Is Barack Obama the right leader for America?

[jamiebk]

Well personally speaking I will need to "rebuild" about 40% of my stock portfolio.

More like 55% for me.

Misery loves company Haggis. I guess we have more in common than I thought

[piqaboo]

Well personally speaking I will need to "rebuild" about 40% of my stock portfolio.

More like 55% for me.

I'm afraid to look. I looked at the % distributions, saw no reason to change, and kept the values hidden. I need to sleep nights.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Yeah. My statement came last week. I'm not opening it. I don't want to know.

I'm holding out in the naive belief that things will eventually recover and that, meanwhile, my payroll deduction dollars are buying more than they did at the top of the market. It's all spread out in about four different subaccounts and only one of them is very aggressive (I suspect it got aggressively deflated) and the rest are pretty conservative.

[Haggis@wk]

I'm afraid to look. I looked at the % distributions, saw no reason to change, and kept the values hidden. I need to sleep nights.

I reasoned that I invested in good companies with solid performance history. I have been burying some gold in the backyard and stocking up on ammo.....45 cal is hard to find

[Shapley]

President Obama Announces Iraq Withdrawal Plan

Under the plan, combat operations will end by August 2010, and most of the troops will be brought home by that time. Approximately 50,000 will remain in Iraq beyond that time.

[BigJon@Work]

Another promise broken, eh?

[Shapley]

Another promise broken, eh?

Well, I wasn't going to pass judgement. But 50,000 'left behind' does seem to fall short of his campaign rhetoric.

[analog]

well 50,000 in Iraq and who knows about Afghanistan......

He'll continue securing that territory between Persian Gulf and China.

Think tanks run foreign policy.
http://www.csis.org/about/trustees/

[Shapley]

President Obama Considers Rescinding "Right Of Conscience" Rule

So what, exactly, is wrong with doctor and nurses having the right to refuse to perform proceedures they consider morally unjustifiable? Would you want to have a proceedure performed upon you by a doctor that held such a view?

Is he really afraid that there won't be enough doctors who will perform the proceedure willingly, that we have to have the legal authority to force doctors to peform it?

[Shapley]

Anti-War Activists Disappointed With Obama Withdrawal Plan

[Shapley]

President Obama To Sign Pork-Laden Spending Bill, Despite Promise To Reject Earmarks

He's been in office just about a month and a half. I've lost count of the number of campaign promises he's already broken.

[jamiebk]

President Obama Considers Rescinding "Right Of Conscience" Rule

So what, exactly, is wrong with doctor and nurses having the right to refuse to perform proceedures they consider morally unjustifiable? Would you want to have a proceedure performed upon you by a doctor that held such a view?

Is he really afraid that there won't be enough doctors who will perform the proceedure willingly, that we have to have the legal authority to force doctors to peform it?

I believe somewhere on this board there was a lot of discussion about cab drivers who would not pick up passengers carrying alcohol...why? Because of their religious beliefs. The general consensus was that if the cab drivers are so compromised in their jobs due to their religious convictions or general beliefs, then they should not be cab drivers...it goes with the job. It's also true with driggists who refuse to dole out birth control pills because of their beliefs.

Doctors who refuse to perform procedures because of their beliefs aren't of much value to the patient who needs them. Personally, I do not think it should be the patients resonsibility to have a "heart to heart" discussion with the doctor to determine what he/she believes in. If you go to a doctor you should expect to receive generally accepted and medically sound advise and procedures. If I want a discussion regarding my personal religious choices, I will seek out my clergy not my doctor.

[Shapley]

Catholic doctors, and others, joined the profession at a time when they knew there was no obligation on their part to kill babies. If the law is changed to mandate that they be willing to kill babies as a part of their profession, should they be mandated to perform a proceedure they find objectionable?

I would say it is a rare thing, if it happens at all, that a persons life is jeopardized by a cab drivers' refusal to haul them because of the presence of liquour.

