The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => Discussion => Topic started by: Dunefar on December 31, 2009, 11:30:35 AM
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Post here for all your political posting needs! Try and not kill each other, please.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/01/01/pakistan.suicide.bomb/index.html
Pakistan continues to be a messy shithole.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05bar.html?hp
Huhm.
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“Law students who take first-year criminal law from 2010 on,” he said, “will learn that this same group of smart lawyers and judges — the ones whose work they read every day — has said that the death penalty in the United States is a moral and practical failure.”
That's me next semester, so should be interesting. But really, even though the ALI is a huge deal, that the death penalty in the US is a practical failure, and a moral failure at the very least because of some of those practical failures, is not exactly news.
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Do you think this will have any immediate impact? This feels more like a mid-long range effect but nothing that's going to change the landscape in five years.
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The latter. The ALI is a very important institute in America, and they occasionally put out restatements of law, which are codifications of judge-made rules. The restatements ostensibly state rules that already exist in common law and promote clarity and uniformity of law by providing a source that says, essentially, where American law stands on an issue. These restatements aren't binding by themselves, but they're frequently adopted as law. There is rarely a perfect consensus of where American case law stands on an issue. Where the ALI says American law stands is very persuasive to the legal community. But they only publish restatements at most once every 30 years or so. They started in the 20s, and we're still on the 2nd restatement of contracts and the 3rd of torts (which is hot off the presses).
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Also in the news, since I recall this being debated here before: Gay marriage in New Jersey goes down in flames (http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN0721326820100107?type=marketsNews), only getting 14/40 votes in the Senate. This is not too long after gay marriage failed by a lot more than expected in the NY State Senate, too. WTF? How hard can it be to go around and ask everyone how they'd vote BEFORE putting the measure up? The NJ measure was kind of shady anyway - pass the bill in the lame duck session before Governor-elect Christie could take office - so now the Dems eat the "tried to pull a parliamentary fast one" penalty AND, worse, they failed at it. A 22-18 defeat wouldn't be so bad, but 26-14 is fairly lopsided.
Well, don't expect gay marriage in NJ for at least 5 years. On the bright side this is not a huge practical difference, as my understanding is that NJ civil unions are pretty enlightened.
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How hard can it be to go around and ask everyone how they'd vote BEFORE putting the measure up?
The short answer is, senators won't tell you, or they will lie, because of politics. Two things went on in NY, and presumably NJ is about the same, neither of which you will like. First of all, there are a bunch of senators who are willing to vote for it BUT will only vote for it if you already have enough votes for it; they see it as politically damaging, and although they want it to pass, they're not willing to go out on a limb unless they have safety in numbers. Second, some Republicans who said they were going to vote for it lied then voted against it, to prevent NY democrats from having a legislative victory. Yes, those people are scumbag shitheads. Welcome to politics.
EDIT: I feel the need to point out that the NY senate is considered by many to be one of the most corrupt legislatures in the country (nothing wrong with the house, though, and they passed gay marriage a number of times by a healthy margin). I don't think we need to rehash the events of last year to explain why. I assume what happened in NJ is about the same.
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Actually I don't blame the Republicans in NY at all. They said they'd vote *if* the Democrats mustered sufficient votes that the legislation would pass thanks to the added Republican votes. The Democrats did an awful job of mustering their own votes, so the Republicans who were on the fence all decided to defend against possible R primary pressure since it's not like their vote "mattered" anyway. Now, maybe some were in fact never really going to vote that way, but in the NY case the Democrats delivered even less than what they claimed to be the worst case scenario, and not even close to enough Dems to pass the bill with the ~3-4 wavering Republicans. So yeah, I'd rather the wavering Republicans not get primaried out if in fact they're a reliable vote for actually passing the bill should it come to that.
And yes, the NY legislature - all of it - is incredibly dysfunctional and corrupt. Even worse the NY legislature usurped a lot of power from NYC back in the late 70s when the city government was both awful and in bad shape... and never gave it back. This is why, say, Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan failed - for no good reason it required the approval of the NY Legislature as well rather than it merely being a city matter. (The at-the-time Republicans in the Senate passed it, too! It was my own Rep, Speaker Sheldon Silver who basically has all the power of the House, that killed that one because he wasn't paid off enough.)
The NJ case I don't know what the heck happened, but after the debacle in NY you'd think that the leadership would have made darn certain they had their ducks in a row before proceeding to the floor. The Dems have a 23-17 majority there so uh what.
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A friend of mine who works with NY Dem assemblymen told me explicitly that certain Republican representatives outright lied about their votes. Take that as you will.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/arts/design/17abroad.html?pagewanted=1
A nice piece on the artist behind the Switzerland anti-minaret poster. Includes a little perspective on why poster propaganda is effective in Europe. Good read if you're interested in the Switzerland thing in particular or propaganda in general.
(Pretty good example of how to express utter contempt for your subject in what is not ostensibly an opinion piece, too.)
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http://nymag.com/news/politics/63045/
Expose on the fall of the Edwards campaign, aka "thank you National Enquirer for helping make sure Edwards was defeated in the primary and didn't hand the Republicans an easy piñata in the general." Since frankly this entire affair was messed up enough to definitely disqualify Edwards from positions of trust. Classic King Lear case of *both* John & Elizabeth Edwards distrusting the loyal advisers who told them the truth while trusting the wrong people (like Hunter). And oddly enough treating loyal staff like trash can make them disloyal staff after all, a nice self-fulfilling prophecy.
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http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2010/01/dems_cast_blame_at_each_other_over_senate_campaign.php
Coakley loses the special election in Mass, the long knives come out.
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Martha Choakley indeed. WTF, from media reports she didn't run that bad of a *primary* campaign. But yeah rather than running a straight-up policy blitz in a state where the Democrat will win her campaign is attacking Brown for being a hunk who got work posing nude at 22. Riiiight. Allegedly Coakley was too precious to do direct campaigning as well and just shook hands with bigwigs rather than go out to rallies. Yeah, it's too bad if the Republicans keep playing obstructionist, but I can't feel too sorry about this. The Gerard Amirault case ( http://www.theweek.com/bullpen/column/101834/Daycare_sex_abuse_case_haunts_Massachusetts_Senate_race has one summary) doesn't help her case for being a person of strong moral character anyway, she took the wimpy tough-on-crime, I might have a political future way out rather than show any courage.
I wish Brown good luck in trying to hold the seat while keeping both national Republicans and Massachusetts Republicans happy, though. Should be an exciting balancing act.
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I'm not that worried about healthcare. If Democrats don't reform it, Republicans will need to; the current system is just that retarded causing money hemoraging in places it clearly doesn't need to hemorage.
I'm really worried about Employment Nondiscrimination, however. It looks like it's going to remain perfectly legal and accepted to fire someone for being gay (in 29 states) or trans (in 38 states).
What I'm also troubled by right now is American politics. Republicans published a completely public memo saying they were going to waste as much time as possible in the senate to keep things from getting done. The political theory being that if the Democrats failed to accomplish much, they would lose popularity. I'm not bothered that Republicans took this tactic, but I AM bothered that it worked--the political support for the democrats DID erode, and Republicans are expected to gain a lot of seats in 2010. This is really troubling--if the best way to get elected is to never cooperate and deliberately waste as much time as possible, politicians are going to do that. It's in their own self interest. Which means we're encouraging politicians to do nothing and waste time.
Fuck the American Senate. It needs to be abolished.
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The entire handling of Ted Kennedy's illness was a clusterfuck from day one (he's terminally ill and can no longer even attend sessions to vote...yeah, who needs to line up a successor? That's silly.). The Democrats reaped what they sowed on this one, and hopefully it ends with Harry Reid flipping burgers in Reno.
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If Democrats don't reform it, Republicans will need to; the current system is just that retarded causing money hemoraging in places it clearly doesn't need to hemorage.
Unlikely, at least not until they can get a majority plus the white house. Any republican bill is likely to be insurance-oriented, and I don't foresee a democratic government passing such.
the political support for the democrats DID erode, and Republicans are expected to gain a lot of seats in 2010.
Well, you have to remember, the republicans have much stronger propaganda machines.
Less cynically, there's also the issue that 2008 was something of a fluke- Democrats improved so much because a lot of young voters, who typically ignore politics entirely, showed up. I doubt they'll show up for much afterwords.
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Less cynically, there's also the issue that 2008 was something of a fluke- Democrats improved so much because a lot of young voters, who typically ignore politics entirely, showed up. I doubt they'll show up for much afterwords.
Err...what? During 2008 what I consistently heard was that the number of registered Republicans was shrinking. Both sides in the election were condemned the Bush presidency, not just democrats. It was a generally low point of Republican popularity, not just among young voters.
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*shrug* I can only speak from my own experience but... generally speaking, once you go over about 30 demographically, even 'swing' voters lean strongly conservative. They'll just vote democrat from time to time out of frustration.
Not scientific or researched. Just based on listening to people around me.
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Pelosi says that she doesn't have the votes to pass the Senate's version of health care. W. T. F.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/21/AR2010012101604.html?hpid=topnews
If they're such a big problem, pass another amendment later. Unfortunately, by (rather reasonably) assuming they had 60 votes, the Dems have made it *very* hard to step back and get, say, Snowe's vote on health care now. And if Brown voted for it he'd immediately be seen as a traitor by the national Republican party. So that leaves "nothing" or "reconciliation." Reconciliation, i.e. making it part of the budget bill and passing it with 50 votes, is incredibly dangerous since A) it looks bad and B) the bill would expire after 5 years, when many of health care reform's benefits are very long-term. It's not good policy to pass this just for a short term and then possibly chaotically revert the system later.
Which leaves the best option as being PASS THE FREAKIN' BILL. It's really flawed and has optimistic projections etc. but it would be political AND policy suicide to do nothing. Not passing the bill would "prove" it was wrong all along and a near missed disaster; only thing to do is pass it and find out.
Also, disagree with metroid that the Republicans are likely to help health care pass. The US government is designed to encourage a certain amount of gridlock and stasis under the theory that only the best legislation gets through. The easiest thing to happen is nothing if nobody can agree. Even if we grant that the Republicans would want to do *something* about health care, brinksmanship on both sides would mean that nothing is likelier to pass than one or the other side's plan.
Also in the bad news for liberals this week: Supreme Court overturns campaign finance restrictions after all, undoing their work from just 2003. Sigh. Anthony Kennedy, philosopher-king of America, strikes again. I'll grant that he's actually *right* by the letter of the Constitution, but... ugh. This whole thing's a mess. Much as I like campaign finance reform, I'd be scared of a constitutional amendment to explicitly allow it under the theory it could be used to make fully state-regulated campaigns, which would also be a bad thing. What we had before was the best compromise, and now it's gone. Siiiiiigh.
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Also in the bad news for liberals this week: Supreme Court overturns campaign finance restrictions after all, undoing their work from just 2003. Sigh. Anthony Kennedy, philosopher-king of America, strikes again. I'll grant that he's actually *right* by the letter of the Constitution, but... ugh. This whole thing's a mess. Much as I like campaign finance reform, I'd be scared of a constitutional amendment to explicitly allow it under the theory it could be used to make fully state-regulated campaigns, which would also be a bad thing. What we had before was the best compromise, and now it's gone. Siiiiiigh.
Oh crap. Quick article link on this one...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/21/supreme-court-rolls-back_n_431227.html
Anyhow, in response...fully state-regulated campaigns aren't that bad--you get X amount of dollars for advertising, and so does your opponent. You can't fund like...the yoga party or whatever, but you base funding on the most popular two or three parties in the region. It now needs to come out of taxation, but if every company feels like it has to buy itself protection that's essentially a corporate tax as well.
My concern is more that we're not going to get to the point of constitutional amendment. Republicans are already getting funding from corporations that serve to gain the most (like tobacco, which stands to gain a crapload if regulations are lifted) and as seen in the article, Republicans are already generally supportive of the supreme court judgment. It seems likely that they'll block a constitutional amendment (since if they "do the right thing" and the old system stays, then they stand to lose most of their campaign contributions). So...this decision doesn't seem likely to go down any time soon. Problem is...two or three elections from now, the house/senate may have a lot of politicians in office because of the new system, which would make it a lot harder to overturn.
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Beyond reinforcement of the canard that corporations are people for purposes of the first amendment (born, disingenuously it seems to me, out of the other, completely reasonable ways the law treats corporations as people, for example for determining jurisdiction) this is something to keep an eye on:
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2010/01/initial-take-on-citizens-united.html
In my view, the real significance of the case lies in what the Court said Congress can do going forward. The Court severely limited both the arguments and the types of evidence Congress can invoke when it regulates in the future. In doing so, it overruled other precedent without saying so....The real hope for future campaign-finance reform turned...on what constitutes corruption and what evidence Congress can gather to show it exists. The Court has now cut back substantially on both fronts.
mc: elected judges may just as important in the long run in terms of (further) corruption of the political process.
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mc: elected judges may just as important in the long run in terms of (further) corruption of the political process.
Oh right: elected judges. I had momentarily forgotten about that particular broken aspect of American politics. -_-
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Some more thoughts on the SC campaign finance case
http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=01&year=2010&base_name=some_initial_thoughts_on_citiz
The central line of argument in Justice Kennedy's majority opinion -- that the First Amendment does not permit distinctions based on the identity of the speaker -- is superficially attractive. The problem is, there's no reason to believe that any of the justices believe it. In addition to the examples in Justice Stevens' superb dissent, consider Morse v. Frederick, a decision denying a free speech claim which all 5 of the justices in today's majority also joined. Obviously. Nobody would dispute that an ordinary citizen who unfurled a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner could be sanctioned by the state; the punishment was upheld solely based on Frederick's identity as a student, which meant that his free speech rights had to be balanced against a school's interest in preventing drug use (and could be denied even if there was no plausible argument that his speech actually would promote drug use). If this kind of balancing test is permissible, surely Congress should be permitted to place some weight on the importance of fair elections when considering the First Amendment rights of for-profit corporations.
There's that.
More important to me, as I already mentioned, is the "corporate personhood" debate. There is longstanding, though controversial, precedent corporations are persons for purposes of the 14th amendment. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Clara_County_v._Southern_Pacific_Railroad) In federal law (the law congress writes) "person" means human being or corporation unless otherwise stated. But neither of those means that when the first amendment as written was meant to apply to corporations. It seems extremely unlikely to me that that was the case.
http://www.scotusblog.com/2010/01/analysis-the-personhood-of-corporations/
EDIT:
http://volokh.com/2010/01/21/people-organized-as-corporations-are-people-too/
For a dumb argument why the liberal side of the court is making an opinion inconsistent with their 1st amendment track record, read this.
Basically:
1st amendment freedom of the press protections apply to corporations in the news business exactly the same as if they were individuals in the news business. If corporations get the same rights as people for freedom of the press, it would be inconsistent not to grant corporations those same rights for all first amendment issues. (Man, I summarized this so clearly it sounds like it makes sense. Don't worry, though. It doesn't.)
As I see it, media corporations are treated as people because the rights of the people making up that corporation to disseminate news will be abridged if they don't. While people are part of a media corporation, if that corporations' press freedoms are limited, the peoples' are limited as well. The rights to political speech of the individuals making up a corporation, on the other hand, are not hurt at all, as far as I know. Nothing prevents them from donating to political causes as individuals in exactly the same way they would be able to otherwise.
EDIT2: Goddammit supreme court, stop making stupid decisions so I can stop staying up too late writing about them.
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So the corporations are being counted more and more as people?
I'll consider this fair when a corporation can be tried and executed for treason for its business dealings.
(In a far more serious vein, this is headdesk worthy and I'm just gonna keep looking for places to move outside the US. You guys have fun with this.)
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Taishyr, they certainly can be. Plenty, plenty of corporations have been put out of business by the government either directly or indirectly.
Anyway I don't have a problem with corporate personhood. A corporation is a lot of people acting together, just like the Sierra Club or a union, so sure. That said, *individual* rights can be curtailed in the context of ensuring halfway sane elections anyway, so obviously "corporate speech" can be too. I'm not even sure an anti-corporate personhood amendment would even re-allow campaign finance for sure; fine, corporations aren't people and don't have First Amendment rights, but they could still do something like put a lobbyist on payroll, give them a gigantic amount of money, and then let the *lobbyist* go to court to protest his own free speech. The splitting of hairs here just doesn't seem worth it. Best to, if an amendment is proposed, be directly about allowing a certain amount of campaign finance regulation.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/us/politics/18bush.html
The first real public appearance of W since retiring from the spotlight.
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Anyway I don't have a problem with corporate personhood. A corporation is a lot of people acting together, just like the Sierra Club or a union, so sure.
No, actually, it's not. For the most part, companies are not Co-ops. I know very few people in my company who feel my CEO is a shining light of morality. Nobody seems to think he cares about the art of what we make. I've even heard rumors that he's a scientologist, but that seems a bit far out there.
The voice of a corporation is not the voice of everyone in the company. When my CEO says "spiderman games have sucked in the past 5 years", he does not speak for me.
I'm happy to work for him, because he's good at making money, which means I have a stable job, but I don't want him taking over the government.
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Ah, but he doesn't have to speak for the people employed by the company. He has to speak for the owners. Who, of course, have no real interest in the overall state of the company or its industry, so long as it's making them money right now. Afterall, if things look bad in 4 or 5 years, they can sell to some other sucker well before then.
Much as it's needed, I really doubt anything to curtail corporate influence in government is in the cards... largely because they have as much as they need right now.
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The only positive is that I think corporations to a large degree probably could have gotten around that barrier anyways.
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The only positive is that I think corporations to a large degree probably could have gotten around that barrier anyways.
Not...really. I mean, one of the things pointed out is that Exxon Mobil, if it had spent 2% of its profits, would completely outspend both the Obama campaign and the McCain campaign. If corporations could get around that barrier, I'd expect a whole lot more campaign spending than that. The laws were fairly effective in this case, and if, say, Exxon Mobil had tried to sneak a large sum in, such a large sum would not go unnoticed, and would therefore be caught (causing scandals for the politicians involved).
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Oh, I meant pay executives extra and strongly encourage them to donate a large amount of that extra to politicians. Not completely effective thanks to taxes, but it was still there. Still hate this ruling though.
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/01/report-acorn-foe-arrested-by-f.html?hpid=topnews
rot in jail, buddy.
it's not mentioned in the article, but lest you feel too bad for this intrepid exposer of The Truth, it's important to note that the ACORN videos he produced had heavily edited audio, and it's far from certain that the responses given were to the questions they purportedly asked.
The guy has released what he claims is the real audio version of his questions to the ACORN folks, but not along with audio of the ACORN reps, because of pending litigation. Somehow I find him less than credible.
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In the New Orleans incident, Flanagan and Basel were each dressed in blue denim pants, blue work shirts, light green fluorescent vests, tool belts, and construction-style hard hats when they entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building on Poydras Street in New Orleans, according to the FBI affidavit. The pair said they were telephone repairmen
These people really have no respect for anyone's intelligence do they? Seriously? What the fuck guys. That sounds more like a disguise for trying to sneak into a gay bar as a member of the Village People than a Telephone repairman. Sure it matches up with the disguise from Wayne's World (??!?!?! What kind of source is that??) where he is working as a linesman but even if that was not stupid, a linesman doesn't go on to your premises to fix your fucking handset, that is a completely different skillset you need to lay some damned cable.
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These people really have no respect for anyone's intelligence do they?
Why would they? they got congress to pass a bill injuring ACORN based on their probably-fabricated audio.
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They didn't have that to back them up on the first one though which was equally retarded.
Edit - And trickign congress is one thing. Tricking the people that work in the buildings is something else.
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/01/report-acorn-foe-arrested-by-f.html?hpid=topnews
Not get into the bitch-fit of the current ACORN scandal, but y'think you could avoid committing felonies while doing exposes? Nice move, hope you and Dad can afford a good lawyer or ten.
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Fun fun week in politics.
Surprised no one wanted to talk about the State of the Union Address, or perhaps the recent QnA session the president had with the congressional GOP.
My take is, Obama had some really, REALLY ballsy, eye-popping statements in both and seems to be trying to actually use some political muscle, which, before now, he hasn't really attempted. Whether or not he'll actually back any of his rhetoric up remains to be seen, but he had some of the most aggressive, damning comments I've seen in my short life from a sitting president. Comments directed strictly at the GOP, at Senate Democrats, and even the Supreme Court, which is pretty heavy stuff.
As for WHAT was said:
I'm inclined to agree with him on many counts, despite myself. The sitting GOP is basically a bunch of chucklefucks who are exactly the kind of people who won't trade with you in Monopoly and play for like, 5 hours when a game should reasonably be finished in 45 minutes.
Also, a Democrat actually called for an increase in Nuclear Power, and that made my heart flutter with joy.
There have been a lot of damning comments about the president, and really, I'm not sure how much of that is understandably his fault. It seems to me that if he's too left for you, you're crazy like my dad, because he's a pretty absurdly centrist president, and if he's too RIGHT for you, you're ALSO crazy, because really, a huge part of why things don't get done is directly the fault of the Senate being filled with the trolling assclown GOP and the senate Democrats being a disorganized blob of cowardice. (I picture Wade from USAcres if he were a high-ranking political official.)
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It seems to me that if he's too left for you, you're crazy like my dad, because he's a pretty absurdly centrist president, and if he's too RIGHT for you, you're ALSO crazy, because really, a huge part of why things don't get done is directly the fault of the Senate being filled with the trolling assclown GOP and the senate Democrats being a disorganized blob of cowardice. (I picture Wade from USAcres if he were a high-ranking political official.)
So either he is perfect or you are crazy!
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No. Far from it.
But he's either "Not extreme" or you, yourself are an extremist.
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http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_14303473
How to know when tax-cutting has gone too far: government cannot provide BASIC SERVICES and is auctioning off the police chopper and turning off streelights. Ah, Colorado Springs, where the voters have to approve tax increases and then never ever ever give approval.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/report-shelby-blocks-all-obama-nominations-in-the-senate-over-al-earmarks.php?ref=fpblg
Senator Shelby has a temper tantrum/performs a stickup. This should be interesting.
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......................................
What an ASSHOLE.
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This may be the first time I've read TPM and NRonline and gotten the exact same response. I hope he gets strung up for this.
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Well, the minority leader hasn't said anything about it yet. I assume that's because he's trying to walk Shelby back from the cliff, not preparing to double down on his gambit. Interesting times, oh yes.
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Is there some special position he holds that allows him to apparentally unilaterally do this?
On a lighter note: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRY7wBuCcBY&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRY7wBuCcBY&feature=related)
Wait until 2:20 for hilarity! Could have also gone in IotD, because Fiorina was an idiot for actually paying for this!
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Is there some special position he holds that allows him to apparentally unilaterally do this?
Senator. Yes, the senate is that fucked up.
Read on if you really want to know the details.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_hold
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Senator. Yes, the senate is that fucked up.
I've said it before in this topic and I'll say it again: I support abolishing the US Senate.
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And then where would you put them? These people are far too dangerous to be released into the general population!
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We have zoos that could take the poor specimens.
Keep the two sides far apart, though, or there'll likely be shitflinging.
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On a side note, been tracking the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill - something that'd allow the state to execute a person that was LGBT... at least, in the earlier drafts; mixed reporting has come into play now.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ajROCFqLP2Lo <-- Commentary on how the bill's changed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/13/death-penalty-uganda-homosexuals <-- Apparently it's not changed so much, tho?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hyRSa3Mg98X6wRxMVGjCCAFKCNEw <-- Uganda rep responds angrily to Obama/Clinton/legislative condemnation of said bill.
Oh, and what seems to have started the craze, at least in part? Three Americans! Frabjuous day!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html?src=twt&twt=nytimes
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Senator. Yes, the senate is that fucked up.
I've said it before in this topic and I'll say it again: I support abolishing the US Senate.
At least it isn't a secret hold anymore. Granted, now that I understand what this is, it's absolutely ridiculous. I can't imagine how Shelby doesn't expect this to blow up in his face.
Granted, kill the Senate because of that 2 Senator a state bullshit. There are practically more people within spitting range of me than there are in the entire state of Wyoming.
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As the wiki page mentioned, even within the time period before it becomes publicly known who issued the hold, other senators have been more or less ratting them out in the last couple years. Apparently senators' offices don't like outright lying about holds their senators have issued, so it's mostly a process of harassing the offices of the usual suspects to see who doesn't categorically deny it.
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On a side note, been tracking the Ugandan Anti-Homosexuality Bill - something that'd allow the state to execute a person that was LGBT... at least, in the earlier drafts; mixed reporting has come into play now.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=ajROCFqLP2Lo <-- Commentary on how the bill's changed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/13/death-penalty-uganda-homosexuals <-- Apparently it's not changed so much, tho?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hyRSa3Mg98X6wRxMVGjCCAFKCNEw <-- Uganda rep responds angrily to Obama/Clinton/legislative condemnation of said bill.
Oh, and what seems to have started the craze, at least in part? Three Americans! Frabjuous day!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/world/africa/04uganda.html?src=twt&twt=nytimes
People are making a big deal of Uganda? Geez, it's a third-world country. I know people from Eastern European countries who claim that they would be put to death in their home country if their LGBT status was known. Granted, I suspect this might be more of a lynch mob "put to death" and less of an actual legal "put to death", but...still.
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So we should just ignore shit like this because it's in a third world country? That comment doesn't really sit well with me, it's like saying that aprtheid wasn't worth making a big deal out of because blacks were being discriminated against in parts of Europe. The level of intolerance that Ugandan bill has shown deserves the international backlash, and attention, it has received.
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I agree. Saying we shouldn't care because Uganda is small, uninfluential, and remote (which is pretty much what goes into being a '3rd world country') is a lot like saying we don't care what happens to people whose lives aren't connected to ours. I believe in the inherent worth of humanity, so I reject the idea that people are more important just for being close to me.
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So we should just ignore shit like this because it's in a third world country? That comment doesn't really sit well with me, it's like saying that aprtheid wasn't worth making a big deal out of because blacks were being discriminated against in parts of Europe. The level of intolerance that Ugandan bill has shown deserves the international backlash, and attention, it has received.
No, that's true. I guess what I'm saying is more like "I'm constantly shocked and outraged by LGBT issues, but they usually flat out don't make the mainstream press. I'm just surprised that, of all the LGBT stories that are going unreported, stuff from Uganda is one of the few that gets international attention."
I mean, I'm happy that they're reporting LGBT human rights violations. For that matter, I'm happy that they're reporting human rights violations in Africa (another issue that often goes woefully unreported). I'm just expressing my surprise at this particular combination actually getting the spotlight.
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I think the point is that the human rights violation is just that bad, because I agree, most such problems from that part of the world barely attract notice here.
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Speaking of Gays in Affrica, they seem to be on a media roll:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/02/07/malawi.posters/index.html?hpt=T2
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/08/AR2010020802352.html?hpid=topnews
John Murtha dead at 77.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/nyregion/10hiram.html?hp
In a rare win for common decency in one of the country's most backward political bodies, Hiram Monserrate was booted from the NY State Senate. Monserrate slashed his girlfriend in the face last year with a broken bottle. He was also one of two Democrats that switched over to the Republican party last year, causing much embarrassment to pretty much the whole state of NY. A cynic might say that it is not coincidental that someone who pissed off both the Democrats for turning Republican and the Republicans for turning back would get the boot, but I'm ever so sure the NY State Senate is above such pettiness.
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http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2010/01/secretary_of_state_candidate_p.html
Because Michigan hasn't been mistaken for the deep south lately.
Edit: The local paper I have adds him as saying "My personal belief is you are who your DNA says you are, regardless of surgical procedures you may have thereafter". Just in case you thought this was anything other than pandering to the conservative base.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em)
So apparently there's a bloc in the Texas board of education that is pushing to "emphasize America's Christian roots" and claim that the Framers intended for the Bible to be considered America's highest legal document. Hopefully this falls though, but... fuck, I guess I can hope the Union collapses in to a bunch of meta-States or something if they win.
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Goddammit, there just HAD to be a method of Constitutional interpretation that would make me want to read a Scalia opinion tearing it to shreds. Not fair.
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http://www.alternet.org/story/145671/dick_cheney_admits_to_torture_conspiracy
You know, when I read a headline like that I expect that it's one part truth to three parts exaggeration.
I... think the concentrations might be mixed up on this one. A little bit moreso than usual, anyway.
