Originally Posted by pbrower2a

You have written copious nonsense in this Forum, including your characterization of liberals as one-dimensional "Bush-haters".

The characterization was a stated opinion supported by written facts available right here, right under your nose! The comments weren't directed at the liberals in general. The comments were directed at one group (I view as being prodominately Bush haters) who classify themselves as being liberals. The only liberals who are taking major issue or attempting to exploit my comments are the same liberals who categorically fit the definition. The rest of your long winded anti-Bush rant basically prooves my stated opinion to be very accurate.

Originally Posted by The Rani

"Modern" birth control isn't by any means the only kind of birth control available to women. (((wink, wink, nudge, nudge)))

Um that was my position. You said this:

Originally Posted by The Rani

Human attempts to self-regulate population growth simply will not work. The most basic biological drive* for all living creatures is reproduction. It's just the way we're made. No matter how much "education" we do, people are going to have unprotected sex and end up with babies.

It certainly looks like you were saying that without protection, by which I assume you mean contraceptive use, people will have babies because many cannot control "the most basic biological drive for all living creatures", just like many people cannot control their weight. You asserted that how much education is done has no impact on women's fertility, which is contradicted by the evidence:

Although women's education should be promoted primarily on human rights and social justice grounds, it is widely recognized as one of the most promising catalysts of sustained fertility decline.

So what were you trying to say then?

*Hunger is a more basic drive as shown by controlled studies of starvation as well as the observations of people subjected to starvation conditions (POWs, concentration camp inmates etc.):

Participants exhibited a preoccupation with food, both during the starvation period and the rehabilitation phase. Sexual interest was drastically reduced and the volunteers showed signs of social withdrawal and isolation.

Originally Posted by The Rani

No, you're still stuck. I've moved on, and it seems like everyone else has also.

So you don't want to deal with it. All right. But it's not going to go away.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

The characterization was a stated opinion supported by written facts available right here, right under your nose! The comments weren't directed at the liberals in general. The comments were directed at one group (I view as being prodominately Bush haters) who classify themselves as being liberals. The only liberals who are taking major issue or attempting to exploit my comments are the same liberals who categorically fit the definition. The rest of your long winded anti-Bush rant basically prooves my stated opinion to be very accurate.

That's strange. Very little of that "rant" was a denunciation of Dubya; it was an attempt to relate events from long ago that could relate to the party alignment in America. The Republican Party survived the Great Depression that discredited "Hoover-nomics" more than it discredited Herbert Hoover as a person. Herbert Hoover was, unlike Dubya, a man of integrity and principle. He did not surround himself with a coterie of schemers and shysters. The GOP was out of the White House for twenty years, but it came back with Dwight Eisenhower, whom most historians now recognize as one of our better Presidents. Eisenhower ran an administration as free of scandal as any. He did right on Little Rock desegregation even though his decision, justified as it was by law, did the Republican Party no good in the long run. He got us out of the Korean War. He kept tight control of the budgetary process.

Dubya wasn't at fault for everything. There were others to blame -- Dick Cheney, of course, for his behind-the-scenes activities. John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez, cabinet selections for Attorney General, gamed the Bill of Rights as no prior AGs had. Tom DeLay, who allowed the House of Representatives to become a rubberstamp for Party leadership. Rick Santorum, who did much the same in the Senate. Jack Abramoff's corrupt money machine. Of course the ringleader of it all, Karl Rove, the man who ran the GOP like the GenSec of a Communist Party, and my pick as the most dangerous man in American political history since David C. Stephenson, the man who had a chance to be the American equivalent of Adolf Hitler.

Need I mention the buy-a-journalist scandal? And propaganda designed as objective news, created by the government to support a partisan agenda?

I see the demise of a political party because of its extremism and corruption. It's up to you to show that it either isn't so extreme or corrupt or that the American people like their leaders extreme and corrupt.

It's not conservatism that is dying; it's that Americans no longer give someone leeway for corruption and despotism because he has adopted the word conservative as a self-descriptor.

