what useful purpose do republicans serve?

[minionofmidas]

I dunno. Beats me.

[minionofmidas]

The only issue WalterMitty agrees with Democrats on from what I can tell is gay marriage, and that's only if you accept the position that Democrats are for gay marriage, which they don't.

He's opposed to the death penalty, like all good men.
AH, sorry - you're right. That's not official Democratic party policy.

[minionofmidas]

The DLC folks oughta be shot.

So you support the Death Penalty then?

[minionofmidas]

I think that line refers to the people who's pictures he's got up.
I don't know who the young Mafioso is, but the faintly Lewinskyish woman is Jane Swift, who is a Republican and is from Massachusetts.

[minionofmidas]

That's what Lodge looked like? He looks...younger than I imagined him. Or maybe the photo was taken early in his career.

[minionofmidas]

That's what Lodge looked like? He looks...younger than I imagined him.

This is the Henry Cabot Lodge you were probably thinking about:

No, I had been thinking of the right descendant of John Cabot...but I don't think I'd ever seen a picture. Guess I just had a mental picture in my mind.

[minionofmidas]

School vouchers are a terrible idea. Bcause the payer is not the consumers but the state, the schools can still have high prices, since the state would only have to raise taxes to pay. If there was a true free market, schools would have to reduce prices in order to                                          increase their market share. Voucherswould basically have teh same effect in schools costs as Medicare has in health care costs, ie, driving up the prices, and liberlas would use it as a way to tell people the market doesn't work. I hate things which use freedom rethoric to increase state controll.

Some interesting thoughts here...what you say about parallels Medicare and vouchers sounds very true.
But have you ever been to a school that had to compete in a market, as I have?
Or at least read an account of how European schools were when they still had to?
Because, believe you me, you wouldn't want it anymore.
Of course, the real reasons people send their children to private school (in the West) are much more to do with preserving class barriers than with the, perceived and/or actual, failings of state schools. Which means vouchers, when used on a large scale, would probably lead to the creation of private schools that didn't accept vouchers.

[minionofmidas]

Over here Public Schools (as Private Schools are amusingly and confusingly called. What's called a public school in the U.S are called State schools over here) exist to re-inforce class barriers and not a lot else...

It's a little more complicated here in Germany...there are some private schools of that type here but they're very much out of the realm of most people's experience.
Then there's reform schools, Waldorf etc.
And then there's private schools with a certain snob appeal, but with some new ideas to cover their tracks nonetheless, such as Frankfurt's Anna-Schmidt-Schule with its strong emphasis on arts...
And then there's the Danish minority schools in Schleswig-Holstein, which are technically private...

[minionofmidas]

I strongly believe that creationism and intelligent design should at least be given a place at the table when it comes to public education.

It is not the responsibility of educators to teach the truth, but rather to teach the students how to find the truth for themselves.

From a practical standpoint, I would almost prefer if the origination of life were left out of school altogether.  The last thing that we need to go teaching adolescents is that they are descendants of apes

Indeed. Next thing they'll start teaching tigers that they're descendants of cats. Men ARE apes. Get that.
And I don't know what you're talking about: Teaching them. I don't know about America, but over here I'd heard that snippet (in the "descendant" form) long before it was mentioned in school, and long before I was an adolescent. And so has everybody else. It's not as if it was a shocking revelation anymore.

[minionofmidas]

Indeed. Next thing they'll start teaching tigers that they're descendants of cats. Men ARE apes. Get that.

Not technically... Apes and Humans are very closely related and are desended from the same ancestors (and genetically are extremely similer. Mind you, so are cabbages...)

Exactly where we broke off leads to more rows than any other branch of science... ironically we actually know more about the evolutionary patterns of (say) a Gorilla than ourselves.

We are closer, genetically, to Chimpanzees than (we+chimpanzees+bonobos) are to Gorillas.

[minionofmidas]

Also true. Interestingly the genetic difference between Homo Sapians (us) and Homo Erectus is tiny, but the difference in bone structure etc. ia quite large.

The way I understand it, the genetic difference between us and A LOT of other mammals is quite small - significant, but small.

Depends how you define "small", obviously. IIRC over 80% of gene structure is identical across life forms in general - that's just what it takes to make life.
"Small" difference can then only be defined in relation to the difference to something else. For example, we're genetically more different from bats than from gorillas, but we're also closer, genetically, to bats than to, say, horses, let alone insects or plants.

[minionofmidas]

Also true. Interestingly the genetic difference between Homo Sapians (us) and Homo Erectus is tiny, but the difference in bone structure etc. ia quite large.

The way I understand it, the genetic difference between us and A LOT of other mammals is quite small - significant, but small.

Yep. We share lots of genes with cabbages as well.

Sauerkraut is made from cabbage, after all.