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http://volokh.com/2010/02/26/is-repealing-mccarran-ferguson-health-reform/
An interesting view on the antitrust exemption for health insurance providers.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/us/27race.html?hp (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/us/27race.html?hp)
Holeeeeeee shit. Basically the anti-abortion lobby has started trying to convince people that abortion is part of a conspiracy to keep the numbers of black children being born artificially low.
White Christians exploit undereducated Black people. I am surprised.
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That is fucking disgusting.
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Link too long (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2010/03/01/2010-03-01_bklyn_acorn_cleared_over_giving_illegal_advice_on_how_to_hide_money_from_prostit.html#ixzz0gxpib9Cn)
ACORN is cleared of all charges following that video. Turns out it was rather....creatively edited. Who knew?
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/roy-ashburn-arrested-anti_n_485419.html
Chalk up another anti-gay politician turning out to be gay.
On another note, do you know what the longest and most popular article is on Conservapedia? The one on homosexuality. Just sayin'.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1217
Kind of funny. S'why you always check you have everything before leaving any kind of strategy session.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/04/roy-ashburn-arrested-anti_n_485419.html
Chalk up another anti-gay politician turning out to be gay.
(http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/outofline/07.03REMORSE%20FORM%20copy)
so useful.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1217
Kind of funny. S'why you always check you have everything before leaving any kind of strategy session.
"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appears as Cruella De Vil from "101 Dalmatians," and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is the witless cartoon dog Scooby-Doo."
Umm...actually I have no problems with that imagery. (Obama as Heath Ledger doesn't work very well, though. He's more like...the cartoon grownup who is always serious and has forgotten the meaning of fun).
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"Republicans to use scare tactics to raise money."
In other news, the sun rises in the east, Meeple never has anything relevant to say, and VSM's love life is pathetic.
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"Following the meeting, it was clear those in the meeting shared a common goal: stopping the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda."
Because goals should only be about cock blocking the opposition party, not about you know, governing or anything.
This breaking news just in, Zenny is touching himself right now.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/03/03/2010-03-03_congressman_patrick_mchenry_wants_ronald_reagans_face_put_on_50_bill.html
Reagan on the $50 dollar bill is being floated around again. Thoughts?
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I've always thought Grant was a really random choice for being on anything. The right's fixation with putting Reagan on everything creeps me the hell out, though, so I'm fine with the fifty being the way it is.
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"who cares"
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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2010/03/03/2010-03-03_congressman_patrick_mchenry_wants_ronald_reagans_face_put_on_50_bill.html
Reagan on the $50 dollar bill is being floated around again. Thoughts?
Putting the man whose deregulatory policies eventually fucked the country up to the point where a black man became president in a landslide on our currency? Makes sense. Trail of Tears Jackson is on the 20 after all.
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I've always thought Grant was a really random choice for being on anything. The right's fixation with putting Reagan on everything creeps me the hell out, though, so I'm fine with the fifty being the way it is.
I always assumed it was a Fuck-You to the South.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/opinion/08krugman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Krugman talking about the similarities between Ireland's financial crisis and the US's.
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I've always thought Grant was a really random choice for being on anything. The right's fixation with putting Reagan on everything creeps me the hell out, though, so I'm fine with the fifty being the way it is.
Roosevelt's not on a bill yet, seems like a more significant oversight to me if you're going to replace Grant with someone. (Heck, I wrote the above meaning Franklin, but it goes for Theodore too, really.) Way too soon to put Reagan on anything if you ask me, he's still too political.
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FDR's on the dime.
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Not on a bill though, and Lincoln/Jefferson/Washington establish that being on a coin doesn't preclude you from being on a bill.
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For political realities, if you put FDR on something, you'd better pair it up with the other Roosevelt.
It's been said in here before, but the Roosevelt bedroom? During democratic presidencies, FDR's portrait is above the fireplace, and during republican ones it's Teddy.
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http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/creationist-cum-mccarthy-booster_rejected_by_texas_republicans.php#more
This makes me very, very happy. Thanks, Texas!
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/03/virginia_ag_to_state_colleges_scrap_protections_fo.php?ref=fpb
Goddammit, Virginia.
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http://www.race-talk.org/?p=3316
Welp.
Filing this under "why humanity sucks".
EDIT:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/why-a-big-mac-costs-less-than-a-salad/
And here's more encouraging news - the government subsidies are mainly going to unhealthy foods!
Have I mentioned my dislike of humanity grows ever larger? Like my weight?
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Y'know, that casts Obama's brushing off the idea of decriminalization in a considerably worse light. Bad president. No biscuit.
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http://www.race-talk.org/?p=3316
Welp.
Filing this under "why humanity sucks".
Old news. Ranted about this before. Wish I could find the name of the ex-DEA agent who took the DEA to court (and won! And still nothing's been done. Sigh.) over this.
It's all about money, too. More arrests made, the more funding the DEA gets. It's so much easier to do this by A) nailing poor people who can't afford lawyers and B) focusing all their 'efforts' in a handful of locations, so they have no real incentive to branch out of the inner cities. So a disproportionate amount of Blacks and Hispanics get arrested because they're the ones usually living in the inner city.
This isn't even getting into the conscious racial profiling most police do. I may be white but shit like this just fuels my distaste for law enforcement. Extremely depressing.
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http://www.race-talk.org/?p=3316
Welp.
Filing this under "why humanity sucks".
My gut instinct is that this article is a wee bit slanted. I'm sure the statistics are correct, but they're presented in a misleading way. For instance, the comment about 80% of the arrests being possession of Marijuana--given that it was surrounded by all the negative impacts of imprisonment, my mind assumed that they probably were being imprisoned. But if it's anything like Canada, they weren't--they get arrested, get a ride in the car, an overnight stay, a slap on the wrist, and then they'd be gone.
And as far as the falling scores go, those have much more frequently been linked to crack cocaine rather than the war on drugs. In fact, many Affrican Americans still believe that Crack was created by the CIA to kill the black people. I find the allegation absurd, but there's no question that Crack hit the African American population much harder than any other demographic. It was a drug they could actually afford frequently, giving many of them their first serious substance abuse addiction; and Crack's high is relatively short, allowing a high level of addiction to be built up in a short period of time. Also: for the first time, Black people were finding themselves able to buy drugs directly from suppliers (instead of going through the mafia) meaning they could actually make a profit out of being a drug dealer.
Which is why I find myself a bit weirded out by this article trying to claim "black people don't do drugs nearly as much as white people." The crack explosion in black communities is very well-documented. And I have a friend who lives in the ghetto--I adore her African American neighbors (if they hear us singing Beatles songs they'll burst through the door to provide harmony); but the way she tells it she could buy pot from anyone on the block (and given that every time I visit she seems to have a ready supply of pot, I believe her). Point is, ever since the advent of crack, there have been a lot of drugs in American ghettoes.
And to say that "no, we shouldn't arrest them, drugs aren't a big deal" is clearly not a fix-all; crime rates were on a steady decline before crack, and since the advent of crack were on a heavy incline, largely due to ghetto turf wars. African American males became the #1 murder victim of any demographic (per capita) by a factor of about 4:1, and almost always murdered by other African Americans. Test scores of African Americans in schools dropped precipitously. Average weight of newborn African American babies dropped dramatically. To have not gotten involved would be very irresponsible.
Not saying that American politicians don't have their heads screwed on wrong in some ways; I've always found the length of American prison sentences a bit unreasonable. But "tough on crime" is a motto I've seen politicians yell in several other countries; countries where there's no racial connection at all. There will always be a section of the voterbase you can appease by being "tough on crime"--whether or not this toughness is actually effective. And I would hazard a guess that most American voters don't imagine a black person when they think "tough on crime" either--the most publicized criminals in America have all been white--Charles Manson, Timothy McVeigh, the Unibomber, the Columbine boys, and the mormons who kidnapped Elisabeth Smart. If someone told me to visualize a criminal, I'd visualize a white guy with tattoos, and I think most Americans would too. Which is to say, I'm hardly convinced that the voterbase calling for "tough on crime" is doing so out of fear of black people. Maybe some politicians are, but several of them probably say "tough on crime" just because it's a popular thing to say with the voterbase.
It's all about money, too. More arrests made, the more funding the DEA gets. It's so much easier to do this by A) nailing poor people who can't afford lawyers and B) focusing all their 'efforts' in a handful of locations, so they have no real incentive to branch out of the inner cities. So a disproportionate amount of Blacks and Hispanics get arrested because they're the ones usually living in the inner city.
Oh, definitely. And there is class discrimination there. But as you mentioned, it's not just blacks. Hell, go to a trailer park filled with poor white folks, and ask them whether they like cops. I'm betting the answer is no.
This isn't even getting into the conscious racial profiling most police do.
Well, yes, racial profiling is a really serious and well-documented problem, that undoubtedly contributes to the skewed nature of a lot of these statistics. But even if we legalized all drugs tomorrow, I don't think you'd stop racial profiling.
I dunno, it's weird, I agree with this guy's goal--regulations around drugs should be stripped away. But this should be done because other countries have shown that legalization helps the problem.
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I never implied anything of the sort. I meant that racial profiling compounds the problem on top of the money the DEA gets for focusing on the inner cities. Not that the drug war causes racial profiling.
Aaaaand of fucking course the "trailer park filled with poor white folks" will have their problems with the cops. But those areas are less targeted by federal enforcement agencies purely as a matter of population density. More people in the inner cities means more arrests, which means a larger increase in funding each year. Less people in trailer parks means less arrests, which means less of an increase (or, god forbid, a funding CUT!).
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I never implied anything of the sort. I meant that racial profiling compounds the problem on top of the money the DEA gets for focusing on the inner cities. Not that the drug war causes racial profiling.
Right, didn't mean to imply that you were suggesting that. I was more going after the author who was trying to make this all a big government conspiracy against black people.
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Eh, it is in part true. I'm positive that the PODLR talk I went to a few months covered that DEA internal investigations even acknowledged the problem, but I've long since lost the pamphlet for that and when I tried looking a few months ago for evidence of it on the internet I wasn't able to find the case in question. The author has their bias, of course, but that doesn't mean the problem doesn't actually exist.
EDIT: That may well be because the talk was by LEAP and not PODLR. Maybe I'll have better luck finding it after I get back from work tonight.
EDIT2: It was! http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php?name=Speakers&bio=234
Matthew Fogg. Details of the case got bumbled in my memory. It DID have to do with race, though!
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/10/mcdonnel-overrides-ag-cuc_n_494086.html
...and Virginia's governor overrides the AG and says the universities CAN prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
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And random article that showed up in the huff post side panel...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/08/palin-crossed-border-for_n_490080.html
You know, in some ways I think I'm going to be sad when Palin disappears from public view....
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100314/ts_afp/mideastdiplomacyusisraelaxelrod_20100314150723
And now for something a bit more international. What do you guys think?
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Israel is...........building houses? And this is apparently bad? Am I missing something obvious?
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They're building houses where Palestinians are already living. Yes, yes you are.
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More specifically, the Israeli settlements aren't like "the Poles are moving into this neighborhood of Detroit." Nobody would complain if Jews wanted to just go live to the east. The problem is that they're destroying whatever Palestinian buildings were there before, then they're creating hermetic, sealed communities which require the Israeli military to protect. And not letting anyone else in afterward. And offering huge tax breaks and incentives to go be a "settler." Yes, it's just as dumb as creating tiny, useless, planned communities in Montana and paying people tons of money to go live there. Even ignoring the Palestinians this'd be a completely insane policy.
...buuuuut the settlers are also hardcore voters who also align as a block against any attempt to slow them down or take away their special privileges. It was a miracle that Sharon was able to withdraw from Gaza.
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This is a terrible idea (as the entire "settlement" program is) and I hate Benjamin Netanyahu. That said, though.....
Nobody would complain if Jews wanted to just go live to the east.
Really? Want to bet?
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This just in, Israel continues to do what it has been doing for years. At least the US has called them on it for once.
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Shale, let me rephrase: Nobody in North America / Europe would complain. I mean, most Jews did leave North Africa / Iraq / etc. but a few do still live there. It's certainly *legal* to go live as a Jew in Palestine. Now if Israeli Jews did start moving into Palestinian neighborhoods via "normal" methods, I have no illusions that violence wouldn't spring up, but it doesn't have to be that way. Mixed neighborhoods exist inside Israel, they could theoretically exist in the West Bank as well given the right set of circumstances. But that's not even close to what's being attempted.
Anyway since we're apparently on an Israel kick.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1155881.html
Short version: Yisrael Beiteinu, a very weird political party, to its credit wants to break the super-conservative Orthodox stranglehold on marriage / who is a Jew questions. This would allow Russian Jews descended from Jews on their father's side to actually be recognized as Jews, get married inside Israel, be buried in Jewish cemeteries, etc. It's not a full move toward dismantling the theocracy here but whatever, close enough. This looked to fracture Netanyahu's coalition, though, which includes the insane theocrat parties like United Torah Judaism that want to keep the ultra-Orthodox in charge of religious affairs. A proposed compromise to get this through would change things so it'd only apply to Israeli citizens; in other words your silly Reform and Conservative conversions performed in America wouldn't count for the Law of Return, etc. Not sure THIS will go through either, but in general, fail.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em)
So apparently there's a bloc in the Texas board of education that is pushing to "emphasize America's Christian roots" and claim that the Framers intended for the Bible to be considered America's highest legal document. Hopefully this falls though, but... fuck, I guess I can hope the Union collapses in to a bunch of meta-States or something if they win.
Followup- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/magazine/14texbooks-t.html?em)
So apparently there's a bloc in the Texas board of education that is pushing to "emphasize America's Christian roots" and claim that the Framers intended for the Bible to be considered America's highest legal document. Hopefully this falls though, but... fuck, I guess I can hope the Union collapses in to a bunch of meta-States or something if they win.
Followup- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1253
I hope that the textbook writers have the spine to go against these changahahahahahahahahahaha oh who the fuck am I kidding, we'll see it swing this way and then back and then forward and then back~
Wee, making our children a battleground yet again~
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/16/david-petraeus-on-dadt-th_n_500928.html
Gen Petraeus: "the time has come" to blow where the prevailing winds of politics take me consider repealing DADT
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Close enough.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/nyregion/17hiram.html?hp
Monserrate: "C'mon baby, gimme one more chance! You know I love you! I never meant to hurt you..."
District 39: "Get the fuck out."
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I like the part where he got kicked out of an old folks' home.
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I like the part where he got kicked out of an old folks' home.
That's no way to talk about the state senate.
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I like the part where he got kicked out of an old folks' home.
That's no way to talk about the state senate.
Whoa, dude, isn't that comparison a little insulting to old folk's homes?
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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62H2DT20100318
So how about that healthcare bill?
Doing the math it looks like the Dems need 10 more yes votes to pass the bill. They have until Sunday to convince 10 Dems to accept the bill as is. Things are going to get pretty interesting this week.
The CBO report does need to be taken with some grains of salt, of course, since it's very hard to predict what's going to happen a few decades from now, but even so if it gets the deficit down at all I can't complain.
edit-Oh, and if you'd like some light reading they posted the full bill online:
http://rules.house.gov/bills_details.aspx?NewsID=4606
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So, an inkling of an idea struck me recently, particularly from the "old folk's home" comment made off hand a few days ago. A large part of the inability to get things done in congress stems from a long list of things, but one of the core reasons seems to me to be the lack of term limits for congressional offices. Whether an incumbent who hasn't been voted out of office and likely won't until the day they die or are charged with corruption, or an impotent Senator so afraid of voting a certain way because they don't want to see an early end to their political careers, it seems to me that forcing them out of office after a certain number of years (24? 18? Less? More?) would not only make it easier to clear the floors of incompetency, but would also give the younger generations, those not just more familiar with updating technology (a field congress is utterly incompetent about) but also those not so moronically ingrained in the Cold War mindset, a chance to fill the legislature before they're too old out of touch with the next generation's culture to be of use.
As you can tell by all the ambling this is a very half-formed idea. I'm not even certain at all if it would actually address the issue of congressional incompetence in a way that would actually solve anything. But on the other hand, I can't come up with a good counter argument to the proposal (other than the obvious "neither legislative body would ever think of proposing it). I'm also embarrassingly uninformed as to the constitutionality of such a proposal and about basic congressional procedures to bring this idea to coherency, but I think this is something that more people should be discussing, and I have no idea why I haven't seen anyone doing so.
So... uh. Discuss?
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Kinda busy, but I'll throw my 2 cents in: term limits are great, but only for the politicians you don't like. There are a few congressmen I am genuinely grateful are continually reelected, Russ Feingold in particular, and they would mostly be out if term limits were applied (though maybe not if they're as long as you say). It's probably true that lame duck politicians are bolder and more willing to vote their conscience, but two problems leap to mind. First: Jim Bunning, not seeking reelection, recently held up benefits to people who really needed them, and probably wouldn't have if he weren't a lame duck. Politicians voting their conscience is only good when they have one. Second, term limits may have the perverse effect of exacerbating the problem of politicians voting for their corporate buddies, because now every congressperson is going to be angling for a cushy job in a few years, and you can bet they have dollar signs on the brain.
From a formal standpoint, term limits are undemocratic (and state-imposed term limits on congressmen are actually unconstitutional, though that could change). They deny the people the opportunity to vote people into office that they might want to. It's not necessarily a bad thing to have a government that is less democratic; we allow congress to "punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member," after all, whether the people of a state want them in or not. (Rare, but it happens every once in a while, mostly for corruption.)
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I'm not big on term limits as a general rule. If it wasn't for term limits, Clinton would have probably stayed President and Bush Jr. would not have snuck in.
I think the main issue with America's high percentage of returning incumbents, is a combination of voter apathy (when you vote in America you have like...30 questions to answer; the lazy way to vote is to just vote along party lines). And that the way the Senate works also encourages partisanship--for example, if you want Obama to pass the healthcare bill, you want a democrat senator; if you don't want the bill passed, you want a republican senator. Oh, and let's not forget the Senate seniority mentioned earlier in this topic: if you want your state to be represented by a senator with more power in the senate, vote for the incumbent.
I would rather see the above issues addressed (which would also shorten how long the average senator stays around) instead of just doing term limits. Though sure: I see your point about term limits and technology.
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http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/03/19/key-stupak-bloc-member-brad-ellsworth-reportedly-a-yes/
2 votes needed after this one.
I'd say it's in the bag at this point, but if there's anything Democrats are good at it's grasping defeat from the jaws of victory.
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I'm not big on term limits as a general rule. If it wasn't for term limits, Clinton would have probably stayed President and Bush Jr. would not have snuck in.
Without term limits Clinton wouldn't have been president, we would have been blessed with another 16 years of Reagan and enjoyed all the joy that would have gone with that for the world.
I think that this is another problem that stems for the society and that needing to be fixed, there isn't anything inherently wrong with your system there, the problem that is wrong is with the people who you are putting into the system that are the problem. There are better ways to try and fix the problem than fine tuning the system. You either need to clean out the people or abolish the system.
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http://news.firedoglake.com/2010/03/19/key-stupak-bloc-member-brad-ellsworth-reportedly-a-yes/
2 votes needed after this one.
I'd say it's in the bag at this point, but if there's anything Democrats are good at it's grasping defeat from the jaws of victory.
I've really started to swing the other way on Healthcare at this point. I wouldn't want the bill as it stands to pass at this point.
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I'm not big on term limits as a general rule. If it wasn't for term limits, Clinton would have probably stayed President and Bush Jr. would not have snuck in.
Without term limits Clinton wouldn't have been president, we would have been blessed with another 16 years of Reagan and enjoyed all the joy that would have gone with that for the world.
Would he? First off, Clinton ousted an incumbent, so he already proved himself popular enough to do so. Arguably Bush Sr was less popular than Regan, so I'll grant it could go either way. But then again, there are those who would argue Clinton would have won regardless of republican opponent because Ross Perot was splitting the votes on the right. But okay, let's assume Reagan could have kept running--we already know he wouldn't have. Partway through 1989 he left office because he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. In short, it seems highly unlikely that he would ever have run for a third term.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/21/health.care.main/index.html?hpt=T1
Dude says Democrats have the necessary 216. This isn't necessarily a done deal, though, since votes can and have changed once they get to the floor.
They meet at 1pm EST, but there's gonna be hours of debating before anything gets voted on.
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And they passed it yesterday. Once it gets into Obama's hands it'll be signed and become law.
Republicans are doing some delaying measures (voting to return the bill to committee because of the abortion language for example), but it's essentially a done deal at this point.
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I've really started to swing the other way on Healthcare at this point. I wouldn't want the bill as it stands to pass at this point.
Yeah, hear hear. We're going to make sure everybody has health insurance...by making it illegal not to have health insurance! Man, if only we'd known this was so easy years ago -- next we can outlaw poverty.
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I dislike both the way the bill was debated and brought about and what it's doing. It isn't actually addressing some of the problems of the health care industry, just restricting insurance companies (Fuck them regardless) and the aforementioned ban on people being without insurance. I... well, we'll see. I think this is going to cost the democrats in the fall elections in a big way.
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I'd agree on it costing them in the fall elections except the republicans seem to be acting even more idiotically on a federal level, at least from my point of view. But yeah, we'll see. All I can really say is that my personal favorite maxim's still holding true - when elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers.
(edit: if not obvious, elephants refers to dem/repub, not just repub.)
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Really, I'm sick of both parties. The democrats are mostly spineless shills in the pockets of the insurance company, and the Republicans are mostly retarded, spiteful shills in the pockets of the insurance company. I'm hoping that the political fallout from all this ass-buggery doesn't mean returning the Republicans to power--instead, it should mean the formation of new parties whose goal is to goddamn GOVERN and not just kick sand in the face of "the other guys".
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Soooooo is there anything in the bill regulating the pricing on the enforced health care plans or something in there about the government starting up its own insurance company which can offer the lowest rates to prevent this from becoming a giant clusterfuck?
Fail way to solve health care guys. Bang up job.
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something in there about the government starting up its own insurance company which can offer the lowest rates to prevent this from becoming a giant clusterfuck?
There used to be, but they cut it out to try and get Republicans on board.
How'd that work out again? Oh yeah.
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They claim it was to get Republicans on board. Personally, I'm with Zenny; everyone was in bed with the insurance companies anyway.
Oh well. The 'universal' aspect sucks for me personally (whether I have to buy insurance or not, I don't plan on going to the doctor any more than I already do), whether it'll do jack for society as a whole I dunno. But it's done, hopefully the rest of the bill had at least a couple teeth left.
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It has no teeth if you have no way of fixing the broken health insurance system. The problem was never that not everyone had health insurance, the problem was that excessive portions of the population couldn't even damned well afford it. That NEEDS to be addressed or this just isn't going to work.
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I wanted to read it and try to figure out what it actually said, but the PDF is 1990 pages long and written in pidgin Politician.
At any rate, its major points relate to Medicare, regulation and mandate.
Re: Medicare -- insert joke about geriatric individuals running the country, etc. -- it fixes a couple loopholes that had let average users get reamed by average use. The prescription drug coverage is the one that has been popping up in the news most (probably because it has a soundbyte-able nickname in "donut hole"), but the amount of support the federal government is pledging to the states in matching is interesting as well.
Re: regulation, this one is huge. Pre-existing condition exemptions, gone! Considering the number of exclusionary conditions (including mild asthma and the like), this is not a small issue. It has been VERY hard to get the privilege to pay out the nose for private insurance up until this point, and this is the major problem: if you aren't employed, you likely won't be insured.
Re: mandates, well: Yeah, hear hear. We're going to make sure everybody has health insurance...by making it illegal not to have health insurance! Man, if only we'd known this was so easy years ago -- next we can outlaw poverty.
To be honest, the actual "affordable" points of the Affordable Healthcare for Americans Act seem to be really vague. They set a limit on the amount of money you make before they'll stop helping you, but they don't really seem to be suggesting how or how much they will help you if you're within that threshhold. They offer a few payment options, including cost-sharing which is a unique idea for individuals, and a number of tax credits, but most of that is aimed at families of four making less than $50,000 a year. I hear that's the national average, but by no means does that include every person who has had trouble securing health insurance.
There's also a lot to be said about the tack-on of the student loan program, because that is also huge, but... yeah. Healthcare's enough to talk about here and the student loan stuff doesn't directly affect me yet (though limiting the repayment term to 20 years instead of 25 is awesome).
In short, the bill seems to cover a lot of simple loopholes for people who shouldn't've been excluded from healthcare in the first place: kids up to 26; pre-existing conditions that are often congenital and non-terminal; the self-employed; seniors with limited income. It does not, however, address anyone else. In fact, it seems a whole lot more like federal fundraising (jesus keerist, did you see how many different people and companies they're charging "fees" to?) and a whole lot less like federal healthcare reform.
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The other shoe drops. (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25vatican.html?hp)
"Top Vatican officials — including the future Pope Benedict XVI — did not defrock a priest who molested as many as 200 deaf boys, even though several American bishops repeatedly warned them that failure to act on the matter could embarrass the church, according to church files newly unearthed as part of a lawsuit. "
This will, I believe, be a big deal. Perhaps not unexpected, but it'd be tough to overstate its impact, I predict.
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“In spite of these difficulties,” Archbishop Weakland wrote, “we are still hoping we can avoid undue publicity that would be negative toward the church.”
It is amazing how far people's faith will stretch. I suppose if you can believe in God enough to become an Archbishop then you can believe that you can avoid undue publicity (What? How the fuck is ANY publicity about this undue just as an aside?) by sheltering and enabling a serial pedarist.
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to be fair, Ratzinger never enabled him, that we know of, because he only got involved after the fact. None of that excuses the church's failures in general, of course. And serious failures they are indeed.
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*HEADDESK*
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Oh, Catholicism. Making it harder and harder to take religious people seriously since... well, always.
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Oh, Catholicism. Making it harder and harder to take religious people seriously since... well, always.
It's okay, I'm sure the guy repented for his sins by sitting in a booth for a couple hours. He's good to go now!
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/politics.aspx
So, a few weeks after healthcare reform passes it looks like Obama's popularity numbers are back where they were before the whole thing started (still down 4% from his all-time high, back before he actually became president or did anything). Not all good news for Democrats, though, since a generic ballot question (Generic Democrat vs. Generic Republican vs. Generic Independent) has started coming back in favor of generic Republican.
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Looking at that data...Obama's all-time high in office (Jan 2009) is 69%, and his current approval rating is 51% (which, granted, is up from his all-time low in mid March of 46%, but certainly not a mere 4% away from his all-time high).
Not especially concerning for his career, to be fair--it also shows the approval ratings of past presidents in March of their second year, and you have Bill Clinton at 51% and Ronald Regan at 46%.
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to hell with you and your relentless logic
yeah i fucked up and misread the blurb
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think it came up in chat, but at one point eighteen years ago, apparently this Sinead O'Connor ripped up a picture of the then-Pope? Yeah, she's speaking out again.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502363.html
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I just love how at the bottom of the page it reads,
Recent Outlook coverage on Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church includes "Is Pope Benedict a closet liberal?"
Unintentional, I'm sure, but also hilarious.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100331/ap_on_bi_ge/us_obama_drilling
Obama proposes a plan that would allow drilling for oil off the eastern seaboard at the cost of blocking the development in Alaska. Should be interesting to see what Republicans do with this. It's almost like this was specifically held back until after Healthcare to test the Republicans. If they come out against, it should be amusing to see how they twist things as... it's a pretty good deal for the Republicans (Except for maybe Alaska) and they'd look pretty silly turning it down in the face of "Drill, Baby Drill".
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/politics.aspx
So, a few weeks after healthcare reform passes it looks like Obama's popularity numbers are back where they were before the whole thing started (still down 4% from his all-time high, back before he actually became president or did anything). Not all good news for Democrats, though, since a generic ballot question (Generic Democrat vs. Generic Republican vs. Generic Independent) has started coming back in favor of generic Republican.
That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard. Modern Generic Republicans are literally the worst thing.
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/politics.aspx
So, a few weeks after healthcare reform passes it looks like Obama's popularity numbers are back where they were before the whole thing started (still down 4% from his all-time high, back before he actually became president or did anything). Not all good news for Democrats, though, since a generic ballot question (Generic Democrat vs. Generic Republican vs. Generic Independent) has started coming back in favor of generic Republican.
That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard. Modern Generic Republicans are literally the worst thing.
No, this is literally the worst thing.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/30/westboro.baptist.snyder/index.html?hpt=T2
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There has got to be something horribly illegal about the shit those people do. This is just.... ugh.
