“The candidates and platform are hard to defend.”

From “I, Claudius”: “Let all the poisons that lurk in the mud hatch out.”

“...but the larger fault lies with the progressive audience. Although large in number, we don’t tune in, we don’t provide the kind of ratings that create #1 stations.”

Of course, I wasn’t trying to denigrate veterans. However, the violence of war can have an affect on people’s post-war behavior. Also, a lot of black market activity occurred during the war—some people may have wanted to continue those operations back at home...

Can you look at ‘mob crime’ in the same way as non-mob crime? Mob crime is a family business, so it would be completely unaffected by a media message (the family message is much stronger). If it is mob crime that has declined the most in recent years, that could skew the results. In contrast, the case of people who…

Interesting. Perhaps that was a consequence of WWII? However, by the end of the 50's the HPC was starting to weaken...

Looking forward to the series...

Planet Earth: It’s Not What It Used To Be

The problem is that he *can* project a ‘moderate’ image—at least relative to the others. And on some points he may well be more reasonable than full-blown ideologues like Cruz. However, on other points he is just as bad as the rest, but because avoids talking about those issues and he acts like a calm person people…

Let’s not forget that some conservatives (covertly) agree with Todd Akin regarding the rape exception [from Wikipedia]: “Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand…

I believe the disconnect here is that most men cannot even *conceive* of being naked in bed with a woman and deciding they don’t want to have sex (assuming the woman is not their wife of 20 years). Thus, they cannot accept that a woman could sincerely say “No” in that situation. Add that disbelief to their high degree…

Try not to take it too seriously. Internet ‘society’ is unique in it’s anonymity: uninformed children have the same ‘voice’ as adults, people say things to provoke others with no risk of repercussions, and innermost thoughts can be expressed which would remain buried in person. In short, the Internet is less civilized…

Trump’s clothing line is made outside the U.S. — some of it is made in Mexico and some of it is made in China...

Does the goat play the violin?

We have to distinguish between a backdoor that requires possession of the phone, and a backdoor that could be employed over a network. Clearly, the latter is a much greater threat, although I don’t believe that most people have data on their phone that would be useful to a hacker or a foreign government...

Fair enough—each of us are entitled to our opinions (also, thanks for your lengthy response). Let’s not forget that Iowa has an open caucus, so those numbers may not be good indicators either. Let’s wait and see in NV and SC. I don’t believe Cruz has any chance in a general election—no one likes him except for…

You would think the question would be raised. Then again, Romney was in the business of buying companies, declaring bankruptcy to eliminate pension responsibilities, shipping the remaining jobs overseas, and reaping a huge profit by making these companies ‘competitive’ again. Despite this, Republicans voted for him.…

“Turnout was lower in Iowa and New Hampshire than in 2008.”

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition, not even Trump...

It’s not the ‘Mexicans’ or the ‘Chinese’ that are ‘outsmarting’ us—it’s corporations who are benefiting from cheap labor in Mexico and China (many of which are American, including Trump himself)...