up, and instead the more ambiguous term "procedural roadblock"(or some other variant of that) is used.

My question is why the press is shunning the term "filibuster", and using a term that seems to hide whats actually going on instead?

I'd also like to note, that they do not use the term "cloture" either, and just refer to the 60 votes required to invoke this clause.

Please include an explanation with some level of detail.(Not an entire essay, but at least offer some reason for your opinion, even if its as simple as "thats how I was raised." Please try to use reasonably good grammar; spell check doesn't take that long, and a quick proofreading for other mistakes isn't going to slow you down that much.

Also, I ask that you avoid using stereotypes, and avoid providing insulting or spammy answers.

I personally believe that the book of Genesis was meant to be read figuratively, and that the stories in it are basically parables, designed to teach humans important lessons about life and sin. I believe this as I find most of the events described to be unlikely and illogical. Despite the fact that the bible is Gods book, it was written by humans, and natural human bias and traditions such as myths have undoubtedly played a part in its creation.