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Sigh.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909804575123773804984924.html
The final line sells it for me. Rather have -Sarah Palin- in over Barack Obama? Uh okay dude. Um. Okay. There's probably some good conservative politicians out there, I don't know, I don't much like the ones I've seen. Sarah Palin support? Um okay.
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There has got to be something horribly illegal about the shit those people do. This is just.... ugh.
Well, their case is coming before the supreme court for a reason. That decision will weigh first amendment speech rights against the right of privacy to determine if the Phelpses can be held liable for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Legal scholars are not optimistic about the marine's family's chances, but I think they have a decent shot at winning (and I certainly hope they do, on narrow grounds). Some of their messages specifically addressed the marine's family, so I think that the court may rule that they are not protected by the first amendment because they are 'fighting words.' The marine's family never directly saw those signs, but I don't think that changes much because they certainly could have seen them at the time.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703909804575123773804984924.html
The final line sells it for me. Rather have -Sarah Palin- in over Barack Obama? Uh okay dude. Um. Okay. There's probably some good conservative politicians out there, I don't know, I don't much like the ones I've seen. Sarah Palin support? Um okay.
Yeah, that whole article honestly pours a bit too much praise on anti-intellectualism.
Look at Canada, which has a functional right wing. And it's true--the right wing is not composed of Political Science University professors. The right wing is composed of successful businessmen, economists, and stuff like that.
Being anti-academia in your politicians I can understand--academia does have a political agenda. Given a choice between funding for cancer research, and a tax break, academics will generally choose to fund research. On the other hand...being anti-smart in your politicians...is dumb; I don't see the benefit.
In the case of Sarah Palin specifically, it's not even that she's stupid. It's more that she has a history of improper political dealings; using state funds to bring her kids to New York. Using $150k in RNC funds on her wardrobe alone. Taking govenor housing money even though she was still living in the same house. And then there's some strange moves, like walking away from office early.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125361364&f=1002&sc=ce&sc=ce
And on that note, seems the RNC is dangerously in the red as far as fundraising goes. I don't know if the recent excesses in the headlines are partially to blame, but if they keep overspending like this it's going to come back and bite them on the ass (not the mention the whole "party of fiscal responsibility' thing) sooner or later.
How are the Democrats doing, you ask? Well...http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.php
They're pretty strongly in the black. I'm kind of impressed with the democrat fundraising machine this election cycle, you'd think the Republicans would have the advantage since the stereotypical rich guy (white, old, pro-business, etc) is in their court.
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For all his failures, Howard Dean did a lot for the way the Dems brought in campaign contributions during/after his presidential bid in '04. Using it as a base, they really did a good job of streamlining and modernizing the process. It's paid serious dividends in the long run.
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/politics.aspx
So, a few weeks after healthcare reform passes it looks like Obama's popularity numbers are back where they were before the whole thing started (still down 4% from his all-time high, back before he actually became president or did anything). Not all good news for Democrats, though, since a generic ballot question (Generic Democrat vs. Generic Republican vs. Generic Independent) has started coming back in favor of generic Republican.
That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard. Modern Generic Republicans are literally the worst thing.
No, this is literally the worst thing.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/30/westboro.baptist.snyder/index.html?hpt=T2
You know what? I never thought I'd say this without sarcasm, but... Bill O'Reilly to the rescue...?
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/oreilly-marine-funeral-protesters/2010/03/30/id/354287
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You did it wrong. You should have linked it like this
Bill O'Reilly starts funding the Westbro Baptist Church[/ur] because then you get to actually kind of give the guy the credit (what little there is) that he deserves and still be sarcastic.
(http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/oreilly-marine-funeral-protesters/2010/03/30/id/354287)Yeah, that whole article honestly pours a bit too much praise on anti-intellectualism.
Look at Canada, which has a functional right wing. And it's true--the right wing is not composed of Political Science University professors. The right wing is composed of successful businessmen, economists, and stuff like that.
Being anti-academia in your politicians I can understand--academia does have a political agenda. Given a choice between funding for cancer research, and a tax break, academics will generally choose to fund research. On the other hand...being anti-smart in your politicians...is dumb; I don't see the benefit.
In the case of Sarah Palin specifically, it's not even that she's stupid. It's more that she has a history of improper political dealings; using state funds to bring her kids to New York. Using $150k in RNC funds on her wardrobe alone. Taking govenor housing money even though she was still living in the same house. And then there's some strange moves, like walking away from office early.
Met is right. Palin isn't purely like Reagan. She has some Nixon in her as well. That is a real winner right there. Can you imagine it? The Devil and The Beast mixed into one? Glorious. Edit - Warning, Hyperbole about everyone other than Reagan.
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I'm not sure why the court would overturn a verdict of guilty of causing emotional distress because of free speech laws. Free speech isn't (or at least shouldn't be) license to do something that you purposefully know could torment someone.
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Oh and I never thought I would say it like this, but man I miss the 60's where soldiers would have just shot the demonstrators who were demonstrating in an orderly fashion.
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/politics.aspx
So, a few weeks after healthcare reform passes it looks like Obama's popularity numbers are back where they were before the whole thing started (still down 4% from his all-time high, back before he actually became president or did anything). Not all good news for Democrats, though, since a generic ballot question (Generic Democrat vs. Generic Republican vs. Generic Independent) has started coming back in favor of generic Republican.
That's the most depressing thing I've ever heard. Modern Generic Republicans are literally the worst thing.
No, this is literally the worst thing.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/30/westboro.baptist.snyder/index.html?hpt=T2
You know what? I never thought I'd say this without sarcasm, but... Bill O'Reilly to the rescue...?
http://newsmax.com/InsideCover/oreilly-marine-funeral-protesters/2010/03/30/id/354287
Nobody's paying attention to Bill O'Riley any more since Glenn Beck started out-crazying him. He had to do SOMETHING to get attention. I remember a Daily Show episode making the comment "Bill O'Riley: you've become the voice of reason on Fox News..."
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Thumbs up to O'Reilly.
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I'm not sure why the court would overturn a verdict of guilty of causing emotional distress because of free speech laws. Free speech isn't (or at least shouldn't be) license to do something that you purposefully know could torment someone.
Free speech should definitely include the right to say things in public that torment people. If free speech didn't include the right to, say, protest outside the white house chanting "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today," despite the emotional distress it caused Lady Bird Johnson, I don't think it would mean much. Or say you want to protest outside the Westboro Baptist Church, with signs that say God loves everyone. That message, you know full well, is very upsetting to the Westboro Baptists. Should you have to risk paying them money for their emotional distress? I think the answer should be no.
So as a general rule, I think free speech should protect protesters from this kind of liability. But there are two reasons, taken together, why I think the protest at a funeral should not be protected. First, the family of the marine did nothing to put themselves in the public sphere, and they were attending an event that, though in a public place, is private in nature. Second, the signs were directed specifically at them, criticizing their behavior personally. Free speech should protect unpopular political opinions, no matter how repugnant, to the ends of the earth, but it need not extend to protecting what amounts to an attack specifically directed at a private individual in a private place.
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Would there be a problem with a short-term suspension of free-speech, though? Like...funerals get a 24 hour black-out period?
This still allows comedians to make fun of funerals the next day, and for slanted news sources to say "thank god that politician was assassinated" the next day. Just...stops the day-of protesters.
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Can't people just piss all over their church and claim that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't God's will? From my understanding of their beliefs, there is no free will and everything is pre-determined by God, so it's not like people have to hold themselves accountable for their own actions.
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Would there be a problem with a short-term suspension of free-speech, though? Like...funerals get a 24 hour black-out period?
This still allows comedians to make fun of funerals the next day, and for slanted news sources to say "thank god that politician was assassinated" the next day. Just...stops the day-of protesters.
If the supreme court decides this in the marine's family's favor, it will probably because they hold that a funeral is something that is so private that the substantive due process right to privacy negates the right to free speech. They'd be saying that protesting in front of a funeral is like protesting in someone's living room, more or less. So something like what you propose may happen.
Politicians, by the way, are public figures, and have much less of a right to privacy than private figures do. Picketing a politician's funeral would probably fall under the ambit of free speech no matter what, because the politician voluntarily put him/herself into the limelight (not by dying, but by being so visible in life).
http://volokh.com/2010/03/08/funeral-picketing-intentional-infliction-of-emotional-distress-case-going-to-the-supreme-court/
Look at the comments to this post if you want to get a better idea of the legal issues at hand here.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/world/europe/03church.html?hp
so hey saying that the argument against the Catholic Church is like the Holocaust on Good Friday
that's that's not horribly crude timing at all, nor is it an incredibly poor analogy nope, not at all
o wate
...In all seriousness, I just... wow. I really just have to wonder if any of this is being intentionally done since the amount of damage they're doing to their own reputation just in their reactions to this shit is immense, and stuff like this I'd think they'd be trying to avoid. Yes, he says he's not trying to blame the Jewish faith for anything - good! - but... trying to compare what you're going through to the history of Jewish persecution? Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah no that's just completely assholish. Period. Wow this is just wow.
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In Germany, you have to tell the government when you adopt a new religion. The number of people switching from Catholicism in Bavaria (the German province with the highest concentration of Catholics) because of the fallout of this has tripled.
Hah!
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http://nems360.com/view/full_story/6946554/article-UPDATE--McMillen-attends-sparse-Itawamba-prom?instance=home_news_1st_left <-- so, for one, Constance attended the private prom!...
...except the actual event was held somewhere else, apparently, and she was clearly not invited to it, according to this. Woo!
and then there's...
http://nmisscommentor.com/2010/04/05/malicious-mischief-alert-suspicious-package-at-itawamba-school-5-lb-bag-of-sugar/ <--- this. This is just getting to be maddening.
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http://collateralmurder.com/
Wikileaks leaks a video of civilians being killed from an Apache helicopter. Two of the casualties were Reuters reporters.
Honestly, War is hell and this isn't that bad (stomach churning comments made by the US soldiers aside). What's absolutely disgusting is that Reuters had been unsuccessfully trying to obtain this since the attack via the Freedom of Information act and the Department of Defense has been covering it (among other videos that Wikileaks apparently plans to disclose) up. This really sheds a whole new light on Wikileaks recently being called a "threat to the US Army" (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/03/wikileaks-army/).
Followup links:
http://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/bmu2d/saw_the_video_wikileaks_posted_heres_a_measured/ - A soldier's commentary on the video
There are other (unedited, longer) videos that I can't seem to find right now and will post if I find them sometime after waking up tomorrow.
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I don't know if I can agree with that. Certainly civilians die in wars as the results of mistakes of this sort, but keep in mind that after the initial shootings, the men who went to the bodies were also shot then and there. Even that in and of itself is not some kind of smoking gun of misconduct, but add to that the idea that US soldiers will almost never be punished for killing Iraqis and you start to see a broader picture that is permissive about when US soldiers can kill people to put it politely, or allows US soldiers to kill Iraqis with impunity, encouraging them to do so by never holding them accountable to put it frankly, and what looked like a tragic mistake at first glance now looks like the predictable result of a US policy that is indifferent to the lives of people on the ground.
Take a look at this and you start to see the bigger picture. NATO blatantly lies about a killing, and it's reported as fact. How often does this happen? More often than we know, one would imagine.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/05/afghanistan/index.html
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I remember about 7-8 years back in Afghanistan, the Americans bombed their Canadian allies, killing a bunch of Canadian soldiers. At least these people had the potential to be the enemy....
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Combine the above with things you find out about the use of Stimulants in the military and if you branch out that far into Military Psychology and the lengths of shifts and whatnot and you start to see a big picture that is horrifying and entirely expected. The reality of modern warfare is that it has not changed a great deal since Vietnam.
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I guess what I meant is that the actions of the soldiers themselves isn't that bad--if nothing else, it speaks to the need for a larger reliance on ground troops to have a better idea of what's going on on the ground. It may put more American lives at risk but fuck it--they signed up for it, and visual confirmation on the ground would have made it more clear that the so-called RPG was a fucking CAMERA.
Otherwise I agree completely. The coverup is absolutely disgusting and I'm really glad that we have an organization like Wikileaks out there getting this sort of information out in the open. The cover up itself is a part of the whole Americans-will-never-be-punished deal that certainly isn't helping us "win the hearts and minds" of the Iraqis, and, y'know, make the insurgents a whole lot less eager to attack the invaders and try to get them out of their country.
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And now for something of a different nature. I'm not really sure where to put this honestly, but since it had to do with a court decision....
http://kotaku.com/5510695/net-neutrality-dealt-a-severe-blow-as-comcast-wins-fcc-appeal
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK.
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Wait, what?
The governing body designed to regulate this kind of stuff...was ruled in court to not have the authority to regulate this kind of stuff? WTF?
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http://article.nationalreview.com/430412/go-quietly-michael-steele/mona-charen
A nice summary of Steele's ineptness. He really does need to go. When you are trying to align your party as one of fiscal responsability and do things like this:
Roll Call reported that Steele spent $18,500 to redecorate his dark-paneled office. “This is going to sound weird,” he explained, but “it’s too male for me.” Actually, more than anything, it sounds vain and self-indulgent. Among the new accoutrements — a Bowflex machine.
You perhaps have lost perspective.
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Wait, what?
The governing body designed to regulate this kind of stuff...was ruled in court to not have the authority to regulate this kind of stuff? WTF?
All I know is that I'm probably going to move out of my apartment sooner than I expected, and that I am never getting Comcast ever ever again.
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Wait, what?
The governing body designed to regulate this kind of stuff...was ruled in court to not have the authority to regulate this kind of stuff? WTF?
It's America, you forget. So when the liberal crazies grumble about the slow slide to hardcore corporotocracy, it's less exaggeration than you want to believe.
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Wait, what?
The governing body designed to regulate this kind of stuff...was ruled in court to not have the authority to regulate this kind of stuff? WTF?
Comcast is the most powerful entity of all of Oregon. Microsoft and Nike be damned!
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Justice Stevens to retire from the Supreme Court. This could end up having fairly major implications as far as executive power rulings go.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/10/us/politics/10stevens.html
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I'm surprised it took him this long to retire. I figured he'd drop as soon as Obama was sworn in.
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Judges sometimes just keep on judging because, frankly, they wouldn't know what else to do with their lives. It's certainly true Souter wanted the first train out of Washington, but Stevens? Maybe not. Maybe he wanted to live long enough to see his successor take office.
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http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guest-post-its-impossible-get-us
TL;DR: Based off the median family income and cost of living, we're still just prolonging the inevitable.
Bubble burst in 2008, 2010 sees some false, delusional promises of recovery... yeah, we're right on track according to the historical record.
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That analysis seems to be missing something obvious. People "got by" in 1910 without necessarily falling into debt and didn't have a fraction of the things we expect even the poor to have nowadays. The unfortunate answer is just to reduce your cost of living if you can't get by on your income rather than go into debt. Which.. is kinda what happens in recessions and depressions. So yeah, more one-car families, more living in crowded and smaller housing, and less eating out.
This is not to say that reducing standard of living will be fun, and certain expenses are structurally nigh-impossible to erase (transport costs in communities not built with mass transit in mind), but it's a different problem than "we are all going to go into debt and go bankrupt and the economy will collapse."
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That problem, of course, being that reduced spending means a shrinking economy, more businesses closed, more jobs lost, and a continuing spiral of increasing unemployment and reduced standards of living until there's just not enough liquidity for the economy to function.
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Well, more to the point: Right now, everyone seems to be under the total delusion that this standard of living can continue. It cannot. Things may not turn to Great Depression era levels of starvation and squalor, but there is no possible way for people to continue living as they are. Given the modern day culture of undeserved privilege, this may be just as hard psychologically for some people.
To be honest, part of me is glad that I matriculated during this era. It will teach me some personal responsibility and how to live within my means. On the other hand, fuck Reagan up the asshole, and every sniveling shithead who treats him like he's the greatest modern president. He may have restored America's confidence, but I can't help but think that what went on during the Reagan years is the direct cause of the economic bubbles we find ourselves in now.
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To be honest, part of me is glad that I matriculated during this era. It will teach me some personal responsibility and how to live within my means. On the other hand, fuck Reagan up the asshole, and every sniveling shithead who treats him like he's the greatest modern president. He may have restored America's confidence, but I can't help but think that what went on during the Reagan years is the direct cause of the economic bubbles we find ourselves in now.
I used to think this too, but after Macro it's a little more nebulous. I still think that Reagan gets too much credit, but his economic policies made sense at the time. They just weren't something to be emulated in the long term, or repeated unless the specific problem that brought them about was occurring.
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Reaganomics were a short term solution to a short term problem that were extended on nigh indefinitely and far longer than they needed to. When people started murder suiciding was about the time they needed to stop, but that is when they went into overdrive and the small man was crushed beneath the boot heel of corporate America. But hey, at least it seems to have stopped at your middle school, your primary schools haven't been shot up tooooo bad.
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From all I've heard of Reaganomics, a little deregulation was long overdue. Apparently the years leading up to Reagan were filled with mounting and mounting regulations. 'Cause, politicians seemed to feel that they should write laws--that's what politicians are there for, right?
Somehow in the mind of the public this turned into "deregulation is the sign of a good politician; the number of regulations N they remove is the measure of how good they are." Which is...what? That's like measuring the quality of a politician by the number of laws they manage to write about cheese. Or measuring a pokemon game by how many times we get into a battle with a Zubat.
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It was more that the years leading up to it nearly invalidated the Phillips Curve by having inflation AND unemployment go up at the same time for an extended period of time. Tons of factors contributed to this, such as the Vietnam War, the oil embargo, Johnson's Great Society, unions demanding their wages keep up with inflation, etc. The marginal tax rate before Reagonomics was roughly 70%, which is almost obscene. The rate of inflation exceeded 12% a few years in the 70's, and averaged 9.6% for the decade. For contrast, the average in the 50's and 60's was 1.6% and 1983-2007 was 3.1%.
The tax cuts served a purpose. They got businesses and investment started again. The debts set a bad precedent, but weren't at a level the nation couldn't carry should the policy not continue forever. I can't remember the exact number, but the marginal tax rate dropped to something like 35% (in fact, Reagan raised and lowered taxes a few times during his presidency to get things right). Unemployment went down. There was still inflation, but not nearly as bad. Government was in debt, but we at least fixed the potentially crippling problem to our economy. Then we kept going... which... debatable merits. Optomist says that it was the direct cause of our ability to be successful in the 90's. Pessimist would say it saddled us with an unescapable debt.
I'll respect Bush Sr. for a while for the tax hike, actually. It curbed inflation and it, coupled with spending cuts, went a long way to stabilizing the budget. Clinton picked up the ball and ran with it. Bush Jr is the retard who went "hmmm, a minor, natural downturn in the economy? WE MUST RETURN TO REAGANOMICS!!!!11111oneoneone".
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On a completely different subject, who do you guys think is gonna be the frontrunner for the republican presidential nom? The thing is I can't think of a single candidate that doesn't have some sort of serious issue/baggage. Palin I don't have to get into, Jindal has made it clear he's not gonna run, Romney's going to have a difficult time dealing with both anti-Mormon bias and having to explain why Massachusetts healthcare system is different from the one just signed into law.
So...who does that leave, exactly? People keep bringing up Newt Gringrich but he's been out of the game so long I don't think he has a shot either, not to mention all his own scandals people can scrape up. Huckabee might try again, but he's also got a cushy job as a Fox news talking head so he might be satisfied.
Then again around this time last election cycle the big money was on Hillary, who had plenty of problems herself, so who knows what's gonna happen.
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I don't think we'll see any all-star candidates; the incumbent usually wins, Obama's shown just how good he is at campaigning, and you certainly can't attack his lack of experience this time around.
Next point, which candidate represents the party is chosen by voters, as opposed to whichever candidate the party really wants to paint themselves with. And...given current levels of popularity, I'm expecting the Republican race to be Palin vs not-Palin. (The "not-Palin" candidate being someone moderate and not into theatrics).
Of course, humans are kinda meta--if we just follow the above through to the conclusion, we get someone similar to John-Kerry--mediocre and moderate (which doesn't seem like the way to beat Obama). So...bearing that in mind, they might just go for someone mediocre and crazy...like Palin.
Don't get me wrong, I'd rather not see Palin '12, but I'm not sure who's more likely than her.
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I think it's a bit premature to guess '12 candidates yet. How the '10 cycle plays out will affect the planning in a profound way. If the Republicans dreams come true and they pick up some seats to weaken Obama, they may take this election more seriously. If not, I suspect it's going to either be a hungry young politician willing to gamble or a throwaway candidate.
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I would be very happy not to think about presidential campaigns for another 2 years if at all possible.
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I would be very happy not to think about presidential campaigns for another 2 years if at all possible.
Somehow saying this, coupled with your avatar amuses the hell out of me.
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Mentioned this in chat the other day, think it's worth posting here.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/leading-atheists-richard-dawkins-and-christopher-hitchens-seek-popes-arrest-20100412-s1av.html
While this actually going through is damn unlikely, the part that interests me is this:
"The Vatican is not recognised as a state in international law. People assume that it has existed for time immemorial but it was a construct of [Italian wartime leader Benito] Mussolini and, when the Vatican first applied to become a member of the UN, the US said no," Mr Stephens told The Guardian.
So, in short, the Pope is not given the protection that being a head of state grants -legally-. However, I can somehow see this not actually holding up, or him somehow being given protection before the visit, which is currently scheduled for September. Still, it'll be interesting to see how this unfolds, at the very least.
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For the Brits specifically, but kinda interesting in general:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7096786.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1
JK Rowling writes a guest piece about the British Conservative party. It's not flattering. Point of fact, reading on, it's pretty much chewing their heads off.
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"The Vatican is not recognised as a state in international law. People assume that it has existed for time immemorial but it was a construct of [Italian wartime leader Benito] Mussolini and, when the Vatican first applied to become a member of the UN, the US said no," Mr Stephens told The Guardian.
This is pretty much nonsense. The Vatican is clearly the descendant of the Papal States, the parts of Italy the Pope personally ruled since the fall of the Roman Empire. The Papal States shrunk to nothingness after the House of Savoy succeeded in uniting Italy under their banner and took away all the Pope's territory. However the Pope was a sore loser and never renounced rulership of Rome / large swathes of Italy until the deal with Mussolini... which really only recognized the current reality, that the Pope could run his own three blocks of Rome because Italy was willing.
You could say exactly the same thing about Poland, which also ceased to exist for a time, that Poland was merely a construct of the Versailles Treaty and only came into existence in 1919. To say this would require ignoring the Poland that existed for thousands of years beforehand, but details.
A far better question is if it's a good idea to have the Pope ruling his own territory, but saying it's not a state? Riiiiiiiiiiiiight.
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And the world at large has started caring greatly about sovreignty of state again since ... when now?
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Since it involves religion, of course.
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US Securities and Exchange Commission charges Goldman Sachs with fraud over various gimmicks played by them during the leadup to the financial disaster.
http://bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1247832&position=0
The timing of this is not coincidental, surely.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-17/democrats-say-goldman-sachs-fraud-suit-bolsters-case-for-rules.html
Definitely not.
Regardless of the politics behind it, I'm always for frog-marching the greedy little shits to prison one after the other just because the thought of the hyper-rich and powerful being actually held accountable for being massive assholes gives me some kind of grim satisfaction.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/26/92905/supreme-court-to-review-ban-on.html
http://volokh.com/2010/04/26/supreme-court-agrees-to-review-constitutionality-of-ban-on-distributing-violent-video-games-to-minors/
This should be interesting. Hot on the heels of invalidating a federal ban on depictions of animal cruelty, the supreme court is taking up a case on whether it is constitutional to penalize the sale of violent video games to minors. Two issues at play here: whether video games are speech under the first amendment in the same way movies and books are (which looks very likely, especially given that the law in question treats them like they are), and to what extent a state can restrict the availability of violent material to minors.
The court's opinion on depictions of animal cruelty robustly supported strict limits on government criminalizing of speech, but I think the court will probably find the CA law valid for two reasons. First: the court is more deferential to laws that are designed to protect minors from harmful speech (though as far as I know that idea usually plays out in obscene or at least sexual material) and second, the court is old and parochial, and may have been more shocked that a hunting magazine would be contraband than that GTA4 would be.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703465204575208382473306238.html
A pretty good look at the Arizona immgration bill that just passed.
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Not in agreement with a lot of it, though I do agree with their final comment - you kinda do fucking need to open up the floodgates some. Current pace of things is pretty fucking stupid in the first place.
This is something that's needed to happen for a while - and it's something that, IIRC, Bush supported (one of his few good points) but his own party forced him to back down on (at a glance, yup, mostly the Republicans killed the bill (a few Yes from them in there, but), the Democrats tenative supported with some mixed nos in there). So saying "Obama's gonna make an example on this" ... yyyyymmmaybe but uh with how much shit flew over Healthcare, you're pressing him for more shit? Yeah, okay. Nice. And I fully expect that you'd blame him as soon as shit slowed down on immigration reform if he tried to take it on.
Don't get me wrong. Something needs to get done. But... I'm not exactly pleased with that article at all, it's pretty snide toward anyone pissed toward Arizona (when the bill is pretty much flat out racist) and itself snipes at Obama. So, yeah. Myself, I still just vote we flush Congress out and try again, but no one listens to me.
EDIT: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=1&vote=00206 <-- Source for the vote kill thing.
EDIT 2: Apologies if it's a bit inflammatory. In general, I do agree that we need to fix immigration reform, but the WSJ in general has become a written, better-styled Fox to me as of late - they hardly attempt to hide their biases. Thus my frustration - very few media outlets bother to both be balanced and truthful, and I honestly don't think there needs to be a sacrifice made of one for the other. I'd elaborate more, but I should be essaying. I just would honestly expect more of the WSJ given their position, but they seem to have fallen for the same shit most all MSM has. Blrgl.
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Well, there's no real provisions for that, barring them all dying. But apparently causing that would be a crime.
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A few thoughts on Arizona's immigration law and the WSJ editorial.
A little legal mistake in the WSJ piece that's bugging me but illustrates how dangerous this law is: they say the law allows police to stop suspected immigrants then arrest them even if they don't commit a crime. That's not exactly true. They are committing a crime because the law makes being in Arizona without proper immigration status a crime in and of itself, which is why police can now demand papers of whoever they have a "reasonable suspicion" is an illegal.
The law doesn't define what a reasonable suspicion is, so there's nothing explicitly racial in the text, but we all know better than that, don't we? The effect is clear: anyone who is Hispanic must have their identification on them at all times or risk arrest, period. That's pretty fucking shocking. As a country we don't require our citizens to have ID cards. Now we're a country that doesn't require its citizens to have ID cards unless you're brown-skinned and live in Arizona.
There's nothing inherently wrong with an editorial being politicized, by the way, because editorial boards are by definition givers of opinions, not fact-deliverers. I'm generally unimpressed with WSJ's editorials that I read, but that's a different matter. And it's true Arizona is the victim of national paralysis on immigration, but saying Obama is going to/has politicized the law, however, is silly. The law was hyperpolitical to begin with, and no one on either side of the debate should pretend otherwise. Likewise, accusing Obama of not delivering immigration reform in an election year is true, but it's hardly his fault alone, he just gets top billing, because WSJ. Look at the Republicans' axiomatic opposition to pretty much anything the Dems introduce.
EDIT: An extraordinarily angry Linda Greenhouse (NYT Supreme Court reporter) on the Arizona bill.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/breathing-while-undocumented/?ref=opinion
EDIT2: As far as the politics are concerned, the Republican governor of Arizona has seen her strong lead late last year deteriorate as Hispanics shore up support to her Democratic challenger. As one might expect, following her signing of the bill, she's more popular than ever with Republicans in the state, and anathema to Hispanics.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/27/terry-goddard-pulls-ahead_n_553823.html
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This is something that's needed to happen for a while - and it's something that, IIRC, Bush supported (one of his few good points) but his own party forced him to back down on (at a glance, yup, mostly the Republicans killed the bill (a few Yes from them in there, but), the Democrats tenative supported with some mixed nos in there). So saying "Obama's gonna make an example on this" ... yyyyymmmaybe but uh with how much shit flew over Healthcare, you're pressing him for more shit? Yeah, okay. Nice. And I fully expect that you'd blame him as soon as shit slowed down on immigration reform if he tried to take it on.
Both parties are guilty of using immigration as a political issue instead of actually dealing with it. And what Miki said, yeah. It's an editoral, not reporting a story. The law itself is terrible, but the federal government's poor handling of the situation has put Arizona in a bad spot here.