I despise this Administration for behaviors that none should excuse in a liberal even more than for its ideology. I predict that the Dubya-Cheney-Rove-DeLay-Santorum-Abramoff-era GOP may have doomed itself as a political party of long-term viability as Herbert Hoover's bungling of the 1929-1933 economic meltdown couldn't. I hardly say that conservatism is dead and that no conservative party will emerge in the future. It will -- perhaps as a new major party ten years or so from now, ideally with a squeaky-clean image that the GOP can no longer hold.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Have you actually researched this? My understanding is that having children at 15 or younger was less common than it is today, except, perhaps, for Medieval nobility.


It certainly is. How many women have 20+ children? Very few. Mostly those who have remained healthy (and fertile) up to their mid-40's and/or who tend to have twins. Also if children don't survive and so are not nursed it certainly possible to have more than one pregnancy in a single year. Do you have some of the genealogical record in your files? At what age did the women start having kids and how old were they when they finished?


Demographic data I have seen suggests that teen pregnancies were not common in recent centuries before the 20th. Most mothers started to have children well into their 20's, long after menarche.

This post contains some of what I complain about posts by the Rani and Justin. It is not an unthinking post. Rather it reflects a lack of knowledge much as do Justin's and the Rani's posts about climate change and how science works.

I have seen it. It typically involves farm families and families of industrial laborers circa 1900. As for teen pregnancies, my great-grandmother was married at age 15 and had a child at age 16. Such was far from the norm for the American or European middle class; indeed I associate it with (then) recent immigrants and the urban proletariat. That said, the middle class of the time was very small by modern standards in either Europe or America. I could show some family sheets with ten to twenty children by one woman.

Today it is more likely to occur in places of low levels of industrial development and educational achievement, where life expectancies are low due to high rates of child mortality.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

That's strange. Very little of that "rant" was a denunciation of Dubya; it was an attempt to relate events from long ago that could relate to the party alignment in America. The Republican Party survived the Great Depression that discredited "Hoover-nomics" more than it discredited Herbert Hoover as a person. Herbert Hoover was, unlike Dubya, a man of integrity and principle. He did not surround himself with a coterie of schemers and shysters. The GOP was out of the White House for twenty years, but it came back with Dwight Eisenhower, whom most historians now recognize as one of our better Presidents. Eisenhower ran an administration as free of scandal as any. He did right on Little Rock desegregation even though his decision, justified as it was by law, did the Republican Party no good in the long run. He got us out of the Korean War. He kept tight control of the budgetary process.

Dubya wasn't at fault for everything. There were others to blame -- Dick Cheney, of course, for his behind-the-scenes activities. John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzalez, cabinet selections for Attorney General, gamed the Bill of Rights as no prior AGs had. Tom DeLay, who allowed the House of Representatives to become a rubberstamp for Party leadership. Rick Santorum, who did much the same in the Senate. Jack Abramoff's corrupt money machine. Of course the ringleader of it all, Karl Rove, the man who ran the GOP like the GenSec of a Communist Party, and my pick as the most dangerous man in American political history since David C. Stephenson, the man who had a chance to be the American equivalent of Adolf Hitler.

Need I mention the buy-a-journalist scandal? And propaganda designed as objective news, created by the government to support a partisan agenda?

I see the demise of a political party because of its extremism and corruption. It's up to you to show that it either isn't so extreme or corrupt or that the American people like their leaders extreme and corrupt.

It's not conservatism that is dying; it's that Americans no longer give someone leeway for corruption and despotism because he has adopted the word conservative as a self-descriptor.

I despise this Administration for behaviors that none should excuse in a liberal even more than for its ideology. I predict that the Dubya-Cheney-Rove-DeLay-Santorum-Abramoff-era GOP may have doomed itself as a political party of long-term viability as Herbert Hoover's bungling of the 1929-1933 economic meltdown couldn't. I hardly say that conservatism is dead and that no conservative party will emerge in the future. It will -- perhaps as a new major party ten years or so from now, ideally with a squeaky-clean image that the GOP can no longer hold.

