mawrm's Comments (1175)

“I stand corrected - what Limbaugh said was Woods' choice of women was "hurting the black frame of mind". Sure Limbaugh is sooo concerned about black folks that's why he's so concerned that the black folks' frame of mind would be so messed up about Tiger boning only white women. Are you kidding me?!?! Exactly how many black folks listen to Rush Limbaugh to have even been "touched" by his faux empathy? Rush is using the same lightly veiled language to say to his mostly WHITE audience the following - See, Tiger's just like the rest of them, same "black man's" mentality, all he's after is WHITE WOMEN.
Since we haven't see such a media firestorm with regards to an athlete "at his level" I suppose then that the following is true - there are no athletes at his level in any sport who have ever been caught cheating on their spouse. If you believe that, I've got some is oceanfront property in Wyoming waiting for ya.”

“It's sad - a black man trying to do good faces an uphill battle for positive coverage and encouragement. - you rarely hear a word about it. A successful black man has a failing and it's plastered all over the place. You'd think this was the first time America has ever heard of an athlete having extra-martial affairs. We saw this exact same behavior in the OJ Simpson case - as if it were the first time in America that a famous man had murdered his wife. There is this sick mentality of putting a black face to the ills of our nation - poverty, drugs, social services, etc. Now Tiger has a "sexual addiction" problem as diagnosed by all the clinically trained doctors in the media circus. It's the "black" side of him coming out, Rush Limbaugh suggested, with absolutely no repercussions for his vilely offensive racist statement.
But Tiger will prevail in the long run, I am sure of this. Let him without sin cast the first stone. My prayers for him, Elin, his children and his family that they may find peace and healing.”

“Per your flawed logic, explain then why states with the worst education systems in the country, with the highest high school drop out and teen pregnancy rates in the nation that have consistently had the highest numbers of elected Republican officials over the last decade?
Out source to China? I seem to recall the Bush family having LOTS of investments with China. In fact, the majority of the jobs left for China DURING the W administration.”

“Sho' U Right!!!”

“I've gotta give Chris Matthews credit - he realized he said a bone-headed thing and turned around and apologized for it. He's human and susceptible to error and I respect the fact that he was decent enough to apologize, even though I don't necessarily agree with his views. There are others in the media who still need to learn to do the same.”

“I'd have to respectfully disagree because it requires one to assume that everyone at West Point has an ideologically inclination towards military action/weaponry/etc, regardless of the circumstances and that is wholly incorrect. The fine folks at West Point are interested in serving and defending their country. They are not necessarily more pre-disposed to war than the couch potato generals dispersed in our general population who rave about weapons, guns and how we need to "bomb this and bomb that" as a solution to every problem. President Obama looks to the defense of our nation. He's just not interested in going off on unnecessary wars and putting our troops in harms' way for foolish reasons.
Thank you for your service and God bless.”

“Is this some kind of French sushi or something?”

“That's a bunch of bull and you know it. the Bush Administration purposefully and willfully manipulated intelligence, made up crap (witness Sec. of State Powell's presentation to the UN) to push for the case for war. For crying out loud, you had the UN on the ground in Iraq saying there were no WMDs, you had American scientists and WMD experts who had been to Iraq saying there were no WMDs, yet the Bush Administration continued to lie about the WMDs which we've never found - surprise! The Bush Administration further LIED about Al Qaeda ties with Iraq - that didn't even require "intelligence" to determine if it was a lie or not, just common sense and a rudimentary knowledge of both.
Fact is, this Afghan situation didn't happen over night, it's been a mess for 8 years and much of the conditions which cause it to be a mess existed 8 years ago. Why in 8 years, with all the "intelligence" available to him did Bush not come forth to the American people and tell the truth? Why invade Iraq if Afghanistan was such a tough battlefield to begin with? You've forgotten "Mission Accomplished" already?”

“Too few big corporations have enormous influence on US economy. The move away from the mom & pop shops to the Walmarts mean less local sourcing and more out-sourcing for products. Whereas hundreds of local store owners would look to nearby sources for goods, producing jobs all around the country, a firm like Walmart can go sole source on a particular item and kill hundreds of jobs in the process.
Another fault of US companies is they're more bent on getting consumers rather than customers and their business models increasingly rely on pushing a customer to make more purchases of (usually substandard) products rather than a single purchase of a quality product. We see this in everything from cars, to printers to toothbrushes. While a great profit generator, it unnecessarily inflates our cost of living and further pushes our companies to make less quality products - witness the auto industry.
Further problem- why do corporate MBAs, managers, lawyers, Wall St, etc. make such exorbitant salaries when the engineers and scientists who design and create the products and the workers who build the products that warrant their existence make peanuts by comparison? The CEO to worker bee salary ratios are way out of wack and higher targeted taxes to discourage outsourcing and encourage better profit sharing may be a way to restore balance.
As a nation, we need to adjust our lifestyle to lower consumption. However, areas like transportation infrastructure & urban planning require gov't involvement to promote more economical behaviors.”