I mentioned a while back a study that was reported in the news regarding soldiers and war. The Army did a study that showed that a very small percentage of soldiers actually fired their weapons in combat, even when fired upon. Their moral compass was such that they found the taking of human life to be wrong, even in a life-threatening combat situation. During the Vietnam War, the Army used psychological methods to increase the percentage of soldiers willing to fire their weapons, with a pretty good rate of success. However, follow-up examination revealed that forcing people to kill who are morally opposed to killing had a very dramatic effect on their psychological balance, with the result that a much higher number of Vietnam Veterans returned from combat with mental problems. I would think the same consequence could manifest itself if we suddenly start ordering doctors to kill, knowing it is against their morality to do so.

V/R
Shapley

[jamiebk]

All of your arguement rests on your inflamatory use of the word "killing". While one can hardly dismiss late term abortions as anything but, there are many early term procedures and contraception that (in my opinion) do not constitute "killing". Terminating the potential for human life is in my mind not the same as terminating a human life. On this Shap, you and I will never agree so I will offer no further comments on this

[Shapley]

I dont' consider contraception 'killing', since the purpose of contraception is to prevent the occurance of fertilization. I do consider abortion to be. I would think the word 'killing' would be less inflammatory than the term 'baby', since abortion clearly does kill something, whether you call it a fetus, an unviable tissue mass, or a baby.

I chose to use the term here because that is the manner in which those doctors who see it as morally objectionable would refer to it. We try to sanitize abortion by calling it other things, but the fact that it kills is hardly disputable. We refer to the killing of cancer cells by medical proceedure, and that is not considered inflammatory. I'm actually curious that you would find the term to be objectionable in this case.

[jamiebk]

I dont' consider contraception 'killing', since the purpose of contraception is to prevent the occurance of fertilization. I do consider abortion to be. I would think the word 'killing' would be less inflammatory than the term 'baby', since abortion clearly does kill something, whether you call it a fetus, an unviable tissue mass, or a baby.

I chose to use the term here because that is the manner in which those doctors who see it as morally objectionable would refer to it. We try to sanitize abortion by calling it other things, but the fact that it kills is hardly disputable. We refer to the killing of cancer cells by medical proceedure, and that is not considered inflammatory. I'm actually curious that you would find the term to be objectionable in this case.

The last I heard on the subject, the Catholic church did not support the concept ofthe IUD...a contraceptive devise.

[Shapley]

The last I heard on the subject, the Catholic church did not support the concept ofthe IUD...a contraceptive devise.

That is true, but not on the basis that it is 'killing'. The Church opposes contraception as contrary to God's natural law. To the best of my knowledge, the wasting of sperm is not equated with the killing of a fertilized egg, though both are considered sinful.

[Haggis@wk]

All of your arguement rests on your inflamatory use of the word "killing". While one can hardly dismiss late term abortions as anything but, there are many early term procedures and contraception that (in my opinion) do not constitute "killing". Terminating the potential for human life is in my mind not the same as terminating a human life. On this Shap, you and I will never agree so I will offer no further comments on this

Doublespeak. There a proposed bill (which will never see light) that says that prior to an abortion the doctor would be required to show the mother a sonogram of her child. It is being proposed from the viewpoint that the mother would be fully informed of the consequences.

The opponents (mostly Women's groups) don't think that would do anything to inform the mother.

So, apparently, they don't won't informed women having abortions. That's politics, not advocates.

[piqaboo]

Hence the benefit of the 'morning after' pill. There's not enough to show at that point. I dont think all who have abortions are uninformed. I wish there were fewer of them, and more prevention.

[Shapley]

The 'morning after' pill actually aborts a fetus, assuming conception occured the night before. The idea of the 'morning after' pill is that it performs the abortion before conception is known about, not before it occurs. The thinking apparently is that "what we don't know won't hurt us". It is really not any more morally correct than a surgical abortion if you find abortion to be morally wrong.

The 'morning after' pill is not the same as contraception, which seeks to prevent conception rather than terminate it ex post facto.