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My apologies re: the editorial part, but frankly I stopped considering anything coming from MSM as much more than an editorial a while back.
And yeah, not gonna argue that both sides have used immigration as political tokening, and that the federal government as a whole (past, present, probably future) is doing a bad job on it. But singling out Obama there was facepalm worthy to me and completely undermined the decent point they made at the end, at least for me. One of the few people I'd consider less easy to snipe at here, and... potshot made, good job.
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How dare people use things like their migration policies be a part of their platform! They should be sticking to appearances and outright lies only.
Also accusations of politicising the law in the US system? Don't you have elected law officials? Do you not have a huge deal over which party a Supreme Court Judge favours? Pardon me while I sit in my corner and accuse the person who built my unit 30 years ago of making my walls out of brick and mortar.
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There hasn't been a coherent stab at immigration policy since Bush tried (and failed) to do so a few years back. Hopefully the attention this poorly designed law gets will draw some actual attention towards the problem instead of the usual posturing.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-04-27-1Amillfaith27_ST_N.htm
Our generation way less religious than previous generations according to this poll. Obviously the group doing the polling isn't the most unbiased in the world, but this type of study is fairly interesting none the less.
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Yeaaaaah very much a colored poll. This being said it also doesn't surprise me, I hate to say - given that's where my entire family has swung to and where a lot of my friends have as well. Anecdotal, but it fits what I've seen.
It kinda sucks for the parishes that have stayed good, but... eeeh, the gigachurches, I don't care for, my only real regret would be that money was wasted there in the first place. Though they're probably the most likely to survive, sadly.
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According to the Pew religious survey from...last year or so, Catholicism is the only major religion that hasn't taken a hit in the US, and the only reason why they haven't is because, unlike other religions, there is a steady flow of Catholic immigrants coming into the country from points south.
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The Church is getting something like a 1/5 of it's priests from Africa and Asia now. That it's not losing ground thanks to immigrants does not surprise me.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/28/pima-county-sheriff-calls_n_555895.html
AZ sheriff:
Dupnik called the law "racist" and "disgusting" and "stupid" and, in his "nuanced judgment" could not be enforced without mandatory racial profiling. Dupnik's reckoning of the legal issue is that he's just as likely to be sued for racial profiling as he is for not doing enough racial profiling, so he's standing pat, and will not enforce the new law.
Asked by local news station KGUN9 what he thought the solution to the law was, Dupnik replied, "The November election."
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And in the unintentional irony category:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/04/ahhh_good_times.php?ref=fpblg
Rep. Duncan D. Hunter says the US should begin deporting children of illegal immigrants even if they are themselves US citizens. Hunter can be forgiven for thinking it's in kids' best interests to stay where their parents are from. After all, inheriting his daddy's seat in congress did him wonders!
Actually deporting US citizens is, of course, ludicrously unconstitutional, but apparently that's not stopping 90 Republicans in the House from proposing a bill to do just that (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1868/show).
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The Church is getting something like a 1/5 of it's priests from Africa and Asia now. That it's not losing ground thanks to immigrants does not surprise me.
The ones coming into the US are from Central and South America, actually.
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And in the unintentional irony category:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/04/ahhh_good_times.php?ref=fpblg
Rep. Duncan D. Hunter says the US should begin deporting children of illegal immigrants even if they are themselves US citizens. Hunter can be forgiven for thinking it's in kids' best interests to stay where their parents are from. After all, inheriting his daddy's seat in congress did him wonders!
Actually deporting US citizens is, of course, ludicrously unconstitutional, but apparently that's not stopping 90 Republicans in the House from proposing a bill to do just that (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h1868/show).
Gotta love the quote where he says something to the effect of "It's not enough just to be born in the US, it's whats in your soul."
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/29/opinion/29kobach.html?ref=opinion
The drafter of the AZ immigration bill rebuts criticisms of it, saying it doesn't allow for racial profiling, doesn't force people to carry IDs, and is not controversial in practice. His defense is, in short, a steaming pile of bullshit.
“Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct. Over the past four decades, federal courts have issued hundreds of opinions defining those two words. The Arizona law didn’t invent the concept: Precedents list the factors that can contribute to reasonable suspicion; when several are combined, the “totality of circumstances” that results may create reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.
For example, the Arizona law is most likely to come into play after a traffic stop. A police officer pulls a minivan over for speeding. A dozen passengers are crammed in. None has identification. The highway is a known alien-smuggling corridor. The driver is acting evasively. Those factors combine to create reasonable suspicion that the occupants are not in the country legally.
What he's "forgetting" to tell you is that police don't need to have stopped you for speeding to pull you over and ask for your papers. He's trying to make you believe that people can only be reasonably suspected of being illegal immigrants if the police already had a reason to talk with them, but he's not saying that explicitly because it's not true. A person could be in line at a grocery store or sitting down to eat at a restaurant. If a cop has a "reasonable suspicion," that's all he needs to demand ID.
Now, what makes a cop have a "reasonable suspicion" someone is an illegal is a completely open question. He's right that the term has some legally defined standards, totality of the circumstances and all that, but those are just general guidelines. There's nothing in the bill that tells you what factors police should take into account, and his little van scenario is hardly the outer limit of what police will find suspicious.
It is unfair to demand that people carry a driver’s license. Arizona’s law does not require anyone, alien or otherwise, to carry a driver’s license. Rather, it gives any alien with a license a free pass if his immigration status is in doubt. Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country.
Cute little language there. "it gives any alien with a license a free pass." Bullshit. Replace "alien" with "anyone who would be suspected of being an illegal, including US citizens." And replace "free pass" with "the privilege not to be arrested for a crime they didn't commit."
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The law, in its majestic equality, permits Hispanic and Caucasian alike to be suspected of being an illegal immigrant, questioned by the police for that reason, and arrested if they have no papers.
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The fact that Arizona's police union or whatever is pretty rabidly against the bill says plenty there.
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http://kehrli.livejournal.com/667501.html - "I am a transsexual. (An open letter to the Washington Times)"
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The fact that Arizona's police union or whatever is pretty rabidly against the bill says plenty there.
The law gives citizens a private right of action to sue police departments if those citizens feel the departments aren't doing enough to enforce the bill. That will certainly mean police departments all over the state will have to defend themselves in court, and is a huge strain on their ability to apportion resources the way they see fit. It's not hyperbole to say that zealously enforcing this law will tie up time and resources the police would be spending enforcing other laws.
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Also, Washington Times fails forever.
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http://kehrli.livejournal.com/667501.html - "I am a transsexual. (An open letter to the Washington Times)"
As soon as I saw this, I linked it on Facebook because I knew it would interest people. Got a rush of great responses, naturally, and one idiot claiming that "If you don't like something you hear, don't listen. It's as simple as that" with regards to the prejudiced opinions.
...ever wish you could punch people through the computer?
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http://kehrli.livejournal.com/667501.html - "I am a transsexual. (An open letter to the Washington Times)"
As soon as I saw this, I linked it on Facebook because I knew it would interest people. Got a rush of great responses, naturally, and one idiot claiming that "If you don't like something you hear, don't listen. It's as simple as that" with regards to the prejudiced opinions.
...ever wish you could punch people through the computer?
I love it when people hide behind half-remembered, half-quoted bits of trivia. "Right to free speech? That means I can say whatever I want to whomever whenever! Deal with it!" is not among my favorite responses.
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"If you don't like something you hear, don't listen. It's as simple as that" with regards to the prejudiced opinions.
...ever wish you could punch people through the computer?
I hear ya, but where the Washington Times is concerned, it's probably good advice. They're the print version of trolls. They're trying to get a rise out of you. That's no excuse for them being worthless bigots, of course, but maybe it is a good reason to ignore them. They're like that kid in second grade that makes trouble just to get attention, so maybe the best thing to do is not give them any. Maybe.
"Right to free speech? That means I can say whatever I want to whomever whenever! Deal with it!" is not among my favorite responses.
Hiding behind your right to speak is the fancy rhetorical way of admitting you got nothing of substance to say and throwing a tantrum instead. If you don't like hearing people say it, try this: "Freedom of speech does not imply a right to an audience."
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http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/the-court-as-mr-fix-it/?ref=opinion
A look at what the supreme court may be up to taking the CA video game case. Usually the court only takes cases to settle a dispute among lower courts or to overturn a decision. There's no dispute among lower circuits, which have unanimously held bans on violent video games unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court's recent history with the first amendment strongly suggests that they're not about to overturn those decisions so it's a bit of a mystery.
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/06/california-students-sent-home-wearing-flags-cinco-mayo/
Now here's an interesting one. Students wearing American flag T-shirts were told they couldn't, as it was a Mexican holiday and might be incendiary. Sure, there's been plenty of "students told" stories recently, but usually the student is more left-aligned.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/05/george-rekers-anti-gay-ac_n_565142.html
Surprised this hasn't been picked up by people here yet. Anyway, notoriously anti-gay activist caught in Europe with a gay prostitute. Enjoy.
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As hard right anti-gay activists are showing. Gay prostitutes? That is something everyone can enjoy.
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"I deliberately spend time with sinners with the loving goal to try to help them," he said
Help them...get it on?
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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/05/06/california-students-sent-home-wearing-flags-cinco-mayo/
Now here's an interesting one. Students wearing American flag T-shirts were told they couldn't, as it was a Mexican holiday and might be incendiary. Sure, there's been plenty of "students told" stories recently, but usually the student is more left-aligned.
Schools are always in a tough position with this kind of thing. Clearly, they wanted to prevent race-based fighting, but they chose to do it in a way that goes against the first amendment (though students at school only get a watered-down version of freedom of expression, particularly with respect to expression that may lead to violence, so and Fox's legal analyst who says this is a blatant violation of the first amendment is wrong and should know it). In any case, they would probably be in the right if they did what they did because they had a well-founded fear that it was going to cause a fight, but without anything to prove that, they're definitely breaking CA law. New York has had similar issues in the past with Cinco de Mayo, because police officers would prevent people wearing gang paraphernalia from being in the parade, but of course that amounts to cops messing with people, even detaining them, based on what they're wearing.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/05/george-rekers-anti-gay-ac_n_565142.html
Surprised this hasn't been picked up by people here yet.
Eh. By this point, I think most people just mentally truncate "anti-gay activist" to read "gay."
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http://gocomics.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5f3053ef013480712c11970c-800wi
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Elena Kagan is nominated to the Supreme Court by the president.
I'm pretty sure I've seen more frothing-at-the-mouth from progressives than conservatives on this.
Also in the news, the president pushes for some "Revision of the Miranda rule" when it comes to Terrorism arrests. As a political action this is flat-out retarded. Most of the folks who are clamoring for being meaner to terrorists would sooner physically scalp the president than vote for him. And civil liberties folks are likely to get up in arms about it even if it goes nowhere at all.
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http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/cartoons/20100510_ink_tank?pg=14
for the supers
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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/04/30/arizona-legislature-passes-banning-ethnic-studies-programs/
No, seriously, Arizona. What the fuck is wrong with you?
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Mumei: This just makes me happy
Mumei: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/.a/6a00d83451c45669e20133ededb76f970b-550wi
Mumei: This is a conservative Republican transgender Cuban-American politician.
http://donnamilo.com/MeetDonna.html
Neat.
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-05-20/ayaan-hirsi-ali-on-injustice-of-female-genital-mutilation/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsL1
Credit to NRonline for linking this. The American Academy of Pediatrics wants to allow a (Admitally light) form of female gentital mutalation, which the author blasts them for.
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I think the author has it wrong. If the procedure as described truly is not harmful (in the long-term sense) and it's legally available, it reduces the urge for families determined to have it done to obtain it in a more dangerous and permanently damaging form. Same type of arguments one would make for abortion or male circumcision (which I believe is a silly cultural practice given cover by its actual medical benefits). Shaping harmful cultural practices into harmless one with a little nudge is much more likely to change minds than banning a practice outright, and will probably produce more living girls with intact genitals than the all-or-nothing alternative.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-alan-grayson/the-war-is-making-you-poo_b_585343.html
Alan Grayson introduces "The War is Making You Poor Act." God damn does that guy know how to message. I mean, obviously it's not going to work, but that has to be the best bill name since No Child Left Behind or the Patriot Act.
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If nothing else regarding the female genital mutilation article, he has a flawed argument that falsifies what it is arguing against. You have 1 paragraph about the bill, 1 describing what it is allowing and then 6 paragraphs describing full blown genital mutilation. Pure scare tactic and not relevant to the actual bill being put forward. I am entirely sympathetic to the argument that it is about and do agree that the genital mutilation happening around the world is mind boggling and absolutely disgraceful, but that is part of a far bigger argument than the one at hand.
Edit - And yeah, nice to see someone actually stepping up about that shit in more than just angry anarchist publications Jim, but as you acknowledge, not going to do anything.
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male circumcision (which I believe is a silly cultural practice given cover by its actual medical benefits).
Male circumcision...well from what I've heard, Americans do it to every baby (not sure if that's true or not, but some American friends of mine claimed it). I don't think it should be forced like that, but I don't see anything wrong with giving people the option, any more than I see a problem with giving people the option to get their ears pierced. Fundamentally it doesn't appear to be damaging, unlike female circumcision. The question I would raise with male circumcision is whether it should be done at birth, the way it usually is now, or whether the kid should be old enough to have some say in it.
(Are there medical benefits to doing it at birth compared to doing it later? The only medical benefit I know of offhand is "less likely to get AIDS from sex", which really should not come up until the kid's at least 12).
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It's a more dangerous and painful operation if you do it later in life (potential for infection, etc). The vast majority of American boys are circumcised, I believe.
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I'm not really sure what to say about the circumcision discussion, but yes I do approve of "The War Is Making You Poor" Act just on name judo alone.
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well from what I've heard, Americans do it to every baby
Honestly, mc, if you have time to read this topic and type this, you have time to spend 10 seconds on Google and learn the truth yourself. Your friend's wrong, though it is the majority (looks like ~75%). The Canadian rate appears to be somewhat lower, though I didn't find statistics I trusted at a quick glance.
Are there medical benefits to doing it at birth compared to doing it later?
The benefit to doing it at birth is that it's much less painful then. I don't think too many men would choose to have it done as an adult (though admittedly, some do), but many are glad that it was done to them as infants (though admittedly, not all). It may sound weird but it's true. Men are squeamish about that sort of thing.
EDIT: largely ninja'd by Jim. Oh well!
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Male circumcision protects you from penile cancer. It's also an incredibly minor surgery, since you're just removing a tiny flap of skin. There is no real benefit to waiting; the earlier the better there.
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In the past, circumcision has been suggested as a way to prevent penile cancer. This was based on studies that reported much lower penile cancer rates among circumcised men than among uncircumcised men. But most researchers now believe those studies were flawed because they failed to consider other risk factors, such as smoking, personal hygiene, and the number of sexual partners.
Most public health researchers believe that the risk of penile cancer is low among uncircumcised men without known risk factors living in the United States. Most experts agree that circumcision should not be recommended solely as a way to prevent penile cancer.
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/content/cri_2_4_2x_can_penile_cancer_be_prevented_35.asp
Circumcision is baby torture as far as I'm concerned. It might just be a "small flap of skin", but claims of its medical benefits are over exaggerated to say the least. Babies still go into shock during the unanesthesized procedure, and the only reason it's "better" to do it early is because at that point the baby won't fucking remember the procedure.
Claims that the foreskin can easily become infected are also blatantly false or exaggerated. The procedure is unnecessary and I'm sorry if claiming cultural/religious reasons as an excuse to "cut some skin off" makes me want to kick you in the nads until you're unable to reproduce.
You can probably guess my stance on the equivalent procedure performed on women.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/31/gaza.protest/index.html?hpt=T2
Israeli raid on the much talked about 'aid floatilla' leaves several of the boat's civillian crew/passengers dead. Still pretty new so not enough details to paint a clear picture of what happened, but this is likely to have negative fallout all across the world.
For my part, I think the violence was probably forced on the IDF boarding parties by civillians attacking them (based on footage of the events), but that the raids were ill conceived and should have been done in a manner that ensured nothing like this would happen. Regardless I find myself feeling little sympathy right now for the crew if the events really did unfold that way. It does make for a rather serious political event, and one that puts the US (as Israel's UN shield) in a painful position (again).
I also tend to disagree with the Gaza embargo as a whole after reading Amnesty's report on the issue.
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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/06/01/us/politics/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Miranda-Rights.html?_r=2&hp
Interesting court case involving Miranda and the right to silence.
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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/06/01/us/politics/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Miranda-Rights.html?_r=2&hp
Interesting court case involving Miranda and the right to silence.
Hooray for irony!
For the case in question, the ruling makes perfect sense. Dude did not say he did not want to talk, did in fact respond several times during the interrogation, and all long after he acknowledged his rights. Can't go back and say "oops, sorry, not speaking (much) meant I didn't want to speak (about my involvement in this crime), so you can't use that (incriminating answer)!" THANKFULLY.
Intellectually, however, I resent the idea that you need to invoke such a right. Perhaps it is (and should be) different in the legal case, but it sets a scary precedent if you need to deliberately declare interest in your rights in abstract. It makes sense to invoke your right to a lawyer -- how will they know that you want/need one unless you tell them? It does not make sense to invoke your right to silence. They cannot give that to you, or take it away. It, unlike a public defender, is not within their purview.
Big :( for that.
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I agreed with you on the first reading, but on reflection I'm not so sure. I mean, despite being silent, there's a distinct invocation of a right at play here. Why not make it so you have to be explicit about it? Remove the ambiguity so these situations have a clear, solid precedent to work off of.
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In all cases, I agree non-ambiguous statements are best. That doesn't mean they're always possible, or should always be required. In other words, I don't think "best practice" should turn into "only practice."
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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/06/01/us/politics/AP-US-Supreme-Court-Miranda-Rights.html?_r=2&hp
Interesting court case involving Miranda and the right to silence.
This is pretty simple to me. He remained silent for a period of HOURS. That's dozens, maybe hundreds of questions he remained mute for, not just one or two. The right to remain silent should be one that needs to be asserted, but no one in their right mind could possibly conclude that the meaning of two hours or so of silence in that situation was anything but a desire to not speak, and more specifically a desire not to self-incriminate. We shouldn't all have to learn magic words to say just to have our existing constitutional rights respected.
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He wasn't quiet all the time, from the article:
The officers in the room said Thompkins said little during the interrogation, occasionally answering ''yes,'' ''no,'' ''I don't know,'' nodding his head and making eye contact as his responses. But when one of the officers asked him if he prayed for forgiveness for ''shooting that boy down,'' Thompkins said, ''Yes.''
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Dune, I still say if he refused to verbally respond to questions, it's a clear signal he's invoked his rights. You're right, though, that the phrasing makes it unclear how long he was silent (and doesn't touch on refusal to answer questions, which is what I think this should turn on factually). So while I think the principle that a right to remain silent can be established by silence, it's not entirely clear whether what happened here would qualify.
I think the best way to look at this is to ask whether the right against self-incrimination is established by invoking it, or whether it is waived by failure to do so. The right to remain silent is an aspect of the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. I think the best view of individual rights conferred by the constitution is that there should be an assumption that a party is, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, always exercising those rights. To say otherwise would essentially allow people to commit constitutional violations against those unwilling or unable to complain without fear of recourse. And that's a bad thing.
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Dune, I still say if he refused to verbally respond to questions, it's a clear signal he's invoked his rights. You're right, though, that the phrasing makes it unclear how long he was silent (and doesn't touch on refusal to answer questions, which is what I think this should turn on factually). So while I think the principle that a right to remain silent can be established by silence, it's not entirely clear whether what happened here would qualify.
I think the best way to look at this is to ask whether the right against self-incrimination is established by invoking it, or whether it is waived by failure to do so. The right to remain silent is an aspect of the 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination. I think the best view of individual rights conferred by the constitution is that there should be an assumption that a party is, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary, always exercising those rights. To say otherwise would essentially allow people to commit constitutional violations against those unwilling or unable to complain without fear of recourse. And that's a bad thing.
This is what I was going for, too.
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http://volokh.com/2010/05/31/shedding-light-on-the-az-immigration-law/
the pdf in the link is a great analysis of the Arizona immigration law.
the upshot: people like the AZ governor and the bill's author who insist the bill does not authorize racial profiling are flat wrong (and, of course, they should know it). At the very least, the bill allows racial profiling, because the bill only forbids racial profiling that would be unconstitutional or against federal law, and not all racial profiling is (for example, in immigration, using a person's race as one of multiple factors in determining whether police have a reasonable suspicion is permissible). At most, the bill may require racial profiling by allowing private parties to sue the police to force them to enforce the bill. The extent permissible and extent necessary will only become clear after a few rounds of litigation. A complicating factor is that the governor signed an executive order modifying this bill that she said was intended to prevent racial profiling, but the change in the text doesn't do that (but courts, especially "liberal" ones, will find it relevant that she said, on the record, that that was what the change was for, and may decide to honor her stated intent rather than the formal change in the text).
When police are required to stop people and ask for their papers, and when they are not required but may do so, is also not entirely clear. Cops can demand papers from people they have a reasonable suspicion are illegal, but that mostly goes back to what kind of racial profiling goes on.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinion/05blow.html
http://www.gallup.com/poll/135764/Americans-Acceptance-Gay-Relations-Crosses-Threshold.aspx
Acceptance of homosexuality passes the 50% mark because of men. You're welcome.
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Thank you.
I have to admit I didn't see this one coming. Or rather my reactions were...
"Men have historically been less tolerant" *nodding* sounds right
"And so the percentage of tolerant men is rising faster" *nodding* sounds right
"And now the percentage of tolerant men is higher than the percentage of tolerant women" *record scratch* wait, what?
I'll be very interested to see the next poll in a year or two. I'm curious if the two percentages will stay about equal, or whether the gap will now reverse.
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http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3899835,00.html
I hope things keeps escalating like this. "Fuck your flotilla. We'll send our own aid flotilla to Turkey. And it'll be BETTER. With BLACKJACK. And HOOKERS."
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We'll show them! THIS is how you miss the point!
Edit - http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/07/2920430.htm I didn't do it.
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I can tell, there's no mention of an explosion.
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Local stuff for me follow up on the Flotilla raid. http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/07/2919698.htm
Yay!
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100611/us_time/08599199606400
Now Arizona Republicans intend to target children of illegal immigrants born in the US (legal US citizens by the Constitution) as part of their immigration cases.
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The federal/supreme courts are going to have a field day with these laws.
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That's the most 14th Amendment-violatin' law I ever did see.
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Yes the 14th amendment is rather clear on that. It may or may not have been INTENDED to be that way but it is undeniably written as such and is enshrined in the Supreme Law of the Land. So no dice, Arizona Republicans.
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The federal government almost certainly has valid laws that are contingent on US citizens getting state-issued birth certificates. For a state to deny them to US citizens born within their borders is probably an unconstitutional violation of federal supremacy.
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Also, they're douchebags.
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http://exiledonline.com/teagagged-tea-party-protest-silenced-over-organizers-links-to-2008-drill-here-drill-now-astroturf-campaign/
Fun recap on the Tea Party movement, just as a reminder.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Split-CFTC-approves-boxoffice-apf-2430440796.html?x=0
Debated where to put this, but you read it here first, folks! As if it weren't already abundantly clear, Wall Street is basically now just the gambling equivilent of betting on who will win the local children's soccer game, who will ask who to the big dance, or what color shirt the hot broad across the street will be wearing today.
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The fact that the movie theaters and studios themselves, who presumably have the most at stake in such deals, oppose the legislation tells me all I need to know. One could argue that it is a form of insurance for those groups (especially theaters who are the ones taking the risk on what the studios produce in a given year) but anyone else involved in such 'trading' is just gambling.
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http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/what-counts-as-abetting-terrorists/?nl=&emc=aua1
I'll have more to say bout it later, but to sum up my feelings: scary.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/world/europe/26iceland.html?hp
well. this should be interesting.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOC8ROQwOJM&feature=player_embedded
Fareed Zakaria: The only legitimate reporter left in the US Media who is not also a comedian.
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http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/federal-judge-rules-part-of-doma-unconstitutional.php?ref=fpa
Well, this should be fun! Federal judge declares the part of DOMA defining marriage as between a man and a woman unconstitutional, both for 10th Amendment state sovereignty reasons and 5th Amendment equal protection.
This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the Commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights, and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status
In the wake of DOMA, it is only sexual orientation that differentiates a married couple entitled to federal marriage-based benefits from one not so entitled. And this court can conceive of no way in which such a difference might be relevant to the provision of the benefits at issue.
By premising eligibility for these benefits on marital status in the first instance, the federal
government signals to this court that the relevant distinction to be drawn is between married individuals and unmarried individuals. To further divide the class of married individuals into those with spouses of the same sex and those with spouses of the opposite sex is to create a distinction without meaning.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/230872/judge-tauro-does-doma/hadley-arkes
Because I hate you, Miki.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/230872/judge-tauro-does-doma/hadley-arkes
Because I hate you, Miki.
Let me retaliate with a reason Harry Reid deserves to win.
Angle also charged in two separate radio interviews Wednesday that Reid is "just trying to hit the girl."
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/morning-fix/1-2-a-republican-governors.html#more
EDIT: regarding your post, super:
Up until the early 1990s 2008, when judges started acting as engines to install same-sex marriage an individual right to bear arms, it did not seem to occur to most people that marriage the 2nd amendment meant anything other than the marriage of men and women. right for militiamen to bear arms.
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Regarding the criticism in the NR piece, the lady doth protest too much. Gill (http://www.glad.org/uploads/docs/cases/2010-07-08-gill-district-court-decision.pdf) is not the world's greatest opinion, and they're right to point out some arguments are worded too cursorily, but the important points are completely defensible.
The meat and potatoes of the opinion is that singling out same-sex couples for worse treatment is a violation of equal protection because it fails the rational basis standard of review. That standard of review applies when any old group is singled out for treatment, be they homosexuals, felons, taxidermists, or redheads (as opposed to higher standards of review which apply when race, sex, or alienage are at issue). Rational basis extremely deferential to congress: so long as the purpose of a law is valid and the means of a law could conceivably advance that purpose, the law is valid. It is quite rare for a law to fail rational basis.
Congress articulated 4 purposes for the law:
1. To promote a healthy environment for children.
2. To promote heterosexual marriage.
3. To show disapproval of homosexuality.
4. To save money by not extending benefits to too many people.
According to the judge:
1 fails because there is a scientific consensus that kids are no worse off being raised by homosexuals. this is the weakest part of the opinion, because that may not have been true when the law was passed, and congress doesn't have to choose the best method of doing something, merely one that's plausible.
2 fails because preventing people who are already in legal same-sex marriages are extremely unlikely to go out, get divorced, and remarry just to get federal benefits.
3 fails because moral disapproval is an invalid purpose for a law, ever since Lawrence v. Texas.
4 fails because the desire to save money can't by itself justify a law that singles out a group for no other valid reason.
1,2, and 4 are weak arguments by themselves, and in normal circumstances would pass rational basis review, BUT Supreme Court precedent implies (though it never comes out and says) that when congress passes a law for reasons of moral animus, judges should not defer to what other reasons congress supplies for a law. In other words, though the arguments against 1, 2, and 4 are weak, the judge didn't have to address them in any serious way. Lending support to the judge's decision to dispense with all 4 of those reasons without too much elaboration was the defendant: the government, which admitted that none of those were valid purposes and supplied a different reason altogether for why the law should stand: that congress really passed DOMA in order to allow states to do their own thing with marriage without disturbing the national equilibrium. For states to be isolated laboratories of marriage law, in other words. Well, that works as a reason why states are barred by DOMA from having to credit same-sex marriages from other states, but it bears no relationship whatsoever to the question of federal benefits for same-sex couples. This lawsuit was about the latter rather than the former issue with DOMA, so the judge found that that argument failed rational basis because the means doesn't advance the purpose.
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I'm more amazed that you managed to read the entire article without rolling your eyes so hard that they spin in your eye sockets exorcist style.
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I'd just like to say that I've never met this judge guy before and he has never "done" me as the scary Super link is claiming.
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http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/230872/judge-tauro-does-doma/hadley-arkes
Because I hate you, Miki.
i think my eyeballs in fact have just rolled out of their sockets :( thanks super
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But they do that all the time.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2010-07-13-france-veils_N.htm
.
^ That's all I have to say.
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At Tolerance Camp, intolerance will not be tolerated.
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upside: now we can mock the French guilt-free!
