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Politics : Evolution -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (31905)	12/17/2012 7:34:26 AM
From: Brumar89	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 69300

One of the interesting things I've noticed about all the emotional posturing about the Connecticut public school shootings is that a fair share of it is being done by people who claim there is no God, no good, and no evil. Some of those people also happen to be those who assert that the Earth has too many people. So, I find myself wondering if they are knowingly striking false poses in order to hide their amoral inhumanity at a time when sensitivities are particularly acute or if they are merely intellectually incoherent. The logical fact of the matter is that if there is no divine spark within us, if we are merely bits of stardust that happens to have congregated in one of many possible manners, then therre is nothing wrong or objectionable in rearranging the stardust a little. What difference does it make to an atom if it now happens to be part of arrangement X instead of arrangement Y? What difference does it make to the universe? And if consciousness does not exist, if it is the illusion that some of the more imaginative neurophilosophers claim it to be, then how can anyone possibly object to the elimination of the nonexistent? What tragedy can be found in the transformation from nothing to nothing? And if there are too many people on the Earth, in the country, then is not the reduction of that excessive number to be celebrated? And if it is good, moral, and legal to kill a child in a trans-natal abortion, how long after birth is such killing truly licit? Would it make the deaths of the young public schoolchildren more palatable to describe them as 24th trimester post-natal abortions? In an increasingly post-Christian pagan society, what is is wrong, precisely, with killing schoolchildren? voxday.blogspot.in

To: 2MAR$ who wrote (31905)

12/17/2012 2:24:49 PM

From: longnshort

Respond to of 69300

Obama Sandy aid bill filled with holiday goodies unrelated to storm damage

Vics suffer as $60B aid plan gets porked up
By S.A. MILLER and GERRY SHIELDS Post Correspondents
December 15, 2012
nypost.com

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s $60.4 billion request for Hurricane Sandy relief has morphed into a huge Christmas stocking of goodies for federal agencies and even the state of Alaska, The Post has learned.

The pork-barrel feast includes more than $8 million to buy cars and equipment for the Homeland Security and Justice departments. It also includes a whopping $150 million for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to dole out to fisheries in Alaska and $2 million for the Smithsonian Institution to repair museum roofs in DC.

An eye-popping $13 billion would go to “mitigation” projects to prepare for future storms.

Other big-ticket items in the bill include $207 million for the VA Manhattan Medical Center; $41 million to fix up eight military bases along the storm’s path, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; $4 million for repairs at Kennedy Space Center in Florida; $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and $1.1 million to repair national cemeteries.

Budget watchdogs have dubbed the 94-page emergency-spending bill “Sandy Scam.”

Matt Mayer of the conservative Heritage Foundation slammed the request as an “enormous Christmas gift worth of stuff.”

“The funding here should be focused on helping the community and the people, not replacing federal assets or federal items,” he said.

Republican lawmakers say the lack of details and justifications for the spending will delay approval until after Christmas, while they analyze and document what spending is “appropriate.”

“To throw out a number this large without in-depth analysis and formal request detailing the basis for it I think is premature and I wouldn’t support that,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

Gov. Cuomo yesterday warned Congress not to hold up the money.

“There is no Plan B,” declared Cuomo at a press conference at the governor’s office in Manhattan, where he was joined by business and union leaders.

Mayor Bloomberg, however, called for careful scrutiny of the federal spending.

“You would think they’d want to ask questions before they give away the public’s money,” the mayor said on his radio program.