PB, I may not write very well. However, I'm able to read, comprehend and interpret what is written very well. One has to able to speak in ancient script or Sari like terms to completely rise above me intellectually, so to speak. However, once one rises to that level, one has risen beyond the point of practical knowlege into a sphere all their own, so to speak. Do you expect me to start digging and gathering information from your written texts and dump them on your DF krohnie head as undeniable proofs?

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

PB, I may not write very well. However, I'm able to read, comprehend and interpret what is written very well. One has to able to speak in ancient script or Sari like terms to completely rise above me intellectually, so to speak. However, once one rises to that level, one has risen beyond the point of practical knowlege into a sphere all their own, so to speak. Do you expect me to start digging and gathering information from your written texts and dump them on your DF krohnie head as undeniable proofs?

Cool, a remonstration from KIA that I can relate to. Now you know how I feel about Hopeful Cynic 68, Chris, and Rani.

Here's somthing simpler:

1929- Republicans start to lose it, get (mostly) kicked out on thier ass for 39 years.

1968- Democrats start to lose it, get (mostly) kicked out on thier ass for 39 years.

Pattern, ya think?

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Cool, a remonstration from KIA that I can relate to. Now you know how I feel about Hopeful Cynic 68, Chris, and Rani.

Here's somthing simpler:

1929- Republicans start to lose it, get (mostly) kicked out on thier ass for 39 years.

1968- Democrats start to lose it, get (mostly) kicked out on thier ass for 39 years.

Pattern, ya think?

Every social moment in American history scince the Trancendental awakening has featured a political realignment. We are due and I suspect that it did happen last year. If next year goes like last year electionwise, I'll be about 99% certain that the realignment has happened.

Let me add that the so called conventional wisdom the pundits use will not factor this in for several more years. In 1972 Nixon's landslide reelection took many by surprise because they assumed that the new deal coalition had just had an off year in 1968. We're likely to see the same thing in reverse in the 2010's. IOW, baring a total meltdown that destroyes the party, conventional wisdom will have the so called experts thinking that the Republicans will be back on the road to majority status until somewhere in the 2010's when the 4T is near its core and it becomes apparent that there is no going back.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Cool, a remonstration from KIA that I can relate to. Now you know how I feel about Hopeful Cynic 68, Chris, and Rani.

Here's somthing simpler:

1929- Republicans start to lose it, get (mostly) kicked out on thier ass for 39 years.

1968- Democrats start to lose it, get (mostly) kicked out on thier ass for 39 years.

Pattern, ya think?

I can understand your political issues with the likes of HC, Zilch or even myself. However, I don't view your issues with Rani or Chris as being political in nature. You see, neither Rani or Chris are political or socialist type krohnies. In my opinion, your issues with them were/are strictly personal in nature.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Every social moment in American history scince the Trancendental awakening has featured a political realignment. We are due and I suspect that it did happen last year. If next year goes like last year electionwise, I'll be about 99% certain that the realignment has happened.

Let me add that the so called conventional wisdom the pundits use will not factor this in for several more years. In 1972 Nixon's landslide reelection took many by surprise because they assumed that the new deal coalition had just had an off year in 1968. We're likely to see the same thing in reverse in the 2010's. IOW, baring a total meltdown that destroyes the party, conventional wisdom will have the so called experts thinking that the Republicans will be back on the road to majority status until somewhere in the 2010's when the 4T is near its core and it becomes apparent that there is no going back.

I see an even bigger meltdown of the GOP than that of 1932. The GOP got burned badly in 2006 on issues of corruption -- not economic distress that had not happened, but can still set in by November 2008. Should the economy tank, many Americans will attribute the hardships to corruption and inequity that the GOP fostered in 'good' times... and the combination will require a major overhaul of the GOP if it is to survive.