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http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/231149/do-not-trust-cornyn-or-mcconnell-spending-cuts
Not a really shocking story, but the source (and complete tearing of a new asshole that goes with it) is.
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Ha, ha, ha, what. I agreed with a National review article. ha. what.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/22/the-case-for-impeachment/
Tom Tancredo: Policies I disagree with = Obama is subverting the Constitution and trying to destroy America!
There is no higher duty of the federal government and our elected representatives than to protect our nation from invasion. Multiple reports and testimony before Congress by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have stated that a porous border with Mexico is "a path" terrorists will use if they can. Some would-be terrorists, including at least one associated with Hezbollah, already have. Recent reports of contacts between Hezbollah and Mexican drug cartels make it all but certain that terrorists intent on destroying us will come across our southwestern border.
Citation needed. Hezbollah teaming up with Mexican drug cartels to invade America a la the Lebanon War?!
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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/30/us/AP-US-Ground-Zero-Mosque-ADL.html?_r=1&hp
The ADL, which used to stick up for all religious freedom, decides that we shouldn't have nasty religions preaching coexistence in a country where the 1st Amendment gives an absolute right to anyone, including Wahhabists (which the Cordoba Initiative isn't), to set up shop wherever the zoning will allow. Such a shame that the current head Foxman basically has been trying to turn the ADL into a subsidiary of Likud / the Republican Party.
(http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/mosquemap.gif)
(source for the image) (http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/07/newt-gingrich-clarifies-thoughts-on-mosque-exclusion-zone-questions-remain/)
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http://www.adl.org/PresRele/CvlRt_32/5820_32.htm
The ADL went on to add that, while they categorically reject racism and bigotry, because of understandably strong passions and keen sensitivities following WWII, maybe it would be better if Germanic people just, y'know, made themselves less visible. Bigotry toward them is unfair and wrong, of course. Of course! But having them around is counterproductive to the healing process, y'know?
Yeah, fuck the ADL.
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http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/07/religion I dig the economist's take on it, but that is nothing shocking since I usually agree with them. Fuck the ADL works perfectly, though!
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Speaking as a non-practicing Jew, fuck the ADL.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/08/02/waters.ethics.charges/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
Republicans have sex scandals, democrats have money scandals.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/08/04/california.same.sex.ruling/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1 <--Prop 8 overturned? I think this one will probably go farther so we'll see.
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I'd say next stop, Supreme Court, but the 9th circuit will also want to take a crack at it (they're commonly considered the most appellate court. I expect them to confirm the lower court decision).
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Heard some interesting opinions on that on the radio this morning.
If the 9th circuit sides against gay marriage, it probably won't be taken by the supreme court. On the other hand, if the 9th circuit sides with gay marriage, the supreme court won't want to leave a decision like that up to the 9th circuit.
As I understand it, the Supreme Court is still mindful of the public reaction over Roe vs Wade (which served to polarize rather than settle the issue). The concern being that the ruling came too far in advance of public opinion--and that a Supreme Court ruling here could be similarly too far in advance of public opinion (seeing as 7 years ago there were still state laws that put people in jail for having gay sex). I'm not sure if I buy this argument, though--religious fundamentalist lobbies have been growing recently. It's not like creationism was taught in school 50 years ago and got banned by the supreme court, polarizing the issue. The issue became polarizing all by itself.
I also can't say I'm too happy with the victory speech I heard quoted on the radio (possibly made by the plaintiffs?) Particularly the quote "Gays and Lesbians are the last group in the United States with laws discriminating against them" (paraphrased). I can think of several more groups, and not all of them are low-profile: Arizona's happening right now.
And then there's good old Obama, who still won't openly support gay marriage. In fact, the speculation is that bringing this issue to the forefront is going to cause Democrats problems in upcoming elections. I'm all for giving Democrats a slap in the face, but the further speculation is that the only response to a supreme court ruling here would be for opponents to amend the federal constitution on marriage, which would be bad. If this does become a spotlight issue, I also suspect the Employment Nondiscrimination Act will get permanently shelved (y'know, the one that makes it no longer legal to fire someone "because they're LGBT").
Don't get me wrong, I can't help but hoping that the Supreme Court does make gay marriage legal (it would make my life a little easier). A lot of what I've been hearing on this story has left a bit of a bittersweet taste in my mouth, though.
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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/07/30/us/AP-US-Ground-Zero-Mosque-ADL.html?_r=1&hp
You know, this is kind of late (since people have already started talking nonstop about someone building a mosque in an old Burlington coat factory), but I can't help but think that these might be related:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-august-4-2010/i-give-up---9-11-responders-bill
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I also can't say I'm too happy with the victory speech I heard quoted on the radio (possibly made by the plaintiffs?) Particularly the quote "Gays and Lesbians are the last group in the United States with laws discriminating against them" (paraphrased). I can think of several more groups, and not all of them are low-profile: Arizona's happening right now.
Yeah, some gay activists just don't know when to shut up. Yes, gay rights are properly considered civil rights, but that does not make the struggle for gay marriage somehow equivalent to the Civil Rights Era, unless there are a lot of lynchings I haven't picked up on (we'll leave aside AIDS, because tragic and culpable government inaction, no matter the consequences, is not the same thing as a bunch of dudes getting together to kill someone who's not like them).
Anyway, I realize I haven't written much about the Prop. 8 case, so let me summarize and critique the case:
Perry v. Schwarzenegger (http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/us/20100804_prop8_decision.pdf) holds that Prop. 8 is unconstitutional as a violation of the 14th Amendment's Due Process and Equal Protection clauses, and for the Equal Protection clause it's held unconstitutional on two separate bases, so 3 reasons in total.
1: Due Process:
It's a violation of the Due Process Clause for a state to arbitrarily deny a person a fundamental right of life, liberty, or property. Marriage is one such fundamental right. If the right that gay couples in CA are trying to exercise is the same "marriage" as the marriage right in those other cases, then it's fundamental and Prop. 8 is unconstitutional. Basically, is gay marriage marriage in the sense that the term has been used “in our Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices?”
For this, the judge looks mostly at Loving v. Virginia, the case that struck down bans on interracial marriage. The judge says that that case did not change the definition of the fundamental right to marry, but rather "recognized that race restrictions, despite their historical prevalence, stood in stark contrast to the concepts of liberty and choice inherent in the right to marry." The judge then looks at the updates of laws of marriage from institutions that focus rights in the husband to ones that give each partner equal rights, and finds that this update also does not change the definition of the right to marry. The judge finds that "Race and gender restrictions shaped marriage during eras of race and gender inequality, but such restrictions were never part of the historical core of the institution of marriage." Accordingly, the judge holds that "[t]o characterize plaintiffs’ objective as “the right to same-sex marriage” would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy — namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages."
It's a good argument, but I don't think it will carry the day, because the entire thing focuses on the legal definition of marriage but ignores the public conception of what a marriage is. Fundamental rights are defined as rights deeply rooted in "our Nation’s history, legal traditions, and practices," so what people have traditionally thought of as a marriage really does matter, and gay marriage simply was not on the map twenty years ago (when Loving v. Virginia was decided, in contrast, over 40 states already allowed interracial marriage.)
2: Equal Protection Homosexuals are a Suspect Class
It's unconstitutional to deny people "equal protection of the laws." This plays out in 2 ways. First, laws that selectively target a "suspect class" are subject to "Strict Scrutiny" by the courts, which means they are presumptively unconstitutional unless the government can show that it has a "compelling state interest" in enacting the law, which is a standard laws pretty much never meet. So if homosexuals are a suspect class, Prop. 8 is unconstitutional. Second, if a law targeting any group, be they hippies, felons, or pedophiles, lacks a "rational basis," it is unconstitutional.
A. Homosexuals are a Suspect Class.
Homosexuals have never been held to be a suspect class, but this case holds that they are, because they have historically been subject to discrimination and because there is no difference between them and heterosexuals that could justify unequal treatment by the law. Sounds good, but don't think for a second the Supreme Court is gonna buy it, because "suspect class" is reserved for race and (in limited circumstances) immigrant status, and that's it. Sex doesn't make the list, nor disability. Furthermore, there are reasons why homosexuals should be treated differently by the law, even if they're silly ones. (For example, say a judge is dealing with a sexual harassment case where the perpetrator is gay. That judge should be able to take sexual orientation into account when deciding what kind of training program to send the perpetrator to.)
B. Prop. 8 lacks a Rational Basis.
A law that targets any distinct group of people needs to be "rationally related to a legitimate state interest", which is to say it needs one reason OTHER than moral disapproval of the target group, AND that reason must theoretically be able to be advanced by the law. This is a really easy test, and you can count the number of times on one hand the Supreme Court has found laws that fail it, but the judge finds that Prop. 8 is one such law.
Here are the interests Prop. 8 proponents raised:
(1) reserving marriage as a union between a man and a woman and excluding any other relationship from marriage
(2) proceeding with caution when implementing social changes
(3) promoting opposite-sex parenting over same-sex parenting
(4) protecting the freedom of those who oppose marriage for same-sex couples
(5) treating same-sex couples differently from opposite-sex couples for administrative convenience/to keep CA's definition of marriage in line with the federal one.
To which the judge replies:
(1) tradition alone cannot be a rational basis
(2) there is no credible evidence that allowing same-sex marriage will harm society or have a negative impact on opposite-sex marriage
(3) there's no reason to believe allowing gays to marry will cause fewer straight parents to have and raise kids. Also, hello? Gay couples in civil unions can ALREADY adopt kids in CA, and those couples are treated equally at law.
(4) Hi, there's this case from 2003 called Lawrence v. Texas. It holds that mere morality disapproval is not a rational basis for a law. Heard of it?
(5) Creating a parallel institution is not administratively convenient at all.
What about saving state money? The Supreme Court has held that once the court has detected that moral disapproval is the reason for a law, saving money is no longer considered a good reason, and it's not hard to see that moral disapproval is the basis for Prop. 8, so there you have it.
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I think that the argument that Prop. 8 lacks a rational basis is a good one, and I also think the Supreme Court will UPHOLD this decision on that basis. I think this for two reasons. First of all, Kennedy was the justice who wrote Lawrence v. Texas, which held that mere morality was not a rational basis. That case was about homosexuals, so the "morality" in question in that case is exactly the same thing in question in this one: moral disapproval of homosexuality. I don't think Kennedy's gonna allow his holding to be diminished by saying Prop. 8 is somehow more rational than a different law that targeted homosexual relations (the law in question in Lawrence was a ban on homosexual sodomy, btw). My second reason is that, as far as I can tell, by finding Prop. 8 unconstitutional based on rational basis, the Supreme Court can invalidate Prop. 8 WITHOUT mandating same-sex marriage in states in which it has never been legal. A "rational basis" test looks at what the people enacting the law hypothetically would have thought when they enacted it. If you passed a law in 1900 that demanded that schools be constructed using asbestos so that kids would be safer, it would pass rational basis in 2000. Rational basis is all about the intent of the people who passed the law, not the reality of the situation. So I don't think states which have never legalized same-sex marriage would need to do so even if Prop. 8 went down, assuming it went down solely for lacking a rational basis.
bored yet?
no?
Ok, let me tell you all you need to know about the "9/11 Mosque."
1. It's a block from where I used to work, and a block from the subway station I took over the summer.
2. That Burlington Coat Factory has been out of business since 2006 at the latest.
3. There's an Amish grocery store next door which would presumably be taken down if the center went up.
4. They have fucking great quesadillas, which I eat on a semi-regular basis, which is why I can authoritatively say:
5. New Yorkers do not give a damn about the place. Yes, they oppose the centers in polls, but only because polls do not include the option, "I could not be bothered." You never, ever see protesters there.
6. But you do see a guy on the corner handing out flyers for New York Dolls, the strip club that operates across the street, just 2 blocks from hallowed Ground Zero (also without protest).
7. You couldn't even see the new world trade center (whenever it gets built) from the site because there is - surprise! - a tall building in the way.
8. They'd better not build the center there, because I fucking love those quesadillas.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/bush-campaign-chief-and-former-rnc-chair-ken-mehlman-im-gay/62065/
most powerful one yet.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/08/27/oregon.gps.surveillance/index.html?hpt=T2
Fuck the ninth circuit court.
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That's a crappy decision. I don't think the police should necessarily need a warrant to put a GPS on a car just so they can find the car later, but they should need one to go on private property in placing it, and they certainly should need one to use the information on where the car went in court. I wonder if a balance could be struck where the cops could plant a GPS without a warrant, but not use the information unless they get a warrant?
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I rather don't want the police to be able to track anything I do without a warrant, as a rule.
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Yeah. If they have that kind of discretion to use these devices without needing to explain themselves, I figure it's only a matter of time before we hear about some guy using his access and authority to put a tracking device in his girlfriend's car or something equally personal and inappropriate.
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Clicked the link, saw it was the DEA. Was not shocked. Breaking news! The DEA does something ethically questionable! zzzzzz
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Yeah. If they have that kind of discretion to use these devices without needing to explain themselves, I figure it's only a matter of time before we hear about some guy using his access and authority to put a tracking device in his girlfriend's car or something equally personal and inappropriate.
Fear of that kind of abuse should matter too much when you're considering what should be admissible in court because if a cop is gonna abuse their authority like that, well... they probably already can. They already have the technology, just not the right. (nothing about warrants is gonna stop someone who is already breaking rules and probably laws by using police resources for a personal purpose like that, or so it seems to me.)
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/republican-orrin-hatch-stands-up-for-cordoba-house-video.php?ref=fpb
some support for the downtown NYC Islamic center (or, y'know, terror mosque, whatever you want to call it) from an unexpected source.
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The support doesn't surprise me a ton, but the fact that he is supporting it strongly does. Good on Hatch for showing spine and standing up there.
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http://www.nytimes.com/1995/08/27/us/gingrich-suggests-tough-drug-measure.html
Mass executions of drug smugglers? When the hell did Newt Gringrich become such a nutcase?
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Probably about the same time he noticed that publicly acting like an insane wingnut gets you mad bank and publicity.
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Alternately, when he observed that a portion of the world that still has capital punishment has similar laws. People still smuggle drugs in south east Asia where it can get you executed.
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http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2010/09/14/france-burka-ban.html
France Senate votes almost unanimously for the Burka ban.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11027288
France cracks down on Gypsies.
wtf France.
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Agree with the wtf on the Burqa ban. The Gypsies issue is more complex - as noted, technically they're not kicking out gypsies, they're kicking out illegal immigrants who are in known problem spots. That happen to be hubs of gypsy illegal immigration. Yeah, yeah, I know.
That said, it's a really really tough issue with no easy solution.
http://www.economist.com/node/16943841?story_id=16943841
is an article that covers the problems that the Gypsies have in more depth than I can, but aside from the travelling lifestyle not really translating to the 21st century well at all, the Gypsies face horrendous discrimination in their home countries. What's worse is that their culture doesn't value education highly and the Eastern European countries keep it that way - here's the most horrifying quote from that article:
One of the biggest problems is schooling: Roma children are routinely placed in institutions for the mentally handicapped. A new survey by Amnesty International says that in Slovakia, Roma make up less than 10% of the school-age population but 60% of pupils in special schools. Unsurprisingly, many leave school early, without the skills they need to compete in the job market. Instead they drift into collecting scrap metal, begging or petty crime.
Ideally the state would step in and hit the education issue the hardest as a way to work on Gypsy integration. However, I can't exactly blame France for not wanting to be the state that dives into a massive jobs / education program for the Gypsies - they're just getting hit by the spillover from what by all rights should be a problem Bulgaria / Romania / et. al need to address. So yeah, no easy answers on that one.
Anyway. Primary day was yesterday! The big news of course was the Mike Castle lost in Delaware, which is a shame, since Castle was of that dying breed of the 50's and 60s Northeast Republicans. There's that famous YouTube clip of him actually telling a questioner in a crowd that no, Obama is an American born in Hawaii, really. There's also the fact that there's nothing in O'Donnell's background that suggests she'd be any good at that whole governing thing. This'll make the general election interesting... Castle was respected (??) among the left and the independents and almost surely would have won Biden's old Senate seat, but now the pundits are betting on a Democratic hold. We'll see; depends on if the Republicans who voted Castle turn out for O'Donnell. (Also, as far as media narratives, it always amazes me how people treat a 53%-47% election as if "the voters have chosen X" and a 53-47 election the other way as the reverse. Especially in primaries, that's not anywhere near all the electorate, and that still means that a huge number of people supported the other person...)
The more depressing news was that Adrian Fenty, the youngish and independentish mayor of DC, was defeated by the machine candidate. According to the Washington Post, it sounds like he just didn't really run a campaign until too late assuming that everything was fine. Sigh. Not to insult DC, but you know how some politicians in third world countries are beloved outside the country by international types but promptly lose their reelection due to not being popular enough at home? Reminds me of that here... Fenty was one of those guys whom everyone outside of DC thought was great and helped the city, but it seems results weren't enough. I really don't trust DC voters taste in mayors, as remember that they gave us Marion Berry's *second* term after he'd already been convicted.
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"Almost surely" nothing - As somebody who's covered politics in delaware for five years now I can tell you without a doubt in my mind that the only Democrats who'd stand a chance against Castle are Joe Biden and the state's other senator, Tom Carper. There's a very strong gool-ol'-boy system here and Castle was one of the bigshots in it. That he lost a primary is jawdropping, and if anything what that says about the mindset of the Republicans this year is being undersold.
That said, O'Donnell has a very good chance of getting annihilated in the general election. This state has a lot of Dems who liked Castle but won't vote for just any Republican, and she's not going to win them over. I doubt she'll even try very hard. She's very much an appeal-to-the-base person, and also something of a nutcase. Neither will help.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/karl-rove-dukes-it-out-with-hannity-there-are-a-lot-of-nutty-things-odonnells-been-saying.php
The fact that someone with as much pull as Karl Rove came out and more or less called her unfit for office says more than enough about O'Donnell.
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And oh yes. For completeness's sake, Lazio - who made various scumbag comments on the "Ground Zero Mosque" - lost the primary to Paladino, who is crazy, but is mad as hell and isn't going to take it anymore and is going to go to Albany with an axe. However it doesn't matter as neither had a chance of victory anyway, short of Cuomo converting to Wahabbist Islam and promising to implement Sharia or something.
On that note!
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/091510dntexeducation.28d07a4.html
The board will consider a resolution next week that would warn publishers not to push a pro-Islamic, anti-Christian viewpoint in world history textbooks.
The Texas school board is at it again, tackling the problem of all those pro-Islamic textbooks being pushed on innocent Texan children.
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The more depressing news was that Adrian Fenty, the youngish and independentish mayor of DC, was defeated by the machine candidate. According to the Washington Post, it sounds like he just didn't really run a campaign until too late assuming that everything was fine. Sigh. Not to insult DC, but you know how some politicians in third world countries are beloved outside the country by international types but promptly lose their reelection due to not being popular enough at home? Reminds me of that here... Fenty was one of those guys whom everyone outside of DC thought was great and helped the city, but it seems results weren't enough. I really don't trust DC voters taste in mayors, as remember that they gave us Marion Berry's *second* term after he'd already been convicted.
This strategy generally doesn't end well for people running for political office, and yet, time and time, they use this strategy. Of course, we may see the backfiring in CA governor's race this time, because I wouldn't be surprised if everyone is so sick of Meg Whitman being everywhere for 6 months straight that they run away from her!
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/karl-rove-dukes-it-out-with-hannity-there-are-a-lot-of-nutty-things-odonnells-been-saying.php
The fact that someone with as much pull as Karl Rove came out and more or less called her unfit for office says more than enough about O'Donnell.
I wonder how much of that is Karl Rove calling it like it is and how much is Karl Rove being butthurt that his party machine got owned by a lower-middle class crazy.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124708036 <-- Interesting.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/colbert-testifies-on-ag-jobs-bill-like-most-members-of-congress-i-havent-read-it-videos.php?ref=fpa
Stephen Colbert status: Still Owns
But maybe I just have a soft spot for people who troll Steve King.
Also!
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/09/officials_sheriff_joes_office_charged_luxury_trips_misused_up_to_possible_80_million.php?ref=fpb
In case you've been living under a rock Joe Apario was the Arizona Sheriff that started that awful illegal immigration bill thing. 1700 dollars for a portable generator for lights on a tank. Out of the jail fund.
America's Toughest Sheriff
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But he isn't a Democrat, I thought it was the Democrats that are wasting your tax dollars on frivolous things. Are you sure he wasn't giving blow jobs to cowboys?
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11416055 China vs Japan slapfight is in full swing.
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Yes let's get into a pissing contest with the country that's still very upset about that little period at the beginning of the 20th century. Good surgery, Japan! Won't go wrong at all.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/01/new.jersey.suicide.legal/index.html?hpt=T1
I hope the two responsible for setting up that camera get the longest possible sentence. That is just horrible to do to someone.
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I predict they'll get a token amount of jail time and a lot of community service/probation. To be honest I'm not sure what they deserve; this is a horrible crime but one that's difficult to judge. Yeah, it was a stupid, malicious teenage thing. Is it worth going to jail for five years over? Hell if I know.
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The idea that hey getting kicked out of university, a permanent criminal record and 5 years prison may not be enough punishment like they talk about in that article is fucking insane though.
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I mostly agree except on one point. A lot of comments and even the article suggests that the video would not have been posted online if he were straight and engaging in heterosexual intercourse. Uh... no? Granted, he was targeted for that reason, but honestly if they had caught him banging a chick it would still have gone up. Have those people even been on the internet?
I honestly don't know. It's a crime that needs punishment, but I agree with Grefter that the tone involved seems a little overstated.
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http://abcnews.go.com/WN/us-apologizes-std-study-infected-guatemalans-syphilis-1940s/story?id=11779633
There goes Obama going everywhere APOLOGIZING again geez that's not what a pres...
Wait... we did WHAT?
Oh shit. That's actually pretty horrible.
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I mostly agree except on one point. A lot of comments and even the article suggests that the video would not have been posted online if he were straight and engaging in heterosexual intercourse. Uh... no? Granted, he was targeted for that reason, but honestly if they had caught him banging a chick it would still have gone up. Have those people even been on the internet?
I honestly don't know. It's a crime that needs punishment, but I agree with Grefter that the tone involved seems a little overstated.
It wouldn't be the same crime with hetero sex...unless the person was prominent in the gay community, but secretly bi. It's the closet that makes the difference here.
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This kind of thing is very fact-specific. Gay or straight isn't the important question. The important question is, what did the roommate think this was going to do to the guy? If the answer is not much, then he deserves a light punishment. If the answer is that he anticipated that the roommate would be very hurt by it, then he deserves a heavy one. Now, the fact that the guy was gay definitely plays into how his roommate should have thought the guy would react, but it's not dispositive.
We want this analysis:
The roommate deserves heavy punishment
because the invasion of privacy he committed was particularly egregious
because he knew the guy would be devastated
because the guy was sensitive about his homosexuality
NOT this analysis:
The roommate deserves heavy punishment
because the invasion of privacy he committed was particularly egregious
because the guy was sensitive about his homosexuality
Let's keep this in perspective. The roommate didn't throw him off the bridge, and the roommate should not be treated as if he did. We want to punish the roommate for his conduct, not for someone else's sensitivity. We shouldn't let the punishment grow out of proportion to the culpability of the act, no matter how terrible the consequences.
(for the record I do think it should be a crime to take pictures of someone in their own home without their knowledge and then show those pictures to the public, though not a particularly serious one.)
EDIT: Here's the crime (http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2010/10/the-clementi-suicide-and-invasion-of-privacy.html#more-34666) the two people are being charged with, criminal invasion of privacy, along with a good take on the situation.
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Notmiki, what sentence would you pass if you were the judge there?
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Notmiki, what sentence would you pass if you were the judge there?
If I were a judge, I'd be bound by the law of NJ. I would have the choice of sentencing with a fine or a term of imprisonment. Because the crime was so harmful to the victim, I'd be inclined to impose imprisonment. How long depends on the extent to which the people involved thought that their actions would harm the victim. If they were acting with real malice, I'd impose the maximum penalty: 5 years with a 2.5 mandatory minimum. I think they probably weren't, but that doesn't outweigh the harm they caused, and they definitely had to have known that this would harm their victim to some degree, so I'd probably impose a 3 year sentence with no mandatory minimum. As an aside, I think this is about right for punishment even if I weren't bound by the law of NJ.
Here are the relevant bits of NJ law:
2C:14-9. Invasion of privacy, degree of crime; defenses, privileges
2C:14-9(c) An actor commits a crime of the third degree if, knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he discloses any photograph, film, videotape, recording or any other reproduction of the image of another person whose intimate parts are exposed or who is engaged in an act of sexual penetration or sexual contact, unless that person has consented to such disclosure. For purposes of this subsection, “disclose” means sell, manufacture, give, provide, lend, trade, mail, deliver, transfer, publish, distribute, circulate, disseminate, present, exhibit, advertise or offer. Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection b. of N.J.S.2C:43-3, a fine not to exceed $30,000 may be imposed for a violation of this subsection.
2C:43-6 Sentence of imprisonment for crime; ordinary terms; mandatory terms.
(a) Except as otherwise provided, a person who has been convicted of a crime may be sentenced to imprisonment, as follows:
(3)In the case of a crime of the third degree, for a specific term of years which shall be fixed by the court and shall be between three years and five years;
(b)As part of a sentence for any crime, where the court is clearly convinced that the aggravating factors substantially outweigh the mitigating factors, as set forth in subsections a. and b. of 2C:44-1, ...the court may fix a minimum term not to exceed one-half of the term set pursuant to subsection a., or one-half of the term set pursuant to a maximum period of incarceration for a crime set forth in any statute other than this code, during which the defendant shall not be eligible for parole....
2C:44-1 Criteria for withholding or imposing sentence of imprisonment.
(a) In determining the appropriate sentence to be imposed on a person who has been convicted of an offense, the court shall consider the following aggravating circumstances:
(1) The nature and circumstances of the offense, and the role of the actor therein, including whether or not it was committed in an especially heinous, cruel, or depraved manner;
(2) The gravity and seriousness of harm inflicted on the victim, including whether or not the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the victim of the offense was particularly vulnerable or incapable of resistance due to advanced age, ill-health, or extreme youth, or was for any other reason substantially incapable of exercising normal physical or mental power of resistance;
(b) In determining the appropriate sentence to be imposed on a person who has been convicted of an offense, the court may properly consider the following mitigating circumstances:
(2) The defendant did not contemplate that his conduct would cause or threaten serious harm;
EDIT: god, I'm such a law dork.
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Turns out separation of church and state is more or less written into the first amendment. Who knew? Answer: not Christine O'Donnell, apparently.
http://volokh.com/2010/10/20/senator-odonnell/
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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/251121/drug-war-failure-conrad-black
NR is at it's best when it's focusing on actual issues and not being a shill for the right wing of the republican party. This article details the unsurprising failure of the drug war and puts it in perspective.
For blacks, the chances of being arrested and charged and convicted for cannabis offenses are 300 percent greater than for whites. Sending nearly half a million cannabis offenders to prison each year inflicts a $40,000 annual charge per prisoner, not counting the processing costs of the mass-convict-production U.S. law-enforcement system.
yikes.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the new Mayor of Toronto:
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/17952--councillor-rob-ford-under-fire-over-aids-comments
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/rob-ford-and-a-decade-of-controversy/article1678543/page2/
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The exhorbitant cost to taxpayers is the main reason I'm for legalizing marijuana. Think of the CA budget crisis one year was over $20 billion? Because it's completely not-impossible that we spend 5%-10% that much as a state for jailing over marijuana.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the new Mayor of Toronto:
http://www.citytv.com/toronto/citynews/news/local/article/17952--councillor-rob-ford-under-fire-over-aids-comments
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/rob-ford-and-a-decade-of-controversy/article1678543/page2/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nySs1cEq5rs <-- Fuckin' cyclists.
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SHOCKING NEWS: Christine O'Donnell got her ass kicked today. Democrats also picked up the House seat Mike Castle vacated to run for the Senate, so that was pretty much a clusterfuck all around.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/12/travel.screening/index.html?hpt=T1 As always, fuck the TSA.
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Yeah, kinda decided my next trip (DLC/SF) would be via train at this point. If I felt the TSA was remotely trustworthy maybe I'd change my tune but at this point I can't really see a good enough reason to utilize flight. Alternately I figure out the hell that is Greyhound but not terribly inclined in that direction, you know?
