I am not a fan of Chavez, but Venezuela was failing long before Chavez came to power. It is actually not failing any worse today. Moreover, the disillisioned ones, the wealthy and the upper middle class, are the scumbags who were the primary cause of crushing poverty in Venezuela for decades. They mostly just miss their former privilege.

Your last sentence tells us everything we need to know about you.

After the revolution, things did get a bit out of control in Cuba and maybe 2000 people - very few of them innocent - were killed. This is terrible, yes, but nothing compared to Chile, Brazil, Argentina, El Salvador, Nicaragua under Somoza, Zaire/Congo (our bud, Mbutu, murdered 2 million people with our support), Iran under the Shah and on and on and on. Also, in the 10 years prior to the revolution in Cuba, the Bautista dictatorship killed far more people - most of whom were innocent - than have been killed in 50 years of Castro rule.

Also, Chavez was elected democratically and hasn't killed any civilians.

You are a typical right wing whack job. Know nothing, don't want to learn anything but won't STFU.

This is not a strong post. It isn't just the 4 dams on the Snake, the entire Columbia River basin has been dammed. Every stream, river, everything. What we need and can have is some mix of free flowing streams and dams. Moreover, the opposition to removing the Smnake River dams has nothing to do with hydropower. It is farmers and ranchers who want to keep their highly subsidized barge transportation.

Apparently, you don't know very much about the world. By most definitions, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Israel and many others are democratic socialist countries, and every one of them has huge amounts of private property. In fact, I own property in France, and the government hasn't tried to take it away.

Also, as evil as Stalin was, he controlled 1/2 of Poland only from September, 1939 until June, 1941. He did not kill hundreds of thousands of Poles. Oh, he certainly killed a bunch, but exaggeration is no different than a lie. He also provided no goods to Nazi Germany, because the CCCP had no goods.

I live in France part of the year, and the Muslim population of France is 7-8% not 20%. Roughly 5 million out of 60 million

My wife loved shoes. She bought shoes and then figured out what clothes to buy to go with the shoes. She was 5'11", but she wore 3 1/2-4" heels regularly. She did it for herself not for me. She preferred Christian Louboutin, but she also had Jimmy Choo, Prada, etc., including Jimmy Choo flats.

but I do have a separate grill for my vegan and vegetarian friends. There are a lot of vegetarians and vegans in Portland, and it seems like the hospitable thing to do.

Nice handle, although I prefer a Sig. Must be the liberal elitist in me.

Read your first post. You said 'all'. Lie. Pure and simple. All I did was point that out. I didn't claim or dispute any data except your 100% lie.

It is probably true that most animals are slaughtered in the ways you describe but by no means all. You saying it doesn't make it true, and you just show your lack of knowledge when you say. I eat meat. The beef I buy is all grass and forage fed, is slaughtered at 4 years instead of 18 months, gets no grain, gets no drugs and and is killed by lethal injection. I pay a significant premium for this beef, but I have visited the ranch and have seen the entire operation including the killing. Same with pork and chicken. You really don't know what you are talking about.

While I have, over time, come to admire and respect your posts, your quite snarky view of non-vegetarians is offputting. You demonstrate all the signs of 'true believer' with both the positive and negative aspects of such a view. Humans are omnivores. You may choose to be an herbivore, but it is not intrinsically superior or more noble than other choices.

Also, you seem to believe that all animal products are produced in horrible factory farms. While much of it is, not all of it is. I eat meat only from farms and ranches that are all organic, do not use grain for feed and where I can visit and see the entire operation including the slaughtering. These places are not factory farms.

Finally, being a vegetarian is almost impossible if one is deathly allergic to beans as I am. 20 years ago, at the urging of my wife, I became a vegetarian. All I got was sick - to the point where my doctor, a vegan, ordered me to begin eating modest amounts of meat again. I got healthy again and remain so today.

You might want to revisit your approach.

Hendrix, yes, Stevie Wonder, yes, Jeff Beck not so much. Nothing much after Yardbirds and the Jeff Beck album with Rod Stewart as vocalist. As far as impact goes, Jimmy Paige was far more influential. Elvin Bishop and Mike Bloomfield were easily as good and quite a number of blues guys - e.g. Buddy Guy - were far better.

I am an unabshed leftie who supports comprehensive single-payer, but no. Infertility sucks if one wants children, but it is a status not a disease. It is not life threatening and, in fact, causes no debilitation whatsoever. While I have sympathy, I will not subsidize 'treatment' of something that is not a disease. Sorry

I don't even believe in moral absolutes but I was somehow able to be faithful to my wife for more than 30 years.