The Democrats of the Reconstruction era and the Gilded Age maintained their old constituencies (southern planters and the urban -- largely Irish -- poor) and were in good position to take advantage of the growing industrial proletariat of origin more exotic than that of the Irish. The Republicans were able to address the concerns of the post-WWII middle class that forgot its blue-collar and dirt-farmer origins.

Dubya's GOP so far has the double whammy of corruption and incompetence to live down... and should the economy tank, then the GOP will be long remembered mostly as something other than the Party of Lincoln.

I can see January 19, 2009 as the last day for a Republican President for a very long time -- and perhaps forever. Dubya won't be the last "conservative" President; the "conservative" party circa 2030 may go under a very different name.

From The Daily Dish

Originally Posted by a reader

My son is an officer in the Army and he is part of the ongoing action over there. Here is what he wrote me some time ago.

"No one ever mentions the fact that we have literally built walls around each neighborhood and along every highway as the reason the violence is down here. The place looks like an Orwell novel gone wrong. The people cannot shoot each other through walls and the insurgents cannot move around to plant their bombs. A society cannot function walled off form each other. We pay every bill, manage every facet of governance. The government at every level is a joke. The ministries are controlled by one faction (Shia). They have almost no experience or education. A bunch of guys walk around in suits and look important while they do nothing.

The local governments (to use the term loosely) are a collection of gangsters and strong men concerned with consolidating power and lining their pockets with cash from kickbacks of U.S. construction projects. The people have no work ethic. (I offered two grubby starving men 20 dollars each to unload some grain bags... they asked for fifty and then refused to work for less. I unloaded it myself) They throw their trash in the street until it piles high enough for the kids to play on it, and get sick. So, in short, I don't see a Capitalistic Democracy sprouting along the Tigris. I see the little boy (The U.S. Army) with his finger in the dike. If we remove our hand, it all goes away."

I later had the opportunity to discuss this with my son and he fleshed out the point about the neighborhoods being walled off. He told me that there are 17 feet high cement barriers at the end of every street separating manageable neighborhoods. There are checkpoints to control ingress and egress to each neighborhood. Citizens are not able to lead ordinary lives. The joke among officers over there is that in order to show further "progress" the troops will have to circle EVERY house.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

I can understand your political issues with the likes of HC, Zilch or even myself. However, I don't view your issues with Rani or Chris as being political in nature. You see, neither Rani or Chris are political or socialist type krohnies. In my opinion, your issues with them were/are strictly personal in nature.

Correct. They are the cool kids who need a comeuppance. Rani's not shy about this; she self-identifies as "alpha-bitch".

This translates as "primary target". Al-Q did not go for the Gateway Arch or Busch Stadium on 11 SEP01, did they?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Being an alpha-bitch is a great thing. Haven't you ever studied pack behavior?

Anyone who hasn't studied pack behavior should just think back to high school. In my day, the various cliques centered around organizations such as the athletic teams, cheerleaders, marching band, yearbook committee, and so forth. Most kids belonged with one clique. There were pecking orders within the cliques, and various cliques had more or less status than various others. Much emotional energy might be spent gaining membership in a clique, or alpha status within a given clique.

On these forums, there are any number of people who don't talk issues to speak of, but do their two paragraph snark thing, doing their 'Mean Girl' insult and clique snobbery as if they are still in high school. This too is pack behavior... in a reasonably pure form. Any politics or history seems to be less relevant than the endless maneuvering for status.

But it is a meaningful reflection on human nature. The values adhered to by the various cliques are real enough, and the squabbling is real enough, and the loyalty to cliques and ideas are real enough. People will be true to their clique as much as true to their school.

But an awful lot of the noise and emotion is without purpose. Lots of smoke, no fire. People form groups and bump against one another for status because contests for territory were once cost effective back in hunter gatherer days. The old patterns repeat themselves endlessly because the patterns are written in our genes.

And that is the real nature of this forum's two paragraph snark posts with no relevant information or theory. It is just alpha bitches being alpha bitches.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I guess you've never studied pack behavior. Mean Girls and Alpha Bitches are two completely different things.