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http://exiledonline.com/the-rally-to-restore-vanity-generation-x-celebrates-its-homeric-struggle-against-lameness/
So many many good lines in this. People should take note. Not that I think John Stewart or Colbert are bad things, but taking them seriously and letting them (making?) them figureheads for your movement is a bad idea. Yes the Left in the US is directionless and stupid, you are letting it be so. Get the fuck out there and start DOING something.
Going to do 2 quotes from near the end of the article that I love.
Ever read the preamble to the Constitution? There’s nothing about private property there and self-interest. Nothing at all about that. It’s a contract whose purpose is clearly spelled out, and it’s a purpose that’s the very opposite of the purpose driving Stewart’s rally, or the purpose driving the libertarian ideology so dominant over the past few generations. This country, by contract, was founded in order to strive for a “more Perfect Union”—that’s “union,” as in the pairing of the words “perfect” and “union”—not sovereign, not states, not local, not selfish, but “union.” And that other purpose at the end of the Constitution’s contractual obligations: promote the “General Welfare.” That means “welfare.” Not “everyone for himself” but “General Welfare.” That’s what it is to be American: to strive to form the most perfect union with each other, and to promote everyone’s general betterment. That’s it. The definition of an American patriot is anyone promoting the General Welfare of every single American, and anyone helping to form the most perfect Union—that’s “union”, repeat, “Union” you dumb fucks.
If this theoretical country that stood for that kind of shit existed today I would live there in a heartbeat (Canada maybe?)
Anytime anyone says anything libertarian, spit on them. Libertarians are by definition enemies of the state: they are against promoting American citizens’ general welfare and against policies that create a perfect union. Like Communists before them, they are actively subverting the Constitution and the American Dream, and replacing it with a Kleptocratic Nightmare.
*Salute*
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Ok, I gotta say, Gref, the article annoys me, and so do your quotes.
Annoyance #1:
A century-old ideological movement, Liberalism: once devoted to impossible causes like ending racism and inequality, empowering the powerless, fighting against militarism, and all that silly hippie shit—now it’s been reduced to besting the other side at one-liners…
A century ago, Liberalism was not about ending racism and inequality, empowering the powerless, fighting against militarism, and all that silly hippie shit. That's why there weren't hippies in 1910. Sorry, but no matter how much you like liberals now, that's not who they always were.
Annoyance #2: if the author read PAST the preamble of the constitution, it may become clear to the author that the Constitution sets forth a vision of a federal government with LIMITED authority. How is that? Because the federal government only has power to the extent that the constitution gives it power, as opposed to the states, which reserve the rest of the power. Sorry, but no matter how much you hate libertarians, that's how the Constitution works.
The federal government of the US has the ability to do most of the wonderful public welfare-benefitting things it can currently do because of a long history of federal usurpation of authority from the states via questionable supreme court decisions and flat-out power grabs. I think it's a good thing things happened that way, but make no mistake: the Constitution was not meant to create a federal government with such broad power.
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All of which are fair criticisms. They are quotable quotes, soundbites of vitriol and the substance is backloaded something chronic. Far from Ames' best work.
The goals of the Constitution and the way in which they were set out to achieve said goals are not exactly joined at the hip. Reforms have happened as you have laid out, liberalism and requirements for liberalism has changed. None of that means that the core concepts that the whole point of the Union was it so enable the general empowerment and betterment of the people. If that involves greater power to the government at the cost of specific individual freedoms then so be it.
As for Liberalism in general not being about hippy shit? Well it might not have been on everyone's lips, but it seems to have come up with an aging Ben Franklin for example. The general hippie alternative lifestyle stuff actually does genuinely date back that far with the beginning rise of the Bohemian life style and blending that with the Romanticism movement (your William Blake and whatnot) and a lot of it sprouts up around the edges of the Liberalist movement for a long time. So you know there actually was hippies around in 1910 (back to the 1850s in the US if Wiki is to be believed on the article for Bohemianism) and the relationships between them and the womens' emancipation movements again has some fairly peripheral overlap (in that both movements largely root themselves in lower middle class where you have educated young people with money but without the drive or pressure to make more of it than they already had).
What does this have to do with fucking anything? I don't know I kind of got distracted. So not much, but mang hippies are ooooollllld.
Edit - Not the most well made point either, meanders all over the shop.
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One of the things that set me off about that article is its reverence for the old and its perhaps unconscious bending of facts to fit its vision. Liberals have always been awesome. The Constitution promotes only the best goals. Both those would be nice, but they're not true. More to the point, it's not necessary that they BE true. By twisting the facts, the author is revealing that he puts undue importance in them. Why should it matter whether a bunch of people a long time ago had exactly the right ideas? Isn't it enough to have the right idea even if it doesn't have a venerable tradition behind it? Thoughts, thoughts.
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Also fair, going to blame that on the Gonzo journalism like I did in chat for the horrible structure and readability. It is largely representing the point in exagerated terms and expanding on it greatly.
Does it make for a well written interesting article? Not really.
Does it fit a message of "Lazy bastards should stop being little bitches and go out and be political creatures) pretty well? Yeah it certainly works wonders. The opposite side of the coin has certainly shown how well shallow motivational intellectual dishonesty gets people going.
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The journalism version of trolling doesn't do it for me, sorry.
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Oh man you hating on Hunter S Thompson? You wound me.
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I think there's a difference between this and that. Thomson is a good writer.
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And I find myself annoyed for complete other reasons! Yes, Tom Hanks' daughter is a moron. There are certainly some good points in there, but to base your thesis heavily on one random girl's letter and ascribe it to a whole generation is pretty damn illogical. Really, most people (especially in my age group) that I know feel jilted because after growing up under two false wars and a bunch of war crimes, we find ourself with a supermajority in Congress who seems to gave in at every damn little thing. We always hear about compromise when they have a supermajority, but never see the minority side actually budge! So much so that even the upcoming Lame Duck session when changes might have been enacted is now potentially looking to be pretty neutured. Of course, anyone who blames Obama for Congress' doing is stupid. Democrats lost the seat in Massachusetts in large part thanks to having an ineffective fool of a candidate. And yet, I guess we just though that when 60 of those fools banded together and ostensibly held the power, they might be able to get thing done.
I'd ask Grefter, when you say get out there and do something, do you have anything more specific in mind? The only thing the article suggests is large groups of people organizing and coming together...minus the one instance that it happened because that was apparentally just a giant generational attempt to look cool. Unfortunately, the two big times I've ever experienced legitimately large groups of people around me coming together failed pretty miserably.
I could rant about this general type stuff forever, but the internet is a such a clunky method to do it.
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Voting is a good start. Send letters to your elected official for a start telling them off for compromising on the stuff that is shitting you off for a second. Let other people know about things for a second, even if it is something as small as linking to horrible articles on the internets. Discourse makes the world go round. It might not be much and it might be preaching to the choir, but it is something. It helps keep yourself and others fresh and up to date on things that are actually happening and has the benefit of you might actually run into people that disagree with you instead of just working yourself up into a mindless rage in a positive feedback loop. Do something more than laugh at Colbert Report every second night of the week at least.
Attend a rally, again I don't personally think there is anything particularly wrong with having attended this rally. Just don't let that be the entirety of your political statement. If you have greater issues with consumer culture for example, grow some food yourself with whatever (few in some cases) means you have, maybe join a local farm collective if you can. There is lots of ways you can be a political creature.
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Unfortunately, I engage in several of these practices and can't say that I generally feel too empowered politically as a whole! I suppose I could talk to my crazy bosses about their politics, but being crazy and money hungry doesn't really make it the best idea unless I want to start a screaming match. I guess there somewhat the problem of it I disagree too much with politics on someone at a core level, discourse is kind of difficult. Sometimes it works, and sometimes someone tells you that Nancy Pelosi is the grand high ringleader pulling the President's strings and you wonder how to extricate yourself from a meal!
None of this excuses the flimsiness of the articler's core argument of course.
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Why would you feel particularly empowered? You aren't getting anywhere yet. Do you need more to feel satisfied? Then you need to do more, help support your local party of choice and if you don't have a local party of choice, find the closest party for the one that you do support, help them get started and heard there.
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Jim Swilley, Georgia Megachurch Pastor, Comes Out To Congregation After Gay Teen Suicides (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/14/jim-swilley-gay-pastor_n_783279.html)
Well here's something refreshingly off-script. I coulda sworn this would never happen without an accompanying sex scandal.
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http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/12/travel.screening/index.html?hpt=T1 As always, fuck the TSA.
Yay.
I always opt for the pat-down over the body scan.
Jim Swilley, Georgia Megachurch Pastor, Comes Out To Congregation After Gay Teen Suicides (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/14/jim-swilley-gay-pastor_n_783279.html)
Well here's something refreshingly off-script. I coulda sworn this would never happen without an accompanying sex scandal.
Yay!
On the subject of John Stewart's rally, I'm not 100% sure what it's protesting, but I think it's protesting the ridiculous way politics is portrayed in the media--full of paranoia. Which is a very good reason to protest, in my opinion. The media, and oversimplifying into sound bytes, is arguably one of the biggest problems with the current political system.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/freshman-goper-hey-wheres-my-health-care.php?ref=fpa
hay guys where's my Obamacare?
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Two different links.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AA5HR20101112
Class action lawsuits against US banks forclosing shit like a mother fucker not likely to happen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11460897
Police suggest entire population in the Elm Terrace area do as follows: Everyone in every house in every street open a front or rear door or look from the windows. The fugitive cannot escape if everyone in the next minute looks from his house. Ready!
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http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/news/2010/11/pope_condoms_okay_for_male_prostitutes.php?ref=fpb
Pope: ok, you can use condoms. but only if you're gaaaaaaaaaay.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/06/104788/wikileaks-swiss-bank-freezes-julian.html
Swiss bank freezes Assange's assets because...he's not a Swiss resident. If that doesn't fail the laugh test, I don't know what does. I am shocked, shocked! to find that one of our clients is not residing in Switzerland!
I dunno, this kind of stuff really bothers me. You can't abuse the law and treat someone different based on something else they did. I don't care if that jaywalker was Hitler, if no one ever gets busted for jaywalking, there's no reason he should, either.
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http://advocate.com/printArticle.aspx?id=156878
A thoughtful article on the gay rights movement going forward, calling for restraint in the face of more benign forms of intolerance. Haven't had time to more than skim it, but the upshot:
"The other side, in short, is counting on us to hand them the victimhood weapon. Our task is to deny it to them."
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101206/ap_on_sc/climate_disappearing_nations
Interesting article (if slightly vague) about the potential legal implications of nations that physically disappear due to climate change.
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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/06/104788/wikileaks-swiss-bank-freezes-julian.html
Swiss bank freezes Assange's assets because...he's not a Swiss resident. If that doesn't fail the laugh test, I don't know what does. I am shocked, shocked! to find that one of our clients is not residing in Switzerland!
I dunno, this kind of stuff really bothers me. You can't abuse the law and treat someone different based on something else they did. I don't care if that jaywalker was Hitler, if no one ever gets busted for jaywalking, there's no reason he should, either.
Query: Do you feel what happened here is an injustice? Do you feel it was wrong?
Emphasis on making that two distinct questions.
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do you mean the release of the material in the first place or Assange's persecution? (leaving out the sexual assault charges for now because I don't know enough to say if he's being treated like your average international suspect or is getting special attention).
I have mixed feelings about the release. As a citizen of America it bothers me; as a citizen of the world I don't care a bit.
Anyway, what you're getting at with your two questions is the difference between the process and the result, right? Bad process = unjust, bad result = wrong. I believe that an abuse of process almost always leads to a bad result, and that Assange's treatment by the bank is both (but it's only wrong because it's unjust.)
There are times when injustice can lead to a good result. It's not impossible. But I still have misgivings about it.
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I dunno, this kind of stuff really bothers me. You can't abuse the law and treat someone different based on something else they did. I don't care if that jaywalker was Hitler, if no one ever gets busted for jaywalking, there's no reason he should, either.
Isn't that kind of selective application exactly the way things work, though? In theory it shouldn't, of course, but in practice people who did shitty things and/or are douchebags tend to get every technicality thrown at them. In a similar vein, there are plenty of law breaking activities that don't in and of themselves warrant action (eg, jaywalking, carpool lane violations, etc.), but end up being "plus one" if anything ELSE happens ("Hey, you were speeding, and oh by the way you were also violating the carpool lane minimum").
For what it's worth, I agree, it sucks. Being a pariah sucks. But hey, man, dude HAD to have seen that coming. He's messing with governments. Governments do what governments do best - screwing people.
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It is a little more disturbing here in that it is the Swiss government since they have that whole image of neutrality.
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Isn't that kind of selective application exactly the way things work, though? In theory it shouldn't, of course, but in practice people who did shitty things and/or are douchebags tend to get every technicality thrown at them. In a similar vein, there are plenty of law breaking activities that don't in and of themselves warrant action (eg, jaywalking, carpool lane violations, etc.), but end up being "plus one" if anything ELSE happens ("Hey, you were speeding, and oh by the way you were also violating the carpool lane minimum").
I think the offense plus one kind of thing is different, because there you're talking about something that the person was doing at the same time as the "real" offense that's closely related to it. I think of it as "aggravated speeding" or something like that. Looking at someone who you just caught doing something wrong and asking whether they're doing anything else wrong in conjunction with it is different from looking at someone who you've specifically selected and asking if they've done anything wrong at all. (there's certainly a lot of gray area here in real life, though. pretextual stops for traffic violations when what the cops really want to do is check the car for drugs happen all the time, and they're completely legal in most states.)
It is a little more disturbing here in that it is the Swiss government since they have that whole image of neutrality.
Maybe. I have an extremely low opinion of Swiss neutrality to begin with. Swiss neutrality mostly means acting as a tax haven for people evading US taxes that the rest of us aren't rich and unscrupulous enough to avoid, continuing to protect the assets and reputations of ex-Nazis, and refusing to extradite Roman Polanski to the US on some of the flimsiest bullshit legal reasoning you will ever see. In short, Swiss neutrality is a passive-aggressive weapon the Swiss use to fuck with the US when we're actually trying to do some good and feel smug superiority at the same time.
I can't stress this enough: fuck Switzerland.
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I think the offense plus one kind of thing is different, because there you're talking about something that the person was doing at the same time as the "real" offense that's closely related to it. I think of it as "aggravated speeding" or something like that. Looking at someone who you just caught doing something wrong and asking whether they're doing anything else wrong in conjunction with it is different from looking at someone who you've specifically selected and asking if they've done anything wrong at all. (there's certainly a lot of gray area here in real life, though. pretextual stops for traffic violations when what the cops really want to do is check the car for drugs happen all the time, and they're completely legal in most states.)
This is true, but I still don't think it's shocking that the latter -- "looking at someone who you've specifically selected and asking if they've done anything wrong at all" -- happens or is happening now. In fact, it is frequently (at least in movies!) the way that real "bad guys" get put away. You know they've done something illegal or capital W Wrong, but you can't legally prove it. So you dig into it a little and find something you CAN prove they've done wrong -- see "Mobsters" and "Tax fraud," for example.
Again, not that it's right. It can easily be abused, and probably often is. I just don't think it's surprising, especially when we're talking about the world stage level.
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Ditto everything you said about Switzerland.
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Again, not that it's right. It can easily be abused, and probably often is. I just don't think it's surprising, especially when we're talking about the world stage level.
Yeah, it's not surprising. I just don't like it. I prefer justice not to take any sneak peeks under the blindfold.
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A few years ago I probably would have been condemning Wikileaks and Assange along with most folks. But after the Iraq/torture/blacksites debacle that the last few years have seen? Fuck government secrecy arguments. If they are doing something relevant to starting another god damn war it should be out in the open. People keep screaming "Terrorist" and "Traitor" (this one really cracks me up) about these guys without considering the fact that this all comes on the tail of one of the greatest abuses of secrecy/failures of conventional media in the last century of the US.
To date there has been no report of anyone innocent being harmed by these releases. I seriously doubt there will be, although I'm sure people will shout that there have/will be without an iota of concern for whether their statements are factually accurate.
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On the actual WikiLeaks front? I was okay with them until they started releasing locations of sensitive points of infrastructure critical to the US and its interests (ie, mines, telecom centers, etc). Endangering lives is a far cry from exposing dirty politics.
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Fuck government secrecy arguments.
I agree where the Iraq and Afghanistan war data is concerned, but I'm not so sure about the messages between diplomats, for two reasons. First, the release seems to be expressly about embarrassing the US, not because of anything the US did that we would have liked to have kept from the world, but just because we can't keep this stuff from the world. The second reason, to me, lends credibility to the assumption behind the first reason: the contents of the diplomat memos do not seem to have been particularly newsworthy. Certainly not compared with the war leaks.
To me the central question is: "do I want the US to be able to do effective diplomacy?" and the answer is yes. The US is far from perfect, and diplomacy is often self-serving, but I trust the US's goals for the world more than I trust a lot of other countries', so as a citizen of the world I truly believe that it would be better for everyone if the US were able to throw its weight around in diplomacy. The memos' release hurts my governments' ability to do that, and I think, balanced against the relatively small public good of knowing that US diplomats think Sarkozy is touchy and imperious, that's a net negative.
Diplomacy is done in secret not because it's all highly culpable stuff, but merely because it's process-heavy. It's a lot like dating 'in secret' so your parents don't get too nosy before you have a chance to get to know your new girlfriend. To me it's not blameworthy or newsworthy that, for example, unrelated policy arguments go into decisions. So what if now we know for sure the US paid off foreign governments to house Uighers from Afghanistan? The public pretty much knew that already, but having it public makes it harder for US diplomats to deal with Chinese diplomats on unrelated issues.
EDIT: someone smart makes the points I'm trying to get at:
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2010/12/wikileaks-and-the-long-haul/
“Your answer to ‘what data should the government make public?’ depends not so much on what you think about data, but what you think about the government.”
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Regardless of that, wikileaks has put out some indisputably harmful information. Like "here's a list of targets that are important to the US." As an isolated document--not like there were any shocking reveals in here. The only people who would find this interesting are people thinking of attacking said targets:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jUIQj-jUsDX4I3QrdsITQ7c87BAQ?docId=CNG.8549d9b93537814e90de0a33a00a6b06.3b1
That said, some of the stuff being brought against this guy isn't even "oh and an extra technicality". It's pretty much just BS:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/12/02/when-it-comes-to-assange-r-pe-case-the-swedes-are-making-it-up-as-they-go-along/
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I can't stress this enough: fuck Switzerland.
What does Switzerland get out of it? One upping the US Government by being able to proescute him for something? I am just not seeing the angle. It doesn't benefit them. Note of course that I said image of neutrality. I am not nearly naive enough to believe the party line on that one.
Edit - And don't take it overly personal, the Swiss do it to fuck with everyone, not specifically the US.
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Switzerland knows which way the wind is blowing. They're not about to take the hit for him, neutrality or not.
As for the Swiss being equal opportunity offenders, that's true to an extent, but everything Europe does with Polanski is a big "fuck you" to the US, and our backward justice system that somehow thinks that drugging and raping a 13 year old girl is a more important character trait than making good movies.
The Swiss refused to extradite Polanski because, so said the judge, it was not clear whether he had already completed his sentence or not, and Switzerland doesn't extradite people who have already finished their sentence.
Fair enough.
Polanski fled the U.S. the day before sentencing. Oh by the way, fleeing the country before being sentenced for a crime you pled guilty to is also a crime.
So yeah, fuck Switzerland.
Also, fuck France, who wouldn't extradite him, and fuck England, who, and this is rich, allowed Polanski to sue Vanity Fair in British court despite the fact that Polanski could not go to England or they would extradite him to us. The British courts allowed him to testify in his trial via video, a procedure they invented to accommodate him.
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The "list of targets harmful to the US" is... I can't call it harmful when it feels like such "durrrr" information. Why, yes, those places would be bad places to have attacked! I could probably have told you them with 20 minutes of Google searchings, maybe a bit more. They're logical positions/targets to defend or attack. This being said, I can agree this was probably best left alone, but... it's not some smoking bomb or anything.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Leakspin/comments/ejftc/09kabul1651_us_military_contractor_dyncorp/
I'm linking to Reddit stuff so you don't have to go to the Wikileaks site/mirrors directly if you want to look. This one is about the prostitution of little kids to soldiers and the US covering it up.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Leakspin/comments/ejjzh/09abuja671_pfizer_lawyers_joe_petrosinelli_and/
Pfizer fucks up a bit in Nigeria. Again, covered up.
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Basically I just can't bother with the government idiocy at this point. I support Wikileaks, honestly, even if Julian Assange deserves a swirlie.
Also uh, I can't blame Wikileaks for releasing any of this shit when it's Bradley Manning that gave everything to them, and uh, it's like 200,000 cables, expecting them to pinpoint and remove any of them is kinda silly (not to mention apparently the offer was made to let the State Department trim through them but they refused. Inviting it on yourself, there)
EDIT: http://pressthink.org/2010/12/from-judith-miller-to-julian-assange/ <-- something I ended up agreeing with after reading through it.
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Also, fuck France, who wouldn't extradite him, and fuck England, who, and this is rich, allowed Polanski to sue Vanity Fair in British court despite the fact that Polanski could not go to England or they would extradite him to us. The British courts allowed him to testify in his trial via video, a procedure they invented to accommodate him.
Fuck every single thing about British libel law.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/9/exposed-tsas-x-rated-scanner-fraud/
Oh hey nevermind found the article on there.
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I feel this post is better suited for this thread.
I'm closing my account with Chase in January. They're throwing bought-out Washington Mutual customers out of sight, out of mind, by altering term agreements and changing accounts to Chase Total Checking. This means that I'm charged a $12 monthly fee for having the account. It can only be waived if I had a $1,500 balance (um? I did), have a direct deposit check (does not include multiple deposits per month) of at least $500 (um, I'm not full time) or if I pay $25 in service fees (which does not include my annual membership fee for the Rewards Card). I politely told them thank you for the information, I'm just going to switch banks.
I've searched and searched. I don't like opening many different accounts (joke to come later). I've been with Wamu since I was 16, Chase for 3 years . . . so 7 years total with my specific account number. Decided on Bank of America, despite all the crap they're incurring with mortgages, as I see they're located everywhere. . . Which reminds me that I had an account closed as I never used it my freshman year (hey, I wanted a free shirt) . . . Hhhmmmm. We'll see. Anyway. Must customize debit card, their stock ones are ugly.
In lieu of this, I realize I am lacking a card with rewards! I don't consider my Capital One, one. So. I applied for an Amex rewards card. Surprisingly approved. Knowing my frugalness, I should be able to balance two credit cards. . . Yeah.
Anyway, moral of the story
Fuck Chase and they're constant fucking charges on the poorer people! Fuck you bastards.
The end.
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Bank of America's service I believe is known as fairly demonic in basically all aspects of their business, for a warning.
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Genuine thank you.
I still have time to bank search as most require deposits. This means I physically have to go to a bank. Internet banks just sound fishy, but I may research them more.
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BofA is pretty evil, and they're just as likely to charge you fees for accounts.
Check into Wells Fargo? I'm not sure what their balance requirements and whatnot are, but as far as I know my checking is free. I don't always maintain a high balance, either (though I do have my FT job direct deposit there, so that may be that).
If you're eligible, USAA. I would do all of my banking through USAA if I wasn't so lazy. I seriously <3 them. But they're only for military and family (I actually have it because my grandfather was a member, and thus my mom was a member, and thus I am a member).
I feel ya, by the way. I was a WaMu customer prior to their merger with Chase, and I quickly shut my account down once I found out what they were doing to it. I have two Chase credit cards and I. hate. them. I leave them open mainly because they're currently where the bulk of my available credit comes from, and I like the rewards (Amazon and British Airways), and I don't want to ping too many new accounts at once.
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I've been using TD Bank for a while, from the days they were Hudson United (then changed to TD Banknorth, then merged with Commerce to make TD Bank). Love them, but they're only really a northeast thing. But they've expanded into Florida, which is the only reason I'm still with them. Not sure if they're in Georgia too.
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Yeah, I've been digging into Wells Fargo. Currently, fees are waived if you get direct deposit, which I plan on doing. Either way, it's a $5 dollar charge compared to the $12 Chase stipulates. I'd bank with USAA, but I don't believe they're FDIC insured. Plus, my military license expired today as did my insurance (yay!).
TD Bank seems to be an eastern seaboard bank. They are not in Georgia though ):
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I've decided on Delta Community Credit Union. Wide enough range, really good rates for later investments, online banking, no fees.
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I do ok with Bank of America. It is true that you need to watch your account for improperly applied fees, though--I've caught them a couple of times, but the bank was happy to correct them.
Anyhow:
http://www.gameinformer.com/blogs/members/b/sakabato24_blog/archive/2010/12/14/is-it-the-end-of-anime-and-manga-bill-156-passed.aspx
Tokyo bans anime and manga. Well...technically not all anime and manga, but anything containing illegal activities (so no pirates, for instance) and anything containing "sexual acts which violate societal norms" which sure sounds like it would apply to gay relationships. And publishers are apparently already reacting by telling authors they won't publish stuff set in schools or featuring school uniforms--this includes reprints of manga they have previously published.
WTF
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I don't see that lasting in the legal realm. It's too vague and too, well, extreme. Something's gotta give.
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I don't see that lasting in the legal realm. It's too vague and too, well, extreme. Something's gotta give.
I wouldn't jump to conclusions.
For instance, Germany has laws barring any blood in videogames, and barring any children being involved in violence in videogames. I've been on several games where we had to cancel some plans because of Germany. Of course, Germany's laws aren't vague.
But then we come to the next point: Japanese legal system. I don't have confidence in it--I am by no means confident it will toss out laws that most first-world countries would toss out. I may yet be pleasantly surprised, of course.
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This reminds me a lot of the Comics Code Authority back in the fifties. Out-of-touch lawmakers passing reactionary legislation specifically to neuter a medium they just don't "get." (Hey, they had to stop Batman and Robin from turning all our kids gay! Wait no they just moved to TV instead. EDIT: or do I have things backwards here? I know horror comics were big beforehand and mostly got shut down by it, could be I've got the timing flipped in my memory and the superhero resurgence actually followed it. Whatever, they're both overbearing and creatively stifling legislative decisions. Close enough for comparison). The CCA stuck around for a depressingly long time before the mainstream industry started subverting it, as I recall. Want to say 10-15 years?
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From memory you have it mixed up. That was partly when Super Hero comic books really flourished into prominence, previously there was a lot of pulp style comics so crime drama, cowboy stuff that the CCA kind of killed off all that sex and violence and we were left with the camp Batman and Joker pulling boners.
Super Hero comics certainly blossomed as a medium when they dumped the CCA though. I believe the period just after the CCA was dropped they fell out of prominence a bit, but picked back up with a vengeance of course.
The big thing you are mixing up though is that the CCA was an independent body, it wasn't the law. It was fear that the law would crack down even harder on it though.
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http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/index.html
Off topic, but this is the sort of shit that makes me homicidal.
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This reminds me a lot of the Comics Code Authority back in the fifties. Out-of-touch lawmakers passing reactionary legislation specifically to neuter a medium they just don't "get." (Hey, they had to stop Batman and Robin from turning all our kids gay! Wait no they just moved to TV instead. EDIT: or do I have things backwards here? I know horror comics were big beforehand and mostly got shut down by it, could be I've got the timing flipped in my memory and the superhero resurgence actually followed it. Whatever, they're both overbearing and creatively stifling legislative decisions. Close enough for comparison). The CCA stuck around for a depressingly long time before the mainstream industry started subverting it, as I recall. Want to say 10-15 years?
It was the horror comics that did it. Graphic depictions of death and dismemberment, frequent beheadings of comely young women, that kind of thing. But there's a big difference: the CCA was the industry self-censoring to tamp down public criticism. It wasn't a law. Also, the CCA stuck around until 2000 or so. Marvel decided to stop even pretending it meant anything anymore because they wanted to allude to a threesome in an issue of X-Force. Really what happened was the code was liberalized and tastes, uh, conservatized(?) so that it was more or less moot throughout the 80s and 90s.
This sort of law Tokyo has, btw, would not be remotely constitutional under 1st amendment standards because it's too vague and also too targeted (we demand pretty damn close to a 1:1 between the harm the law seeks to prevent and the speech made illegal by it). I can't imagine it's gonna see much use in terms of enforcement. There were already laws in Japan that would make, for example, doujins featuring underage sex illegal, they just haven't been much enforced. The law is intended to scare the industry into self-censorship for fear of enforcement rather than create standards, of course, which is why it's so vague. Really, it reminds me most of Texas' textbook standards (but with oddly more moralizing but also a more concrete harm they're trying to avoid).
