May I please ask how Meghan McCain is regarded here?

Other than noting she was married to John McCain, has her own inherited money, and looks nice waving at conventions.

As for one party being dug into Ft McHenry (not sure why you chose that one) and "not participating" in the financial rape of America along with the other party, I think we all can be happy they have so far successfully made that stand.

Literacy Tests. Wouldn't it be nice if complete morons weren't voting in elections they didn't read or have an inkling of what the issues actually were? In America however we have decided even they have some right to vote and it becomes a trick of seeing who can promise the most cookies and ice cream to get them to vote a particular way. What I would like to see is a law that elderly residents in nursing homes had to either pass a yearly competency test or have a near relative sign their absentee ballot and not allow anyone other than family to do so. That move might cut down on a lot of bogus ballots coming from those nursing homes.

You see, you have to give an idea of what you are interested in about a person or you may get comments on her manner of dress, her choice of husband, her family beer business, or anything not even related to whatever prompted the open ended question.

There are other opinions about literacy during the time of the Revolution. 1n 1970, Lawrence A. Cremin, a professor at Columbia University, published a book titled American Education: The Colonial Experience.
In it he said that literacy among adult white males was 70 to 100 percent in Colonial America versus 48 to 74 percent in England.

I dispute Dr. Cremin's figures for America. There is extensive documentation where Legal Documents are signed with an X whose use extending into the middle 19th Century. I've seen them in two different University Libraries, and know them to be widespread both in Public Records offices but in the Library of Congress as well.

As to England, he's probably right, because England was very slow to institute real public education. What were called Public Schools there were fee-paying schools for those who couldn't afford private tutors, Grammar Schools were also fee-paying schools or required the purchase of uniforms and books which limited their enrollments. Real public education was a post Crimean War (immediately before the American Civil War) thing, and were usually provided by the Church of England who dictated curriculum (including the absence of Darwin in the curriculum) and policed its teachers, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness.

The longest strike in Britain wasn't a labour dispute per se, it was the Burston School Strike where the local vicar and landowners closed the school because of the "radical" views of the teacher whom they couldn't dismiss because a majority of the members of the school board (the poorer ones) refused to sanction it. Among other things he was opposed to involvement in World War I.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burston_Strike_School

It lasted 25 years, from 1914 to 1939.

rob

Shows how little I paid attention to names of wife vs children. Candidates are more important to me usually, unless their spouse becomes overly political, such as happened with the Clintons when he was elected.

born in 1984 -makes her 26 yrs old- and her "i believe" is
normal for the age group i reckon:

"I am concerned about the environment. I love to wear black.
I think government is best when it stays out of people's lives
and business as much as possible. I love punk rock. I believe
in a strong national defense. I have a tattoo. I believe government
should always be efficient and accountable. I have lots of gay friends.
And yes, I am a Republican"

.,

just like John McCain.

Since both McCain and Obama are Progressives (as is H.Clinton), I wasn't happy with either choice for President but knew that McCain would be better than Obama in office since he wasn't a Radical Progressive.

The Tea Party, for the most part, are made up of Conservatists who believe that the Constitution itself is our foundation, whereas Progressives believe that the Constitution 'gets in the way' of their agendas and needs to be transformed. The Republic (which is what our country is) holds that people rule the Government whereas Progressives hold that Government rules the people and knows better, which is why Government has gotten so much larger over time.

The Constitution demanded that the STATES hold the most governing power (with the people within those States telling the State what we need or want) with the FEDERAL Government having little control except for vital concerns such as defense of our country. Progressives over time have passed bills/laws/amendments to our Constitution giving the Federal and State Governments more and more control and we have almost totally lost the Constitutionality fundamentals in the process because of their transformational agendas.

I don't trust Progressives at all....even if they are good looking and speak well despite those forked tongues.

TONI H

Progressive that espouses the views you've just attributed to them. Progressives believe that responsive democratic government began with the Constitution and grows from there to face new challenges, Some, I emphasize some Conservatives believe it ended with the Constitution and despite the intervening 219 years shouldn't change. There isn't a Progressive alive who wants to throw out the Constitution, it is the finest document of its kind in the history of the World. But progressives see and if not embrace, at least try to accommodate, change, while Conservatives at least say they oppose it.

The trouble is that both groups are contaminated by bought votes, but Conservatives are more likely to receive Corporate funding and favour business interests over the interests of the country generally. Or they could be like Senator Richard Shelby from Alabama who wants to take an already signed contract away from Boeing and give it to Airbus Industrie (sic) which has, not manufacturing plants, but assembly plants in Alabama. Doesn't he know that there will be a price to cancelling the contract? In this case he is favouring his constituency over the welfare of the rest of the US at a time when every dollar is precious.

Up here in Canada about 14 years ago, the Liberal government ordered badly needed new helicopters from ?Aerospatiale?, the EH 101 Cormorant. Great helicopter, expensive but much needed to replace the aged Sea Kings for SAR and Coast Guard duties. An election intervened and the Conservative/Reform Party campaigned against its cost. They won the election, they cancelled the contract, the penalty was several hundred million dollars and in 2010 we're still operating creaking, leaking, cracking, dangerous Sea Kings with no replacement in sight.

Me, I thought the smartest thing to do would be to get Russian made helicopters cheap, and set up sophisticated maintenance facilities in Ontario or the Maritime provinces and in British Columbia. That's not a slur against Quebec but Quebec has received the lions share of high-tech contracts like this in the past and already has a healthy Aero-space industry.

But that's neither here nor there. The point is that there is no free lunch. You can't cancel a signed contract without getting royally done over and paying out millions for nothing.

Rob

You can't cancel a signed contract without getting royally done over and paying out millions for nothing.

And what has happened with our Progressive (and radical) Democrat in the last year but with BILLIONS/TRILLIONS instead of millions by 'fundamentally transforming America' is exactly what you stated...

I rest my case, which you did for me because the Progressives are little by little over the last 90 years trying to cancel our contract (the Constitution).

TONI H

Unfortunately, we can't do that through media filtering yet we seem to want to make firm conclusions without real study beyond that feeding trough. This goes farther yet. We've many whose words are automatically disqualified due to party or some other label or automatically adopted as gospel for the same reasons.