I confess, it has been a long time since high school. Neither term was common in my day.

Originally Posted by The Rani

BTW, Bob, for one who claims to be above snark, you sure do seem to like talking about it over and over.

The alpha bitches seem determined to pull the conversation on this forum down to their level. I recently saw an article suggesting that 95% of internet traffic is spam. The ratio of snark to discussion of history and politics on these boards isn't quite as bad, but bad enough. Progress will be difficult so long as the nature of the 'spam' is not understood. I would hope it is possible to study chimpanzee behavior without becoming a chimpanzee?

Originally Posted by The Rani

Also, did you ever hear about the literary concept that it actually takes MORE effort, thought and insight to trim one's ideas into a short piece of writing than keep blathering on in a long one?

Yes. You and Zilch harp on this frequently. Still, I'm an INTP. These forums seem to accumulate INTPs as freely as alpha bitches. One of the points of INTP communication is in succinctly describing the problem or the answer. Excess verbiage is very bad form by INTP standards.

When the other INTPs start saying I'm being wordy, I'll take it seriously.

What is the classic Myers Brigs signature for an alpha bitch? Extroverts, as they are people persons rather than loners? Feelers, as they work at an emotional level rather than with ideas? Judgers, as they cling to their cliques and fixed value systems rather than looking at each problem on its own merit?

From my perspective, the alpha bitch contingent seems to read at an emotional level, and with strong values filters. They read and write snark, and miss the ideas. Yes, if your values clash with my ideas, my writing won't seem at all pithy. Thus, I cannot communicate any set of ideas that cannot be expressed in two short paragraphs. The alpha bitch crowd doesn't have the attention span to absorb that many new ideas outside of their value systems. They will read and respond at at an emotion heavy status driven snark level, and will neither understand nor respond to the ideas.

But being an INTP, I respond by writing to the other INTPs, not to the alpha bitches. If my perspective cannot be reduced to two paragraphs and loaded with emotion, I don't try. The process of teaching sign language to chimpanzees is very tedious, and even then some concepts worth expressing can't cross the cultural barriers.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I guess you've never studied pack behavior. Mean Girls and Alpha Bitches are two completely different things.

BTW, Bob, for one who claims to be above snark, you sure do seem to like talking about it over and over.

Also, did you ever hear about the literary concept that it actually takes MORE effort, thought and insight to trim one's ideas into a short piece of writing than keep blathering on in a long one?

The point is that you and Chris aren't better or worse than anyone else here as far as doing good in the world. Based on more than six years of reading and posting at this site, I have a feeling that the vast majority of us here have served others in some capacity or other, and to a fairly large extent.

You guys are good at consciousness raising -- maybe getting people here to see society's issues in a different light -- and that's great. It's when you start denigrating folks here for spending more time than *you*would talking on the internet, and posting longer paragraphs than *you* would write -- that's when people's hackles go up.

Until that changes, I'm afraid there's going to be more head-butting.

Originally Posted by The Rani

I guess you've never studied pack behavior. Mean Girls and Alpha Bitches are two completely different things.

Can you expand on this more -- what Mean Girls and Alpha Bitches are? I mean this in all seriousness, no snark. As the mother of a 13-year-old girl, I need to understand why she will sometimes come home from school in tears.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Are you self-identifying as a terrorist?

Being an alpha-bitch is a great thing. Haven't you ever studied pack behavior?

Negative. I'm an INTP, and we detest pretension. As a dog myself, and dogface, I understand pack behavior all too well.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Nah, people's hackles go up for lots of reasons besides that. I wasn't even involved in KIA's discussion with Pinky, and Chris hasn't even posted here in weeks, yet Ol Pink STILL felt a need to write a post about taking us down like the Twin Towers. Bizarre.

You'll take yourselves out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

Originally Posted by The Rani

Sure.