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Meanwhile, another interruption from the Toro, this time about England. At least this kid hasn't been tossed in a max 24-hour security gig, but hey, maybe someday! Gotta dream big!
http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2010/12/15/jody-mcintyre-who%E2%80%99s-apathetic-now/
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http://www.gameinformer.com/blogs/members/b/sakabato24_blog/archive/2010/12/14/is-it-the-end-of-anime-and-manga-bill-156-passed.aspx
Tokyo bans anime and manga. Well...technically not all anime and manga, but anything containing illegal activities (so no pirates, for instance) and anything containing "sexual acts which violate societal norms" which sure sounds like it would apply to gay relationships. And publishers are apparently already reacting by telling authors they won't publish stuff set in schools or featuring school uniforms--this includes reprints of manga they have previously published.
WTF
They haven't banned the anime itself. They've banned the SALE of it in mass-market stores. Which is the next thing to banning it completely as publishers and creators lose out on that income. If they DO want to put it in those stores, stuff that violates the ban must be put in the Adults section, which again, might as well be banning it.
This does not ban hentai, ironically, as it is already marketed as an adult product and sold in adult-only stores/sections of stores. It dooms Comiket, apparantly, as it affects doujins as well. They might try to hold it outside of Tokyo, but the problem there is there are no venues large enough to hold it.
Yaoi and homosexuality is certainly a targeted genre here. The illegal activity thing is, as been stated, vague. I don't think Japan as a whole would take too kindly to One Piece being nigh impossible to buy, and I haven't heard anything about it being affected. That whole part of it is more to address rape in anime/manga/doujin being sold in say, Kinokuniya. Straight to the adult section with those now. And yes, many of those were not sold as adult material before.
Since everything is "voluntary" at this point, it's all up to the publishers to clean up their act. The law itself is basically the government going, "you KNOW what's not acceptable, and if you don't clean it up, we're going to have to do this the way nobody wants to"
From what I've seen, when it comes down to it, it's a good thing being done in a terrible way. I'm not lamenting the end of the era KissxSis could be shown on TV.
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I'm just wondering what happens if some wiseass declares, "hey, assault is illegal!"
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http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/12/14/manning/index.html
Off topic, but this is the sort of shit that makes me homicidal.
You're reading Glen Greenwald. Read with several salt shakers ready to go.
More seriously, while I am very much in favor of better prison conditions in the US and do not think cruel treatment of prisoners achieves much, I can say non-sarcastically that if there is anyone who stands a decent chance of being charged with treason out there, Manning is it. Pretty much espionage for... everyone who doesn't like the US. Hard to call leaking every single document "whistleblowing," really. If we assume that Manning is convicted, I can't imagine he'd be getting a "nice" prison anyway. Let him rot.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/politics/19cong.html?_r=1&hp
Senate repeals Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
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It took 2 years into the Obama presidency, but it got done. That should satisfy at least some folks on the Left who have been wanting this for a long time.
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Yeah, Do Ask Do Tell. At least the speeches during the legislature acknowledged the sluggish-nish in action. Mm. Congrats to those who needed it. Wanted it. Patriot rhetoric was interesting anyway. I love socially-detached rhetoric.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/schwarzenegger-hints-hed-like-a-job-working-for-obama
Hollywood, start filming this movie NOW
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/us/politics/19cong.html?_r=1&hp
Senate repeals Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
Wait, wait...the US Senate actually did something positive for gays? Really?
Next you'll be telling me that they'll pass Employment Nondiscrimination, so that you can't be fired for being LGBT. Oh, wait, no--that bill's been shelved since roughly 2009 -_-'
Still, though--they actually managed to take a pro-gay action, instead of waiting for the supreme court a la Lawrence v. Texas. Progress!
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http://exiledonline.com/dude-wheres-my-mortgage-how-an-obscure-outfit-called-mers-is-subverting-our-entire-system-of-property-rights/
So I hear that bypassing property law and muddying the water
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Been mentioned in chat already, but Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09giffords.html?hp
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/live-blog-representative-giffords-shot/?hp
Info on the suspect:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3379833&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=5#post386630296
http://www.youtube.com/user/Classitup10
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/15/us/politics/15repubs.html?hp
Michael Steele loses bid for re-election as RNC chair. Squabbles between potential replacements leads to the surprise victory of dark horse candidate Harry Reid of Nevada.
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Michael Steele loses bid for re-election as RNC chair. Squabbles between potential replacements leads to the surprise victory of dark horse candidate Harry Reid of Nevada.
...Harry Reid? The Democrat senate majority leader? I'm confused.
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A joke! Harry Reid is probably the only person worse-suited to Steele's job than Steele was.
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Also the title of this thread in 2009 was "fire Reid and Steele," reflecting super's lack of understanding of the true genius of the Man from Searchlight.
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http://colorlessrevolution.blogspot.com/
Thoughts from a Ph.D student who was in Cairo until very recently on the Egyptian situation, threw up the blog to collect his thoughts. (I know the writer.) Pretty interesting; Andrew Sullivan even linked directly to it.
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Interesting read. I was reading an article on this in the UK's "Independent" (I don't usually buy papers but the headline about the sky being full of rocks and people smelling the blood/blood pouring down people's faces really stood out >.>) and there was a bit stating how a member of personnel was sitting in the midst of rocks going one way and rocks going the other when he suddenly got up, ran to the opposition and with tears streaming down his face tried to hug them. It made me baw.
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Well, the bits about the lack violence were written on January 31. The violence only flared on February 2-3, and I for one have no problem at all believing that these were hired thugs from the government out to create disorder and thus discredit the protesters / show that there needs to be "stability."
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Civil unrest lends itself towards violence. Even if the origin of the protest is non-violent, the very nature of people themselves will start it. Either by abuse of power, government agents deliberately creating chaos amongst the sedition or just plain opportunists looking to create chaos from which to profit.
That is one of the basic things with Bolshevism. There is going to be no change without violence, so they pushed to have the violence happen as soon as possible to cause rapid change. In the face of the inevitable they embraced it and so on.
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Bolshevism also buys into the whole "we should make the bad guys EXTRA BAD and encourage their badness because the people will revolt faster!!!1!" which, if seriously adopted, is a terrible idea (i.e. hope Hoover gets re-elected so that there's a communist revolution in 1935 rather than a social safety net and mixed capitalism). There are some instances of this working but in general when a state turns bad, things just get worse. So yeah. Not really buying that.
I will say that non-violent revolution works best when the state is somewhat rational / nice - which is why bad states trying to reform are almost always at their most vulnerable. This is why it worked in say India 1948 or the civil rights movement in the US - England was not going to burn India to the ground to keep it, they'd rather just let it go. But it doesn't really work in say Syria where the government will just shoot anyone who opposes it, and has done so several times. Non-violence worked in South Africa, but only by the time the Western powers had mellowed out such that the harsh measures to keep blacks "pacified" would no longer have flied and made it a pariah like Rhodesia.
(The point is that I think non-violence can work fine for real change in Egypt just as in Tunisia, neither government of which is totally insane and murderous.)
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Bolshevism also buys into the whole "we should make the bad guys EXTRA BAD and encourage their badness because the people will revolt faster!!!1!" which, if seriously adopted, is a terrible idea (i.e. hope Hoover gets re-elected so that there's a communist revolution in 1935 rather than a social safety net and mixed capitalism). There are some instances of this working but in general when a state turns bad, things just get worse. So yeah. Not really buying that.
Hey you just described how the right wing of Brazil's politics winged the coup instating military dictatorship in 1964.
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Not supporting it, Bolshevism is insanely extreme. Just noting that there is movements out there that embrace these things. It isn't terribly suprising to see it spring up and it isn't necessarilly just the Government playing shit here.
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Bolshevism also buys into the whole "we should make the bad guys EXTRA BAD and encourage their badness because the people will revolt faster!!!1!" which, if seriously adopted, is a terrible idea (i.e. hope Hoover gets re-elected so that there's a communist revolution in 1935 rather than a social safety net and mixed capitalism).
Yeah, living in San Francisco, I know I overheard bus conversations where people were openly hoping that Mike Huckabee would beat John McCain in the primaries, just so that the opposition looked crazier making a democrat victory more likely. (I imagine they were quite pleased with the choice of Sarah Palin).
American politics makes me sad. Too many people don't actually want choices.
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Bolshevism also buys into the whole "we should make the bad guys EXTRA BAD and encourage their badness because the people will revolt faster!!!1!" which, if seriously adopted, is a terrible idea (i.e. hope Hoover gets re-elected so that there's a communist revolution in 1935 rather than a social safety net and mixed capitalism).
Yeah, living in San Francisco, I know I overheard bus conversations where people were openly hoping that Mike Huckabee would beat John McCain in the primaries, just so that the opposition looked crazier making a democrat victory more likely. (I imagine they were quite pleased with the choice of Sarah Palin).
American politics makes me sad. Too many people don't actually want choices.
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that the Republicans intentionally threw the election to avoid the coming heat from the economy.
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That would mean some people decided it was a good idea to throw John McCain under a bus, which is a little disappointing, but I guess it would fit the direction the party has been going.
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John McCain willingly picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. He deserves to be tossed under the bus.
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John McCain willingly picked Sarah Palin as his running mate.
That's...not the way I heard it. McCain wanted Joe Lieberman as his running mate. The GOP base was not energized over McCain, however, so leaders in the GOP started pressuring for someone far-right to rally the voterbase. Meanwhile, a group of conservative bloggers had discovered Sarah Palin a few months back (far right on every issue) and started rallying behind her. By most reports, McCain didn't get much choice in the issue; the GOP pressured him into taking Palin.
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I always just assumed it was a ploy to get women voters to say "SEE, IF YOU VOTE FOR THIS GUY YOU CAN GET A WOMAN INTO THE WHITE HOUSE!"
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Well. It was both. McCain definitely wanted to pick Lieberman - there's no question Lieberman was seriously considered on the short list, and McCain came out with a campaign slogan of "Country First" around that time. This makes a lot of sense if you're picking a Democrat as your running mate - "we need to work together and put the country first" blah blah and help paint Obama as more extreme. Around the same time, the hardcore pro-life people freaked out and strongly strongly vetoed the idea with threats to run a third party candidate. So yeah, it's not really McCain's fault that Lieberman wasn't picked, that was the religious right scotching the idea. (Although if he REALLY wanted to be a maverick and go down guns blazing, he coulda done it anyway. Probably would have cost him the hardcore right and lost him votes in the end, but hey, price of maverickness.)
What McCain does deserve blame for is picking Palin after all. Palin was described to him as a "high risk, high reward" candidate to, uh, John McCain. At a time when he was definitely not favored to win so you might as well take gambles. I actually was familiar with Palin from earlier as a political junkie, and let me say that on paper, she looked great. Vaguely libertarianish views, high popularity ratings, hot for a politician (it matters)... if Palin was the exact same "type" but with any brains, she'd have been a great pick. She didn't even have to be a genius, but just a generic "vaguely know politics" type who can passably recite editorials from the National Review and understand sorta why, it'd have been fine. THIS IS WHY YOU VETTE EVERYONE ON THE LONG LIST. Even the people you think are longshots and almost certainly won't be picked. Assume that top picks 1-10 all have to bow out for some reason. But yeah, basically they only seriously looked at Palin over the course of like three days, and somehow she aced the interview by the McCain handler. Which is again why you have more time and you vette more seriously. I mean, I can't blame McCain for the pick with the information he had; governor is not dogcatcher, you really expect that governors are vaguely up on, uh, politics, being politicians and all. I do entirely blame him for not doing the research, and this is a bad trait to have for a president.
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What's good politics and good country-runnin' are two very different things.
Anyway, what's this with saying he didn't "willingly" pick his runningmate? Presidents of the USA need to be accountable for their choices. If they can be "forced" to do things that should be within their discretion, they don't meet the job description.
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I am not even dignifying that with a joke about Cheney.
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So with everyone looking at the military response in Cairo, taking careful not that this has been going on for a few weeks for now and while intimidating the Military has not been directly offensive of the Egyptian people. I want everyone to remember that this is a country that the leaders are claiming "Is not ready for Democracy".
Now lets examine what a Democracy did in cases of opposition. Edit - Of course Democratic Republic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Park I would like to dig up old news articles directly, but it is to early in the morning for it.
This is an incident revolving around protests about a dispute of university funds for land appropriated for eminent domain that had the plans for changed consistently. Students and the community wanted to create a park, the University had wanted to build a parking lot and a sports field. So what was the the government response? Well of course Ronald Reagan as governor sent in troops with bayonets.
Governor Reagan declared a state of emergency in Berkeley and sent in 2,700 National Guard troops — ironically some Guardsmen were students called to active duty.[12] The Berkeley City Council voted 8–1 against the decision to occupy their city,[20][22] however this vote was ignored. For two weeks the streets of Berkeley were barricaded with rolls of barbed wire, and freedom of assembly was denied as National Guardsmen sent tear gas canisters skittling along the street toward any group of more than two people together. ."[17] On Wednesday, 21 May 1969, a midday memorial was held for student James Rector at Sproul Plaza on the university campus. Rector had suffered massive internal injuries from his shotgun wounds, finally dying at Herrick Hospital on May 19. In his honor, several thousand people peacefully assembled to listen to speakers remembering his life. Without warning, National Guard troops surrounded Sproul Plaza, donned their gas masks, and pointed their bayonets inward, while helicopters dropped CS gas directly on the trapped crowd. No escape was possible, and the gas caused acute respiratory distress, disorientation, temporary blindness and vomiting. Many people, including children and the elderly, were injured during the ensuing panic. The gas was so intense that breezes carried it into Cowell Memorial Hospital, endangering patients, interrupting operations and incapacitating nurses. Students at nearby Jefferson and Franklin elementary schools were also affected.[18][20]
Best president evar!
Edit 2 - So yeah got distracted with my bile there. What I mean to say is this. Clearly from the fairly restrained military response we have seen so far in Egypt there is a lot of hope for the country yet anyway. Western countries have been "civilised" for much longer with much more direct military intervention internally with some frequency for a good 50+ years.
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So anyway apologies for the "biased" sources but seeing as how they were the ones being targeted, feels more pertinent.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/02/10/lobbyists-chamberleaks/
ThinkProgress discovers attempt on its credibility and the credibility of other groups through the Anonymous attack on HBGary.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/11/campaigns/index.html
Glenn comments on the issues as well.
For background, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/how-one-security-firm-tracked-anonymousand-paid-a-heavy-price.ars
The whole stupid drama that lead to the emails being released.
On a personal level? If government/conservative forces are resorting to trying to discredit opposing views instead of trying to maintain a moral/reason-based debate, it only makes me even more inclined to go against them, period.
EDIT: Eisenhower quote.
"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
EDIT 2: http://www.salon.com/about/inside_salon/2011/02/11/threats_against_glenn_greenwald_wikileaks <-- sources where some of this is coming from better. Something Greenwald does need to work on despite my generally good opinion on the rest of his stances.
EDIT 3: Also if you missed it Mubarak resigned, Suleiman who isn't much better is now in power, the people are apparently still in the streets though they're cheering for having gotten asshole one out, beautiful to watch one country's voice of the people do something whereas in another they're attempting to squish it pretty hard.
Oh wait there's a shoe over my head.
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I was thinking of posting the Chamber of Commerce stupidity link myself. I've had 0 respect for them for some time (I thought for the longest time they were an official group from the name but nope), and yeah, they don't seem to understand that lobbyist != Richard Nixon's CREEP. I rather doubt that anything criminal will be able to be proven - they can always say they didn't know what the group they hired was up to, and infiltration / creation of false documents is not exactly illegal even if unethical - but I seriously hope this ruins their reputation. I doubt it though, since I'm not seeing much attention from the mainstream media, which is depressing.
EDIT 3: Also if you missed it Mubarak resigned, Suleiman who isn't much better is now in power, the people are apparently still in the streets though they're cheering for having gotten asshole one out, beautiful to watch one country's voice of the people do something whereas in another they're attempting to squish it pretty hard.
Oh wait there's a shoe over my head.
To put on my serious cap for a moment, I will take the bait and throw that shoe at you George W. Bush style for this though. On one hand, I despise the argument sometimes raised of "oh look things are so much worse in the 3rd world so why don't you just shut up and stop whining about minor American foibiles," as if America was perfect and there's no room to improve. So I totally agree that the CoC's actions are shameful and I hope they disband. That said to imply that quasi-legal deception campaigns are worse than government agents in the streets beating people up? If Egypt's problems after this are anywhere close to the kind of tactics that Nixon would use, that'd be amazing. There's a big difference between the squish in Egypt or Yemen and the "squish" here.
ANYWAY. To add a link of my own in:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/world/europe/12zemmour.html
Xenophobic French asshole academic calls for freedoms of immigrants to be clamped down on, is arrested and now defends himself on free speech grounds. Uh. Fail on all sides here, France. Don't make the freaking nutcase a martyr who gets to go into court to argue about how his claims that most crime is committed by immigrants is actually true (which it is... because people like him help tank the job market for people of the wrong skin tone) so how dare the government arrest the honest truth-teller.
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and infiltration / creation of false documents is not exactly illegal even if unethical
Forging documents is not legal.
Xenophobic French asshole academic calls for freedoms of immigrants to be clamped down on, is arrested and now defends himself on free speech grounds. Uh. Fail on all sides here, France. Don't make the freaking nutcase a martyr who gets to go into court to argue about how his claims that most crime is committed by immigrants is actually true (which it is... because people like him help tank the job market for people of the wrong skin tone) so how dare the government arrest the honest truth-teller.
Europe's trend towards "Clamp down on free speech that criticizes certain groups" is a horrible thing. Regardless of whether what someone says is true or not as long as it is not outright calling for violence it should be allowed. And hell, even advocating violence is allowed in the US as long as there is no reasonable expectation of harm. "Hate speech" laws should not be tolerated under any circumstances in a free society. Where does it end? Are people who advocate for not allowing immigrants from certain countries due to cultural differences/clashes supposed to be charged and imprisoned for arguing a certain viewpoint? This is one thing I am proud America has kept it's nose out of (for all that civil liberties have suffered in the last decade)
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Europe's trend towards "Clamp down on free speech that criticizes certain groups" is a horrible thing. Regardless of whether what someone says is true or not as long as it is not outright calling for violence it should be allowed. And hell, even advocating violence is allowed in the US as long as there is no reasonable expectation of harm. "Hate speech" laws should not be tolerated under any circumstances in a free society. Where does it end? Are people who advocate for not allowing immigrants from certain countries due to cultural differences/clashes supposed to be charged and imprisoned for arguing a certain viewpoint? This is one thing I am proud America has kept it's nose out of (for all that civil liberties have suffered in the last decade)
I agree wholeheartedly. America gets a lot wrong, but our speech laws and our willingness to air out our grievances in the arena of public opinion are exemplary. It's almost hilarious how French this situation is. So stereotypically assimilationist.
“I’m for saying everything,” Mr. Sabeg said. “But not nonsense like this.”
This line is so picture perfect it makes me almost think the whole article was made up.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0AQ5TjsEIM&feature=feedu
Apparently when the incoming GOP rules committee or whomever decided that each introduced piece of legislature cite the Constitution they meant that it had to say "un/constitutional" in it.
Rep. Weiner earned my admiration with his (admittedly grandstanding) ranting after the 9/11 First Responders bill got stalled the first time. With this, he makes me legitimately happy that he's in Congress.
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He's also one of Jon Stewart's best friends.
Weiner for President? Can't beat a campaign slogan like "I Like Weiner!"
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Bringing the Weiner back to the Whitehouse like JFK did.
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http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/fjfby/iama_director_of_an_isp_who_was_the_first_person/c1ghr1p
Interesting comment, would not mind legal scholar elaboration/declamation on this. If it's true, how often does it happen?
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Not sure exactly what you're asking. If the question is, "how often does the government stop doing something when threatened with a lawsuit to avoid a determination in court of the government practice's legality" the answer is, all the time. Does that mean that people willing and able to legally challenge the government are more likely to get the government to stop doing whatever it is the government is doing to them? Absolutely. Is that cynical and unseemly? Yes, but it's a reality of USA's legal structure. Congress passes laws, but the courts decide whether those laws are valid, and how those laws apply to specific factual situations. That means there's always a measure of uncertainty about a law's validity. To put it another way, Schroedinger's Law only becomes constitutional or unconstitutional when the courts "see" it.
When Lawrence v. Texas came up to the SC, gay rights activists were despondent, because they thought there was no way they were going to win. Well, they did win, and their win meant that laws banning same-sex sodomy would be declared unconstitutional. A loss would have meant that states would know for certain that sodomy laws that discriminated against homosexuals were constitutional, and might even prompt more states to put anti-gay sodomy laws on the books. (Lawrence invalidated all sodomy laws, by the way. If sex is between consenting adults, not incestuous, and in a private place, it's legal.)
The timing and the factual circumstances of how a law is challenged in court can be a tremendous influence to how the Supreme Court decides a case. The Government and activist groups both want to create binding precedent favorable to them, so if they think they're going to win, they take a case to the Supreme Court, and they do whatever they can to prevent a case they think is going to lose from getting to the Supreme Court. If the group the government had been spying on had turned out to have solid terrorist connections, you bet your ass the government would take it to the high court. Now theoretically it shouldn't matter to the validity of a law that the group was caught doing something bad or not. That's like saying that breaking into someone's house is constitutional in every case where you find illegal guns or drugs. But does the demonstration of a laws effectiveness or ineffectiveness make a difference to judges? Sure does. Take Clinton v. Jones. In that case the Supreme Court unanimously decided that sitting Presidents had no immunity to civil litigation for acts committed prior to taking office. The justices figured it would be "highly unlikely to occupy any substantial amount of [the President]'s time" to defend himself in court during his term. Clinton's testimony in that trial led directly to the Lewinsky scandal. The next time this issue comes up, it's a safe bet those justices vote the other way.
One other thing I think needs to be pointed out: cases are settled for reasons other than the merits of a claim all the time. If a plaintiff suing for negligence is an adorable 10-year-old girl, she's much more likely to win than a 30-year-old construction worker, even if they suffered the exact same harm. So if both claims were settled before going to court, the 10-year-old would get a larger cash settlement.
EDIT: I should add that most of the time when the issue of avoiding litigation comes up, it's in a pedestrian context. The government, for example, may have decided that the terms of their contract mean X when the better reading is that they mean Y. X makes things more simple administratively, so they go with X and avoid litigation about it. (For example: when an employee is relocated to a new building but keeps his old job title and responsibilities, has he been "transferred" according to the terms of his contract? This is important if, say, an employee may contest a "transfer" but may not contest run-of-the-mill managerial decisions.)
I should also add that the government's motivation for stopping doing something when threatened with a lawsuit is often about money, not about fear that the law is unconstitutional. If the government has a case it's almost sure to win, but bringing it to trial would cost millions of dollars in attorney's fees and discovery costs, it may settle the case (or as in your article make the case moot) just to save money. That may have even been the case in your article, though I doubt it.
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http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/02/former_gop_candidate_gets_366_days_in_jail_for_lying_in_voter_suppression_probe.php?ref=fpblg
US politics needs more of this.
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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2011/02/23/govt_drops_defense_of_anti_gay_marriage_law/
So the Obama administration's justice department has decided not to defend DOMA, following their conclusion that it is an unconstitutional violation of equal protection. Pretty cool.
There's a caveat here, though. AG Holder indicates that the justice department will only refuse to defend the law if the 2nd Circuit (the federal court the case is appearing before) agrees with the justice department's conclusion that laws discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation are subject to "intermediate scrutiny."
When the constitutionality of a law is challenged on the basis that it may violate the equal protection clause, there are (ostensibly) three different levels of scrutiny the courts use to determine if the law is in fact constitutional: rational basis, intermediate, and strict. The higher the scrutiny, the better reason the government has to come up with to defend the discriminatory law. The level of scrutiny the courts use depends on what kind of classification is being used to discriminate. Regular classifications, "felon," "hipster," etc, are afforded rational basis. Sex is afforded intermediate. Race is afforded strict.
Coming back to the justice department's position, the department has a duty to defend Congress' laws in court as long as there's a colorable claim that those laws are constitutional. Some federal circuits have decided that sexual orientation should be afforded rational basis scrutiny. When cases challenging DOMA were brought in those circuits, the justice department indicated that it would defend the law. The 2nd circuit has yet to decide what level of scrutiny sexual orientation should be afforded. So the justice department did its own back-of-the-napkin calculation, decided that intermediate scrutiny was the likely standard, and decided that DOMA is unconstitutional if intermediate scrutiny is the correct standard.
It's still up to the 2nd circuit to decide what the correct standard is. The really important part of the justice department's position is that it gives the 2nd circuit political cover to make the determination that intermediate is the correct standard. Judges find it a lot easier to overturn laws when they know the president agrees with them.
My personal take on the law is that it is unquestionably unconstitutional under intermediate scrutiny, and probably unconstitutional under rational basis scrutiny as well. Frankly, if this makes its way up to the Supreme Court, I would be very surprised if they upheld the law. The congressional record on DOMA is peppered with commentary expressing moral disapproval of homosexuality and homosexuals, and the Supreme Court (and justice Kennedy in particular) made it quite clear that mere dislike of a group, and dislike of homosexuals in particular, is an unconstitutional basis for a law.
DOMA is probably not held in high regard by the conservative side of the Supreme Court, by the way. It is a slap in the face to federalism and full faith and credit. It regulates marriage, which is an area of law traditionally left to the states. Conservatives tend to jealously guard areas of traditional state lawmaking authority. Moreover, it explicitly tells states that they may disregard the laws of other states. The constitution says states have to give "full faith and credit" to the laws of other states. That's a murky area of law, but I'm pretty sure DOMA comes out on the wrong side of it.
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I thought the clause covered in the court case was only the third clause of DOMA (prohibiting the recognition of same-sex marriage; so...you can't file your taxes jointly). It's the second clause of DOMA that's the big deal (the part that says no state must respect a marriage made in any other state).
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You're right that that's the only clause covered. When I said conesrvatives didn't like DOMA, I was referring to a part of DOMA that's not currently at issue. I apologize for the confusion.
However, I would argue that the part of DOMA that's currently at issue, the part relating to federal benefits, is the big part, and the part relating to state-to-state recognition of marriage is the small part. The reason why is that although it's weird for a federal law to explicitly tell states they don't have to recognize the legal classifications of other states, the current interpretation of the "full faith and credit" clause says that a state does NOT have to respect the law of another state if that law goes against the public policy of the first state. In other words, the DOMA state- to-state nonrecognition section doesn't necessarily do much in practice.
I'll try to explain this better when I'm sober.
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It sounds like if what you're saying is right, even if DOMA were fully repealed, someone couldn't get married in Iowa and go back to Texas and have that marriage recognized. Well...that's lame.
In other news, WTF Georgia:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/22/georgia-anti-abortion-bill-would-require-investigations-of-miscarriages/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/05/georgia-republicans-bill-would-reclassify-rape-victims-as-accusers/
EDIT I like this part too:
158 "(a) No facility operated on public school property or operated by a public school district
159 and no employee of any such facility acting within the scope of such employee's
160 employment shall distribute contraceptives.
http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display.aspx?Legislation=31965
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That's pretty fucking special, Georgia. I like how the bills are so concerned about the rights of the accused. Innocent until proven guilty and all that. Unless they've been accused of performing an illegal abortion. If they've been accused of that, they have their medical license suspended until their name is cleared, no matter how weak the charge against them may be.
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IotD thread is over in general chat, MC.
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Coming back to DOMA, the clause at issue that defines marriage for federal purposes has a particularly damaging effect: it prevents the US from recognizing same-sex marriages for immigration purposes, so that a person in a same-sex marriage living in the US cannot sponsor their spouse for a green card. The federal definition of marriage has other serious negative consequences. Same-sex couples can't file their federal taxes jointly, which denies them the economic advantage US tax policy gives to married couples. A spouse in a same-sex relationship could not take advantage of the FMLA, which mandates that employees allow spouses time off of work to take care of their seriously ill children, parents and spouses (though thanks to the Obama administration, they can now take time off to take care of children they act as a parent for even if they are not the biological or adoptive parent). The GAO has found over 1,000 federal statutes for which marital status is a factor. For every single one of those, a person in a same-sex marriage is considered single. But that all could change if the section of the law at issue is ruled unconstitutional.