“EXACTLY. Oh, wait, there's more... I recall something called the Powell Doctrine... Wait, that Gen. Powell dude was Bush's own Secretary of State and counselled against going to war in Iraq, especially without sufficient troops to support an occupation (remember, Bush playing semantics - "it's a liberation not an occupation") and international backing. Funny how he left after Bush's first term.

Where were these apes when Bush was IGNORING the generals which is why we've ended up in this awful mess in the first place?!?!”

“If we had only had 10% of the level of forethought that Obama has shown on the Afghanistan situation 8 years ago, imagine where we'd be today. Frustrating to even think about that now. We can only hope that our brave men and women on the ground there can do something to turn the situation around.”

“You are certainly not mistaken - US Ambassador April Glaspie met with Pres. Saddam Hussein prior to the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq, after months of international complaints by Iraq against Kuwait regarding border issues, slant oil drilling, etc. There is dispute as to the interpretation of the remarks but she essentially said that the US had no opinion on the Kuwait issue and that it was not associated with America. This was basically (mis)interpreted by Saddam Hussein as a green light to go ahead and invade Kuwait.”

“This is getting ridiculous - why the heck wasn't all this brought up _seven years ago_ when W decided to ignore Afghanistan and go off to invade Iraq? This disaster didn't occur overnight!! I want public congressional hearing on why are we hearing all this _7 years LATE_ after spending BILLIONS of dollars on this "War On Terror". If US forces encountered these difficulties even 3 years ago, why were they not publicized or scrutinized before billions more were allocated to this war? And our derelict media failed to cover this issue - no surprise there. Heads need to roll and folks need to get locked up for this, considering the expense in treasure and human life that has been expended on this so-called "War on Terror" while Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda operatives still roam free. Yes, Obama needs to make a decision, however, context is critical here so that whatever decision he makes is well understood by the American public. If it was already known 2 years ago that Afghanistan was a lost cause, why was withdrawal not considered then?”

“So Mr. Hutchinson, are you willing to guarantee for the American people that if we pulled out of Afghanistan tomorrow, there will be absolutely no more attacks by Al Qaeda? Because that's what Obama would have to guarantee if he decided to pull out of Afghanistan. He would have to gamble that a) the Taliban would not return to power (claiming victory over the superpower no less), b) that Al Qaeda would not return to Afghanistan with the Taliban, c) that Al Qaeda would no longer seek to attack America, its citizens or its allies. I was never a strong advocate for invading Afghanistan but unfortunately Bush bought that farm and has cynically left it to his successor, Pres. Obama, to do the hard job of either showing some produce or being blamed for the purchase.”

“X-37 was originally a NASA project however NASA was never to see it to fruition. The X-37 project was "transferred" from NASA to DARPA in 2004 and is now classified. So while the DARPA gets to play with cutting-edge technology, NASA gets "new direction" to proceed severely under-funded and design and build the under-capable Ares I vehicle.”

“Umm...first, nothing was "detonated" on the moon, just simple velocity impact physics, that's all. Secondly, the majority of the impactors' structures are probably embedded into the moon. Thirdly, the moon has a weak gravitational field so that the ejected debris in all likelihood returned the moon's surface.”

“NASA didn't cancel X-38, Congress and the White House did. As is often the case, NASA's budget got cut and thus X-38 had to go. If you want to blame someone, blame Congress and the Bush White House for being penny-wise and pound foolish, not NASA.”

“I like your mention of X-37 because it shows exactly the types of problem NASA faces. X-37 was originally a NASA-developed demonstrator vehicle - the very sort of cutting-edge design work that people expect NASA to be doing. Then there came the typical funding cuts and lo and behold, DARPA swoops in and X-37 is now a classified DoD program. So now, DoD gets the glory for a project that was the culmination of years of research and design of NASA engineers. Scramjet technology seems to be following a similar fate. Of course folks carp about how NASA "can't do anything right" but fail to see the frustration of NASA engineers who see project after project killed due to funding cuts and/or appropriated by DoD and are left to work on barely capable vehicles like Ares I because NASA never gets the appropriate level of funding to do cutting edge work. For the amount spent on the V-22 program, NASA could have probably designed and built a full-size man-rated X-37 type vehicle. And more lives were lost in V-22 development than in NASA's entire space flight history and yet that vehicle continues into production.”

“The Ares/Orion architecture was driven primarily by NASA's limited budget, dictated by Congress and White House. The days of Apollo sized budgets are gone - NASA gets less than 0.5% of the national budget. Of course NASA can design a winged craft for LEO/Lunar, but who's giving NASA $30+ billion a year to do that, plus fly Shuttle, build and operate other research crafts (MSL, Mars rovers, Webb telescope), etc? Yes, it had to be a capsule primarily for cost and speed of development. I love the Shuttle, but it's old and EXPENSIVE to fly and operate, hence the need to retire it and free up cash for new vehicles. Buzz's proposal of an "Ares III" config is bewildering considering that he of all people should know that NASA has considered a less massive Ares V Lite configuration but is awaiting direction from the White House to determine whether to proceed on course or change to a different architecture. NASA's main problem is for 20+ years, it has not received consistent direction from WH administrations, its budget has been slashed time and time again, cancelling numerous projects before fruition after spending millions.
To insinuate that Columbia & Challenger accidents were due to "NASA hubris" is below the belt. Space travel is inherently risky business. Yes, mistakes were made and _in hindsight_, those accidents were avoidable, but don't defame the work and efforts of thousands and insult the memory those brave astronauts by chalking it up to "hubris".”