High school girls by definition can't be alpha bitches, any more than a female puppy can be one. It's like a heirarchy of dominant vs. subordinate behavior, and puppies/kids are always on the bottom. However, puppies/kids themselves tend to have dominant vs. submissive personalities, and you can tell pretty early on which ones are which. Or rather, which ones are going to grow into which. It's just a rough analogy when using the dog terms and trying to apply them to humans, because human personalities are much more complex than canine ones, but it's the same idea.

Mean Girls is an entirely different thing. My personal opinion is that this phenomenon arose as a function of large schools, where kids are left together in artificial settings. They are together for long periods of time, with little to no adult supervision. So when an unruly puppy gets too aggressive with a littermate, there is no alpha adult around to stop it. This happens with boys, too, only it's called bullying. The unruly puppy can be an alpha type or not, but the behavior comes from different sources in different cases. Alpha types operate from a position of strength, while challengers are more insecure.

Now, how to use this info to help your daughter? I really have no idea, and I wouldn't assume to know what she's going through when I've never even met her. But anyway, I hope that answers your question.

Really helpful and sympathetic. Lucy Van Pelt at her finest. Five cents, please.

Rani, I think you come home everyday from a job that has the old soldiers lament: "We, the unwilling and unlucky, led by the incompetent, ignorant and arrogant, are daily accomplishing the impossble for the ungrateful".

I'm filling 2.78 jobs now. I feel your pain. I was defending the US before Chris rolled his first platonic solid (not counting baby blocks).

And we are the pack that the alpha-bitch can vent her spleen on. Forgive me if *you* rate little sympathy.

Originally Posted by Pink Splice

Correct. They are the cool kids who need a comeuppance. Rani's not shy about this; she self-identifies as "alpha-bitch".

This translates as "primary target". Al-Q did not go for the Gateway Arch or Busch Stadium on 11 SEP01, did they?

So, in your opinion, what did the so-called cool kids do that required the need for some comeuppance?

I agree, Al-Q didn't go for targets like you mentioned. Instead, Al-Q chose "primary targets" that were larger and broader in scope with a greater potential for cataclysmic and socially residual type effects.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Nah, people's hackles go up for lots of reasons besides that.

For sure. I could give you a very long list if I had the slightest idea that you'd be interested in hearing it.

I wasn't even involved in KIA's discussion with Pinky, and Chris hasn't even posted here in weeks, yet Ol Pink STILL felt a need to write a post about taking us down like the Twin Towers. Bizarre.

My issues with Chris go back a very long way. I have a feeling it will crop up again if/when he comes back.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

So, in your opinion, what did the so-called cool kids do that required the need for some comeuppance?

I agree, Al-Q didn't go for targets like you mentioned. Instead, Al-Q chose "primary targets" that were larger and broader in scope with a greater potential for cataclysmic and socially residual type effects.

It's a straight-up personality conflict, KIA. Not your fault.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Hey man, what the hell are you implying here? That I'm not important? Dude, let me tell you something, I'm the most important creature in The Universe. When I go down, society will crumble. So you better kneel down before me, or else. Oh yeah, and Chris too.

Alpha-bitch, I'm gonna warn you, you're getting my male hormones a pumping and the blood pumping to a lower extremity as well. Boy, if I were single, I'd kneel down before thee, using my teeth, I'd gracefully remove your pan... Ah, oh, oh, I forgot there are way to many INTPs in the forum to talk like this, so, never mind.

Originally Posted by K-I-A 67

Ah, oh, oh, I forgot there are way to many INTPs in the forum to talk like this, so, never mind.

ow, my friggin' mind's eye...

Originally Posted by The Rani

Yeah, but wasn't Rags involved in that six-Czech pile-on thingy a ways back? He might have a computer program for kinky sex positions filed away somewhere. I mean, you'd have to plan that one carefully, or risk some serious internal organ damage.

Yeah, as I recall, Rags was involved in that six-Czech pile-on thingy. However, as far as myself is concerned, I wasn't involved in that six-Czech pile-on thingy. You must've forgot, I'm a f-n Bohemian not a Czech. Bwa-Hahaha!