AMEN!

More grandstanding.

As far as I'm concerned McCain's Senate career has long ago cancelled-out his service as a POW and general screw-up as a pilot. My father was a POW in WWII and he didn't run for office or expect everyone to bow down to his heroism for having been captured along with tens of thousands of other unfortunate soldiers and civilians. So I question at this point his "Great American" status as well. Really, I do. He's a passable American. He's a legal American citizen. That, until his immigration bill goes through is still worth something, and he should be grateful for it.

I always thought, I'd be a mom
Sometimes I wish for a mistake
The longer that I wait, the more selfish that I get
You seem like you'd be a good dad

Now all those simple things are simply too complicated for my life
In all I get so faithful to my freedom
A selfish kind of life
When all I ever wanted was the simple things
A simple kind of life

For a long time I was in love
Not only in love, I was obsessed
With a friendship that no one else could touch
It didn't work out, I'm covered in shells

And all I wanted was the simple things
A simple kind of life
And all I needed was a simple man
So I could be the wife

I'm so ashamed, I've been so mean
I don't know how it got to this point
Oh, I always was the one with all love
You came along, I'm hunting you down

Like a sick domestic abuser
Looking for a fight
And all I wanted was the simple things
A simple kind of life

If we met tomorrow for the very first time
Would it start all over again? Would I try to make you mine?

Duane, a little knowledge (about music) is a dangerous thing. You should quit with the analysis. I play guitar and violin and have studied music. I produce music and have played and conversed with musicians much better than I, and some of your statements demonstrate ignorance. 

Like ABBA, that's okay. Explaining they they are more melodic than some other pop and rock groups may be so. But melody is only one element in music, and if you gravitate toward melody that's fine. I like it too, but that doesn't make your taste better.

The piano is not the most versatile instrument. It is a stretch to claim that one instrument is or isn't but the violin can do just about anything - Every instrument has an inherant "flaw" - to use your terminology. 

Any player of any instrument can play different time signatures. 

Songs are usually in one key, so you can plan your instumentation around that key, or, to optimize tone, you can actually use alternate tunings of string instruments for some keys.

Also here is much to apprieciate in simplicity. Most good art is simple.

The Obama administration has enjoyed such freedom to overreach that they have become careless and overconfident. At some point the press has to report, and some things can't be spun. The IRS scandal is a good example, Benghazi, where diplomats were killed and lots of shenanigans and false narratives is another. And because they too were targeted by this obsessively political regime, they become more natural adversaries. The press hates to be lied to, even by their friends.

When the TSA starts screening out registered Democrats for extra searches at airports, then we will have some kind of equivalent in profiling.

This kind of article shows how utterly blinded by partisanship these leftists are. They have no ability to make simple distinctions and conflate different circumstances to their own ends. If the writer is aware, then he/she is deliberately misleading stupid people (you can't mislead smart people like this).

These people are obsessed with finding 'irony' and hypocrisy, and if they have to change reality to make it into some kind of irony, they will do so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5NrqqK60OI

That's a fun one.

Abba is an easy target to mock, but I'm refraining because their music is basically good. That it is popular means something too, but not that much.

Abba is NOT rock music. It's pop. There are a lot of great rock singers, I don't know how Duane judges singers, but Freddy Mercury, Robert Plant, Paul McCartney, Steve Perry, Steven Tyler, Jon Anderson and many more.....

As to the number of notes/chords, this is no criteria for judging music. If so, then jazz would be considered the best music by far, while other genres, including a lot of classical, would be considered inferior. That's like judging poetry by the number of verbs. 

And the songs chosen for comparison? Puleeze. 

Deeply Meaningful Comments About Poverty And mother Gaia

You must have a really pathetic rock catalogue if that's how you characterize the genre.

If John McCain won in 2008, we would have *Immigration Reform* by now. Say goodbye to the Republican Party and America as we know it because they would never win another election and the USA would be faster becoming a third world left-wing nation.

I wonder what would have happened had Kerry won in 2004? Perhaps we would never have gotten Obama. We might well have a libertarian/conservative or a principled Republican President by now. 

Only looking at the next election, and expecting all the conservatives (and libertarians) to hold their noses and pull for the establishment guy once again because of the big boogeyman - the boogeyman that the tepid moderates will not challenge directly in public (McCain and Romney) and is some kind of "nice guy who means well", doesn't cut it.

The problem is that the GOP employs the lesser-of-evils strategy to get the most moderate GOP establishment-friendly candidate, and some people are tired of rewarding them for taking this approach. It's a game theory consequence.

I recognize there are crazies and morons of all stripes, but those of us who think the problem lies with the GOP insider/consultant/money class can't vote for their feeble clones year after year because of the big bad wolf. In fact, this dynamic helps the left become iteratively more radical.

Republicans move leftward, vainly trying to capture the murky "middle" and the Dems move further leftward so as to make the middle appear between them and the Republicans. Now the middle has moved leftward. Reset the battlefield for the next election. This alone causes more problems than the results of any single election. 

If the GOP candidate wins, what is won, and for how long? Will progress be made, or will we just drift toward the waterfall instead of paddling? Without firmly addressing the underlying issues, won't a GOP POTUS simply postpone the reckoning while paving the way for a new, more left-wing Democrat next time?

Anything by The Steve Miller Band.

I see you also have a facebook account. Whenever threatened thusly, I  won't  on that principle alone. These people are lucky I don't defriend immediately. But I know you kid.

Jay Carney breaks easiest. Vallerie Jarret knows the most. 

The Roman Catholic Church, and other churches and charitable organizations are better distributors of charity and ministers to the impovershed than any Fedearal or even State Government. This is ALSO a free-market belief. A free market in charity is better than a coercive centrally-planned political beauracracy. That isn't charity anyway - it can't be. 

But donations are going down because the state is taking more and more, leaving individuals with less to contribute to charity. The shift hurts poor people because private charities are more efficient and better at assesing actual needs.

To advocate for more state power reduces the role of the Church which is ultimately self-defeating. The Pope is advancing the idea that States can exercise better control over economies and thus reduce poverty and iniquity. I always thought that the Church can't affect these things and exists outside as a neutral charitable force. We can't control, but we can help - kind of thing. This is what I used to think was the role  and why I thought it was worthwhile. The Pope is overreaching and hurting his cause.

The difference here is that everyone who isn't a extreme hard-core libertarian will agree that we need a government as a referee and certain things are better done with government (common defense, roads, infrastructure, courts, etc). Every libertarian - even the most radical, believe in fairness in markets (which usually favors open markets) and recognize that some people are going to fall through the cracks. Libertarians such as myself belive that groups of private individuals are best for distributing charity. We know that free markets are the better choice considering the alternatives. This is not idolatry.

However, believing one man, appointed for life, attended by servants, surrounded by gold and jewels, considered infallible on spiritual matters, whose pronouncements are followed without (much) question by hundreds of millions, might actually much closer to the definition of "idol" than someone prefering one system (free market capitalism) over another (socialism).

This is insulting. But is super easy to "hit a nerve" with Catholics, lemme tell ya. We here defending the idea that market forces are better, far better, than state control are being careful not to offend the thin skinned defensive Catholics here in making our arguments. So I'll feel free to take the gloves off, although I'm not going to trade insult for insult, at least not yet. 

It is sad that believers see everyone else as believers, and idolaters believe other must have some idol they too worship. Why, doesn't everyone?