“Only way out is the force companies to stop the outsourcing and stop importing "cheap" Chinese goods. The fact is, those goods aren't "cheap" and are costing our nation dearly in the long run.
Also, we need a massive overhaul of our transportation sector away from burning fossil fuels. More public transportation, less road/airport hub construction and more rail construction.
Finally, we're overdue for a massive overhaul of health care and Wall Street. As a nation, we no longer can afford the six-plus figure doctor, corporate lawyers and MBA salaries. These salaries (along with others) need to return down to earth to make life affordable. If we need the gov't to pay for our doctors', nurse practitioners', etc., education to produce more of them, so be it.”

“Sorry, we never did finish the job in Afghanistan. The job was to _completely_ DESTROY Al Qaeda, i.e. not let it RELOCATE to Pakistan, remove the Taliban from power and help restore sensible rule of law in Afghanistan. Recall, OBL was previously based in the Sudan and simply "relocated" to Afghanistan, causing the present headache. Fact is, instead of keeping his eye on the ball, Bush wanted an easy victory to do his "Mission Accomplished" dance, hence the invasion of Iraq. The Bush Administration knew it would be a few years before they could claim "Mission Accomplished" in Afghanistan, however, if those nitwits had stayed at it, particularly with NATO and international help, they would have probably completed the job by the end of W's second term. Instead they "dithered" on Afghanistan, scared off our allies, and now we're left with an absolute mess. If Obama pulls out, God forbid there's another Al Qaeda attack on US soil. What does he say then?”

“The problem is massive, from CEOs outsourcing manufacturing to make millions for themselves to premier American universities failing to promote/encourage American students to pursue advanced degrees in engineering, science and technology development in favor of "cheaper" foreign students. There needs to be a serious disincentive for US companies to outsource jobs & manufacturing operations for products to be primarily used by Americans. Perhaps we need to start boycotts of stores like Walmart and others to force them to change their ways. Retail is a huge part of the problem as they create "fixed" choices for consumers - you purchase what they make available to you and unfortunately, it's a lot of cheap made-in-china stuff. Another tactic that may work and also avoid trouble with the WTO, we can also "prefer" outsourcing from countries other than China, India, etc. That is, use products from other developing countries that would make better trading partners with the US - particularly Africa and Latin America.”

“Well why don't you continue - had we never gone into Iraq and STAYED focused on Afghanistan, what would your crystal ball say then? Funny how that's never brought up. I think what the Obama Administration needs to do is be more transparent and show just what a clusterfudge the Bush Administration left this nation in - they need to detail the cost spent on the wars to date, what has NOT been accomplished in this 8 years of War on Terror that began supposedly to capture/kill OBL and his cronies (epic FAIL there so far), the thousands of lives lost and what additional action in Afghanistan will require. What Obama MUST do be upfront and tell the American people that additional troops and sacrifice in Afghanistan will not guarantee victory - we do the best we can and when we see it's not enough, we need to get out.”

“She is a beautiful woman no doubt. Obesity is a tough issue because there is the concern of physical appearance but there is also the concern of health and it is often difficult to discern from which angle folks are coming from in their critique of obesity. Being secure and confident in your own skin is important and that's part of what I admire about Ms. Gabourey Sidibe. In the same breath, what would cause me worry is to see someone like her cut down to soon by preventable conditions brought on by obesity - diabetes, heart ailments, cancer, etc. And it matters when the person is more than just someone we see on the silver screen, when it's our own mother, sister, wife, significant other. Unfortunately, it's extremely difficult to convey that concern without it being seen as just a "cover" for commenting superficially about one's appearance. One could make an entire movie about how poverty and the resulting poor food choices drive obesity, leave people dealing with expensive, life-long health complications.”

“There are real, lasting rather easy solutions to this economic crisis but the sad fact of the matter is those on the right are going to label them "socialist".
- Problem: Myopic CEOs who look to make the fast buck. Executive compensation is way out of wack which fuels this attitude of showing good numbers at any cost. They outsource everything, reduce worker compensation while pushing up worker hours and collect bonuses for their actions. First, HEAVILY tax the outsourcers (including those that import cheaper tech labor by abusing the H-1 visa process) to discourage the practice.
- Invest in green tech R&D and tax breaks for innovative green tech companies.
- Fix health care. If necessary, have the government fund med school degree programs to bring down the cost of producing doctors, nurses, etc. End the insurance company rip-offs.
- Transportation system reform - curtail urban sprawl with better planning, stop building more roads and start building more railways and mass transit systems.
- Legal reform. Too many lawyers make $$$ producing little but expensive lawsuits, writing jacked up "user agreements" that hurt consumers and artificially raise the cost of products.
- Fix Wall Street and the banking system (bust up the too big to fails) and severely punish wealthy tax evaders and corporate miscreants.”