As a tactical matter, I hope this is the next gay rights issue to reach the high court. The Supreme Court really doesn't want to address the issue of gay marriage directly, but through DOMA they have the chance to rule on a discrimination issue that has serious consequences but isn't as socially inflammatory.
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The state-to-state marriage recognition clause in DOMA doesn't actually do anything important. Consider: The full faith and credit clause of the Constitution speaks to whether or not one state has to recognize marriages performed in another. If it is not interpreted to require universal recognition (as is currently the case), then states don't have to recognize another state's marriages if they don't want to. Since DOMA doesn't do anything to stop the states from recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere if they decide that's what they want to do, DOMA changes nothing there. If the FFAC clause is interpreted to require universal recognition, then it trumps federal statute and whatever decision changes that interpretation would also strike down that part of DOMA.
Re: Georgia. So you can't be categorized as a rape "victim" unless your rapist gets caught? Hell, forget protecting the accused, what about situations where police never even find enough evidence to make an arrest? What then? The woman's just an "accuser" for the rest of her life? What the fuckity fuck?
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Well, until a court challenge is made successfully, a federal law is presumptively "right," so DOMA's "ignore other state's marriages if you please" does have that effect. I guess a spicy state Attorney General could declare the law presumptively unconstitutional, but that'd be a brave move to make in any state where this would matter.
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True, but since "ignore other state's marriages if you please" was already the prevailing interpretation of FFAC, it would take a successful court challenge to make the opposite happen with or without DOMA.
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In other news, WTF Georgia:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/22/georgia-anti-abortion-bill-would-require-investigations-of-miscarriages/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/02/05/georgia-republicans-bill-would-reclassify-rape-victims-as-accusers/
EDIT I like this part too:
http://www.legis.ga.gov/Legislation/en-US/display.aspx?Legislation=31965
I am not surprised. Georgia has been attempting to regress policies for women, the homosexual community and minorities for quite a while. I caught wind of a policy requiring females in a marriage to receive consent from a husband to have their tubes tied, but vice versa is unrecognized. Georgia rape laws are explicitly catered towards women and negligent to male situations. They ignore the sex of a person in sodomy laws that gives more leeway in discriminating against male homosexuals.
It only makes sense for a state bent on circumscribing the rights of pretty much any non-male WASP to entertain the semantics of miscarriage and abortion. Even if this policy doesn't become law, it only strengthens the fervor of those people supporting raiding family planning clinics, abortion clinics and women's health centers under their biased presumptions. I'm going to believe in the faith of choices and support the idea that women do not make abortion decisions lightly. After the decision to have an abortion, either surgical or non-surgical, their intent was to not continue carrying a pregnancy to full term. This is neither an accident nor a random situation. It really disgusts me when people liken miscarriages to abortions, as both are serious issues that may or may not require hospitalization. Then for the state to recognize women as accusers rather than victims in rape cases reminds me that there is no patience or regard for women's issues.
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http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/01/inequality-is-worse-in-america-than-in.html
Interesting map of income inequality.
EDIT: and some more charts for the US specifically:
http://www.businessinsider.com/15-charts-about-wealth-and-inequality-in-america-2010-4?op=1
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http://www.youtube.com/embed/AUpO1QFMDtM
Watch up to about 3:30 and then... what. What. WHAT. What. What! WHAT?!
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I sincerely hope that the future of this great country changes soon.
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Holy shit.
EDIT: reading a bit about this, it seems that MI already had a law in place for a long while that would allow state government takeover of towns and school districts in much the same manner as the new law does, but that the trigger for the authority of state government was a downgrading of a local government's bond credit rating. In other words, your town had to be in deep shit according to a credit rating agency before the state government could take it over. Now the state government seems to think they should be in the business of making those determinations themselves. But that's fine. It's not like there are politicians in government or anything.
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Now that's interesting. I don't suppose it dates back to engler?
GOD I hate this state.
Edit: let it not be said that the idea of merging school districts for purposes of slimming down administrative staff is a bad thing, mind. There's just something wholly wrong about the governor's office having the power to arbitrarily decide that his appointee should be the one making those decisions.
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I don't know where the original law came from. I get the sense that in its original form it was not terribly controversial, though I could be wrong about that.
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I have no real idea what's going on there but everywhere looks bad right now =/
(I'll rewatch the vid when I get home - sounds not good on family PC)
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Long ugly link! (http://www.law.com/jsp/law/international/LawArticleIntl.jsp?id=1202488523465&th_Circuit_Upholds_Rejection_of__Million_Nicaragua_Verdict_in_Pesticide_Case=&src=EMC-Email&et=editorial&bu=Law.com&pt=LAWCOM%20International%20News%20Alert&cn=InternationalNews.html&kw=11th%20Circuit%20Upholds%20Rejection%20of%20%2497%20Million%20Nicaragua%20Verdict%20in%20Pesticide%20Case&slreturn=1&hbxlogin=1)
Oh irony how I do love thee. Nothing like arguing against paying reparations for 20 years for poisoning people. If you hold out just a bit longer they might keel over and die.
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So at the request of Dow Chemical, US courts order the suit tried in Nicaragua. Then, when the judgment goes against Dow, that same judicial system say that any judgment by a Nicaraguan court would be nonbinding. Because the system is corrupt and lets politically connected strongmen tell the judges how to rule, you see.
My irony scale just exploded.
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So at the request of Dow Chemical, US courts order the suit tried in Nicaragua. Then, when the judgment goes against Dow, that same judicial system say that any judgment by a Nicaraguan court would be nonbinding. Because the system is corrupt and lets politically connected strongmen tell the judges how to rule, you see.
My irony scale just exploded.
Take a deep breath, there are some things you need to know before you pass judgment.
What happened is this: in a different case with different plaintiffs, Dow argued that the case should be argued in Nicaragua. But Dow never made that argument for this case. It was filed in Nicaragua because the plaintiffs wanted to file it there. The reason why Dow argued that earlier cases should be argued in Nicaragua was that at the time Nicaraguan law was favorable to them, and Nicaragua has since passed a law quite unfavorable to them. Bottom line, Dow never demanded this case be argued in Nicaragua.
A little background: this case is brought by banana plantation workers who were allegedly rendered sterile by DBCP, a pesticide. DBCP was shown to cause sterility in high doses, and the US stopped using it, but Dole wanted to continue to use it in foreign countries, and they threatened to sue Dow if it didn't provide it according to the contract between them. So now plantation workers who have allegedly been sterilized by the chemical are suing. Litigation over it has been going on for a very long time because it's really tricky to figure out, factually, who has been injured. The injury takes a long time to manifest, and the symptom is something that can happen for reasons unrelated to the chemical. So Nicaragua passed a law in 2000 that specifically addresses DBCP cases and makes life easier for plaintiffs by putting the burden of proof that a plaintiff has not been sterilized by DBCP on the defendant, so that instead of plaintiffs having to prove in court that the chemical sterilized them, Dow must now prove in court that the chemical did NOT sterilize them. That's a big no-no in American jurisprudence. The court that made the decision not to honor the Nicaraguan judgments did so on the basis of the Nicaraguan law I just described, not the fairness Nicaraguan courts in general. In fact, they specifically rejected the idea that the Nicaraguan justice system was corrupt (although a lower court ruled that it was). Incidentally, some plantation workers have brought claims in the US and won a lot of money (about $1m per successful plaintiff). Others have been shown to be frauds, not plantation workers at all, and had their cases thrown out on the merits.
So there you have it. I think Dow and Dole should have to pay out bigtime, and it is my sincere hope that they do, but I can't blame the court for refusing to honor the verdict.
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So we can just all chill and enjoy the single level of irony of the someone in the US courts bashing on Nicaragua for having corrupt courts that are overtly influenced by political or corporate pressure.
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I've come to believe that most of the outcome-determined decisions in US courts are ideologically motivated, and not the direct result of political pressure. Most courts that make particularly important decisions are lifetime appointments; they're fairly well insulated from pressure. Doesn't mean they don't make outcome-determined decisions, but those bad decisions are for the most part based on how the judges themselves think the world ought to operate, not what other people whisper in their ear.
In my personal experience, the only judges I've seen make transparently outcome-determined decisions have been collective bargaining arbitrators, and those decisions have been in favor of sympathetic laborers.
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I normally don't bother posting anything that's blatantly angled on one side of the story but
UTERUS
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/06-1
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I normally don't bother posting anything that's blatantly angled on one side of the story but
UTERUS
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/06-1
What the uterus?
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I normally don't bother posting anything that's blatantly angled on one side of the story but
UTERUS
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/04/06-1
Sneeeerk.
I'm not sold on any site that uses anti-choice as an abortion debate descriptor, but that's still funny.
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Yeah, that's what I meant, I would not use that site for trying to make an objective point, but seriously uterus.
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Yeah, that's what I meant, I would not use that site for trying to make an objective point, but seriously uterus.
You mean u*****?
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Haven't seen much discussion on the impending government shutdown or the Republican budget plan for future fiscal years.
I'm not particularly happy about the shutdown, but I have to ultimately lay blame for it at the Republican side's feet. The Republican base is more enthusiastic about a shutdown (many WANT to see it happen). Also there has been discussion that the only thing preventing a deal are things like the planned parenthood and EPA 'riders' that accomplish Republican non-budget agenda items. So the crux of it comes down to the party not passing a budget because they specifically want to use the budget as a vehicle for policy manipulation. While this is a valid political tactic, it does leave the results of failure in their hands. I also tend to disagree with the idea that somehow cutting more from the budget will make our economy improve, as 'confidence' will not magically make the economy take off and people losing their jobs due to cut spending DEFINITELY won't.
The concern with this year's deficit in general is perplexing to me. This fiscal year's deficit will have little impact on the economy (and uh the higher it is the better it is for jobs and such). The deficit issue is a long-term problem that is ultimately grounded in healthcare and entitlements and so on. Such focus on cutting half a year's budget is purely political and symbolic (although the effects of such cuts ARE real and noticeable).
The long-term Republican plan for the deficit is... Eliminate Medicare/Medicaid (oh and tax cuts because the conservative theory of tax cuts = more revenue will never die no matter how long it is bashed for). But Medicare will only be kaput for those below the age of 55, who instead will be given government subsidies to buy private health insurance from approved private health insurance providers. Everyone above the age of 55 will see Medicare continue until the day they die. The subsidies of course will be vastly inferior to Medicare... the government wouldn't be saving a lot of money if it did. This strikes me as a pretty obnoxious "appease the older voters" approach. So much for shared sacrifice.
Wait a second... "who instead be given government subsidies to buy private health insurance from approved private health insurance providers"
Haven't we... heard this before? It sounds awfully familiar. OH YEAH! OBAMACARE. You know, the thing the Right side of this country has been vilifying for the past year as the worst thing since Adolf motherfucking Hitler? And their "Path to Prosperity" is to more or less mimic satan's own plan for our healthcare for people above the age of 65. I'm not even sure what to say. The cognitive dissonance required to pull this off is nothing short of stupendous.
The "Path to Prosperity" would probably save the government a lot of money (think trillions, actually reducing our deficit very significantly). But only after 2020 or so when Medicare is finally ended. Before that the tax cuts would make the deficit LARGER than if things continued on as they are.
Other things are cut too, like Pell Grants and so on and so forth. And no talk of cutting the military budget of course, as per usual. If the deficit is an existential threat shouldn't this be on the table too?
(in case you can't read between the lines here, the Republican plan for reducing the deficit would place the responsibility HEAVILY upon younger and poorer constituencies. Less education, less healthcare, and so on. And it would *cut taxes* for folks that would suffer the least. I'm really not sure whether to laugh or cry)
No counter-offer from the democratic party yet. Of course if the Republicans take the deficit too seriously (or rather, use it as an excuse to push a conservative agenda) then the democrats don't take it seriously enough. We'll see how this all plays out in NEXT year's budget showdown. Joy.
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Hey, uterus you, man.
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Haven't seen much discussion on the impending government shutdown or the Republican budget plan for future fiscal years.
I personally like to partake in liberal fury in non-DL sites!
That said, when I first heard Republicans were actually going to focus on Medicare, I thought it might be good (Medicare is a nice idea, but absurdly unbalanced. I think of average, people get $300,000 out of Medicare, but only put in $100,000. And that may be $300,000 average may include those who don't even live long enough to see Medicare, making the balance even worse)... But holy shit, what they instead proposed is grandfathering all the current users, stripping the system, and still forcing people who will see a different system to pay for the more expensive system now. Best way I've heard it put was that if the new proposed system was so great, why are we waiting 10 years to implement it? And yes, it's takes absurd cognitive dissidence. Also, pain to anyone who believes that trickle down is a good theory in reality.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/12/japan.nuclear.reactors/index.html?hpt=T1 well, this isn't good.
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A party debate is going on in Canada today because of the election on May 2nd. I have nothing to really substantiate this belief, but Stephen Harper (the current prime minister) just begs to be punched in the face at all times with his smugness. I don't really know much about Canadian politics, but almost everyone I know hates Stephen Harper. >_>;;
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A party debate is going on in Canada today because of the election on May 2nd. I have nothing to really substantiate this belief, but Stephen Harper (the current prime minister) just begs to be punched in the face at all times with his smugness. I don't really know much about Canadian politics, but almost everyone I know hates Stephen Harper. >_>;;
It's interesting; people seemed to have pretty positive vibes on people about him during the last election, but plenty of stuff has happened since then.
I really need to catch up on my Canadian politics so that I can make an informed vote, though. Needless to say, there hasn't been much news coverage of the Canadian election in Georgia.
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I think it's his seemingly rallying up partisan politics and his awful environmental stance (I talk to a lot of oceanography grad students). Again, this goes with the disclaimer that because I can't vote I don't pay quite as much attention.
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http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410,0,2614451,full.story
Couldn't think of a place to post it, so here it goes.
*Eyeroll* with some profanity on the side sums up my opinion of the adminstration here. Way to sound like patronizing dicks *and* economically punish families, whee.
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*Eyeroll* with some profanity on the side sums up my opinion of the adminstration here. Way to sound like patronizing dicks *and* economically punish families, whee.
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I don't have a problem with a school preventing students from drinking soda on the premises, as long as they have plenty of good water fountains and so on and so forth. But that's because I think soda is basically poison. Sugary, tasty poison. Shit may be worse for us than Pot.
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The real problem here is that school lunches don't tend to be very good food nutritionally. Parents who would prepare better food for their kids aren't going to be able to do so. And that's a big problem.
School lunches often turn out to be a cost-cutting boondoggle at the expense of kids, too. Don't know if Chicago is that way, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it were.
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I don't have a problem with a school preventing students from drinking soda on the premises, as long as they have plenty of good water fountains and so on and so forth. But that's because I think soda is basically poison. Sugary, tasty poison. Shit may be worse for us than Pot.
They're preventing students from bringing *any* kind of lunch. You can ban sodas (I don't remember ever seeing soda in schooll till HS) but telling parents that you can't pack kids a lunch for their own good reeks of just so much shit.
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School lunches often turn out to be a cost-cutting boondoggle at the expense of kids, too. Don't know if Chicago is that way, but I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it were.
Oh, it's better than that - the district gets an allowance from the state for each lunch they serve, and pay a portion of that back to the food-services company that actually makes and serves the meals. So the more kids eat a school lunch, the bigger the profit.
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Sugary, tasty poison. Shit is worse for us than Pot.
FTFY.
Also, kind of related, not really politicy but goes to show just how ludicrous the mandatory school lunch thing is. http://www.accesshollywood.com/jamie-oliver-battles-la-school-officials-over-bringing-food-revolution-on-campus_article_43310
Celebrity chef uses his celebrity to go into schools and show how terrible school lunches actually are. LA outright bans him from entering the schools to show what's being served. LAUSD's response kind of makes sense, but is still pretty ludicrous when you think about it. "Yeah, he's welcome to join our menu committee, sure. But we won't play to a reality show. Because there are a lot of people who pay attention to that shit."
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Man, what. I thought most of the point of school lunches was to have decent healthy options, especially for kids whose parents are too rushed to provide them (since then the other options are the kids getting fast food or packaged food, both of which tend to be awful). Them being unhealthy is just embarrassing.
I don't have much else to add; what everyone else said.
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http://preview.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-14/new-york-s-nassau-county-going-broke-as-no-one-wants-to-share-fiscal-pain.html
Fun article. Hooray for crap like this.
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Given that absurd property tax system, it sounds like they may not have ever had a truly functioning budget!
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so apparently some Things are happening up north. I love the title of this piece, elegant in its simplicity.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/yes-america-there-is-a-canada.php?ref=fpblg
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Yes, Hollywood is so fake that in real life, Jack Bauer is really a Canadian socialist.
For some reason, this comment amused me greatly.
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Wow.
Here I ended up not going through the process of getting an absentee ballot, and now I'm thinking "wow the election sounds so awesome, if only I was voting". I think living in the states too long has given me a "nothing changes from elections anyway" cynicism.
Either way, the NDP toppling the Bloq is like...the best thing ever. Best party ursurps worst party.
I mean, it makes sense: the conservatives are pretty devoid of French types, the Liberals made huge blunders in Quebec, and the Bloq and NDP are both left wing. It always confused me that the NDP had no presence in Quebec.
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I wanna vote too! Of course, I would just throw my vote away to the Greens anyway, but whatever~
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I wasn't a fan of Green when I last lived in Canada, but I hear they're much improved (not a one-issue party anymore).
In the mean time, America finds a way to fail harder:
http://www.latimes.com/business/sc-dc-0428-court-class-action-web-20110427,0,1239412.story
No more class action lawsuits! (Brought to you by a 5-4 split along party lines).
wtf? Seriously, wtf?
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Hahaha oh gods that is just fucked.
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Hahaha oh gods that is just fucked.
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US Supreme Court remains a complete fucking joke.
EDIT: For those of you who aren't familiar with my usual rant on the matter, that comment is a response to the "judges divided along partisan lines!" thing. For all that I think the result here sounds like a total joke too, for all that I'm not enough of a legal expert to weigh in on how the decision was reached. The result does stink like little else, though. Second absolutely awful democracy-eroding decision by the USSC in less than a year, impressive.
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Hahaha oh gods that is just fucked.
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Rest assured, this decision is as much of a hatchet job as it looks like.
The Federal Arbitration Act forbids courts from discriminating between arbitration clauses and other forms of contracts when they judge the validity of those agreements, so, for example, a state can't have a law that says "arbitration clauses are void." State judges can declare contracts or parts of contracts void on the basis of the doctrine of unconscionability: the basis that the contract is unfair to one of the parties.
In this case Scalia rules that state judges can't declare a provision that prevents class action arbitration unconscionable and void. So he expands the idea of judges not being able to discriminate against arbitration clauses into the idea that judges pretty much can't touch any of the TERMS of arbitration clauses. Even if they could declare the same terms unconscionable if they were not in arbitration clauses. No, that is not logically consistent.
On the plus side, if anyone ever tells you the conservatives on the court are just textualists doing their principled duty, you can cite this case and tell them to go fuck themselves.
The only good thing about this decision is it's based on an interpretation (if you can even call it that) of a federal statute and not the constitution, and it's really bad for the bottom lines of big law firms, which means an army of lobbyists will be working to get the decision overturned by congress.
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<America> We're not even trying to pretend pretending companies don't own our ass. World, you're next.
EDIT: Ninja'd by the Jims being reasonable human beings.
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It should tell you something that most infuriating SC decisions are 5-4. Practically speaking it should tell you that we're one heart attack away from a decent Supreme Court. There's a good reason a bunch of liberalish but old justices jumped ship the second we got a Democratic president.
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Oh, America. (http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/jubilant-crowds-gather-at-white-house.php?ref=fpblg)
"Well, Osama would hate that," one onlooker cracked as a young woman flashed her breasts.
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Well, it's all but official now - for the first time in recent history (can't be bothered to check how long), the Government of Canada is a majority. The Conservatives with PM Harper now have at least the opportunity to do things. Let's hope they don't mess it up.
More importantly, though, even more than the crotch kick to the Liberals, is the near total implosion of the Bloc Quebecois - a party whose primary mandate has been the secession of Quebec from the rest of Canada.
I'm cautiously optimistic at this stage, even if I don't fully agree with the stance of any of the parties.
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7 years of minority, for the record, Doma.
Kinda mixed feelings tonight. I'm unhappy with the Conservative majority, not especially because of their policies (except their environmental policy which is an international embarrassment), but because it feels like rewarding them for attack ads and lies about the Canadian constitution, not to mention a government that has a poor track record with being open and democratic (especially sad since a decade ago they campaigned on this).
Also generally kinda unhappy with the suddenly-hundred-seat NDP. To give you an idea, I considered quoting mc's post about "best party replaces worst" and editting "best" to "second worst", although they have snuck past the Conservatives to me of late due to the aforementioned paragraph. They stand for a lot of things I don't like about the left-wing and their leader continues to promise a lot without explaining where it's going to come from.
I'm really scared at the idea of Canada being reduced to two parties. Maybe this is an irrational phobia but I really don't like how it works in the US. I guess I just feel it fosters an "us versus them" attitude and all this visceral hate which does nobody any good. Could be wrong! But yeah.
On the other hand?
The separatist party is down to 2-4 seats oh fuck yes. This is really awesome. It means that if the Conservatives slip up even a little then the NPD/Liberals can reasonably form coalitions against them since coalitions aren't toxic when they don't involve the fucking separatists. Quebec is not a conservative province so their left-leaning votes going to real, national parties can only be a good thing.
And aw yeah Green Party getting a seat. The lack of dialog on environmental issues this election was embarrassing, nice to get that voice in the house.
Finally, even if I don't like the parties who were favoured, I kinda like the general feeling of change and how the electorate this year clearly responded to the campaigns people ran. I can't argue with Jack Layton looking by far the best of the leaders, and do find it heartening while the conservative attack ads were successful at scaring people away from the Liberals, most of those votes did not in fact go to the party which launched said ads.
It's going to be a pretty interesting four years. A lot of people here are unsure just how right-wing Harper will be with a majority (which for the non-Americans, majority governments wield a heck of a lot of power). If he panders to his base too much he will scare Ontario voters riiight back into the hands of the Liberals or NDP. If he governs like he has so far he will likely become one of the very rare non-Liberal PMs in history to actually win consecutive majorities. And the Liberals/NDP... I just don't know. I doubt the Liberals will roll over, so I imagine they'll be back, but who knows? And the NDP will definitely need to prove their current election is more than a fluke. I see a lot of things that can go wrong with them (their very popular leader is in questionable health, Quebec support is always volatile, etc.). "Unite the left" is pretty much my worst-case fear but I don't think the Liberals are beaten so badly as to turn to a union with the NDP where the latter is stronger. Not to mention I don't think the Liberals are especially left anyway (and their greatest historical success over the past half century has come from being seen as the party of the centre) so I hope they don't let themselves get painted that way.
We'll see! Weird night.
Oh yeah and the candidate I voted for won, so I am happy about that. Yay Liberal with a decent track record on environmental issues. My streak of never voting for a loser continues~
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Hmm, my thoughts on all this are actually pretty similar to the Elf's, with the exception that I'm less worried about Harper and the Tories. Though that's less because I'm worried about how they operate, and more because Canada has a habit of there being a deal of support that washes from the Liberals to the Tories like a Tide, and the successive minorities had broken that tide. Hopefully this'll get our government out of stasis. Especially since this time, when people look at Harper it'll only be on what he's done, and not on speculations on how much of his policy was determined by being in a Minority (a concern that oddly, both helped and hurt him since those supporting and opposing him entrenched further from this belief).
And, yeah. My only real worry about this election should go away if the Liberals manage a comeback, as opposed to fading away. Though given how long the PCs held on after they got an even worse crushing, and how they were caught inbetween a tougher rock and a hard place, the Liberals will definately get their shot.
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Definitely jazzed about the results.
My biggest complaint about this election is that it looks pretty much like what should have happened last election. The Liberals seriously screwed up in 2008...and most of the country went NDP over them, but they still managed to get more seats than the NDP primarily because of Toronto. Elizabeth May is awesome enough that she should have gotten a seat in 2008. The Bloc is long overdue to crash and burn. Harper honestly, probably should have gotten a majority government last time. And just in general it's nice to see real proof that this is a three-party system now; all three major parties have spent some time in third place now.
I agree that a unite the left movement would be an absolute disaster, but I really don't see it happening. The Liberals aren't going to roll over to the NDP the first moment in history they've ever had fewer seats in parliament. And the NDP is similarly unlikely to make such a move when they're the smaller party in the future--the NDP has shown for 50 years that it's happy to chill out at 10-40 seats.
And also yeah: the Liberals are not exactly left wing. I can easily see a scenario where the Conservatives get involved in a big scandal, and so the Liberals position themselves to the right, and the next election becomes Liberals (right wing) vs NDP (left wing). Also: they're the go-to coalition/ally party--if either of the other main parties win a minority government, Liberals become their obvious ally to get things done. It almost doesn't matter which party wins (outside of a majority) Liberals are going to have power. It's a pretty sweet position to be in--why give that up just to lend strength to the NDP?
(And really, doomsaying at 34 seats? 34 is close to the NDP's previous all-time high. Progressive Conservative went 2->20->12).
Sure, the unite the Right thing happened, but that's because the Reform party realized it couldn't win a seat east of Manitoba, and therefore could never form the government. Neither the NDP nor the Liberals have this problem. They can realistically threaten to win an election on their own, without merging with another party.
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The Doomsaying is more because the Anyone But Harper (also works as Anyone But Tories) crowd is making noises about how the other parties should pool so the not-Tory majority coukd rule inder the hand of Comrad Jack.
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and most of the country went NDP over them, but they still managed to get more seats than the NDP primarily because of Toronto
The Liberals had 26% of the popular vote in 2008, while the NDP had 18%. Seats reflected this quite well.
Also I feel the need to point out that outside Quebec (which the NDP took by an amount which I find just mind-boggling. In a good way because it's not the Bloc, but still), the Liberals and NDP were actually quite close across the rest of the country. NDP won, mind, but only by ~10 seats and a relatively small amount of popular vote (too lazy to calculate it precisely, have to go to work). So yeah, really a bit too early with death knells!
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I am not freaking out too much about this unlike most of my friends, but I am quite concerned about the environmental policies (or lack of) from the Conservatives. We'll see, I guess.
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My turn for mixed feelings as the people of Scotland have voted in a majority government for the Scottish Parliament to Alex Salmond and his Scottish Nationalist party but the UK says no to voting reform~
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ianmcowie/100010127/a-tax-based-alternative-to-the-alternative-vote/ <-- Tax-based voting. Um~
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That's satire.
... I think.
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I thought so too, but apparently it is a right wing newspaper in Britain and from what I can find it seems legitimate.
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Ok, I can sort-of see why (even if I strongly disagree) someone would want to take away the vote from those on welfare and those on old-age pensions. And he does say that allowances would be made for stay-at-home parents. What I take big issue with, that he doesn't address, is that this excludes students. If, say, a political science student in university can't vote, then there's something wrong with the system. There are very few better-informed voters. (Oh wait, he wants to allow pensioners on the basis that they probably used to contribute to society. So...why not allow people who probably will contribute to society in the future?)
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And he does say that allowances would be made for stay-at-home parents
Nooo, he says "mothers" (EDIT: not even "stay-at-home mothers", which is a significant difference). That line was so blatantly misogynist that it was one of the things I keyed in on to thinking the whole thing was satire.
I'm still going to choose to believe it is. The alternative is that this guy is a worthless human being who hates democracy. Which is possible, but I'm a perennial optimist.
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Nope, he's dead serious. Having had the displeasure of reading far right newspapers in the UK before, I can assure you that it's not parody in any sense of the word. That may or may not top the BRING BACK THE WHIPPING POST that I read over there in 09, though!
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Sounds like someone needs to put put down Atlas Shrugged and go play Bioshock.
Proposals have come up in Congress to restrict aid to Pakistan until answers come out about whether their intelligence services were hiding bin Laden. This would not be surprising, since Pakistan's government/IS has been doing the "right hand bashes terrorists/insurgents/rebels, left hand raises them" game. That really is a horrible policy for everyone involved (including the US Hooray for giving weapons to the Taliban and everyone else ever)
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Nooo, he says "mothers" (EDIT: not even "stay-at-home mothers", which is a significant difference). That line was so blatantly misogynist that it was one of the things I keyed in on to thinking the whole thing was satire.
Maybe living in Georgia for a year has made me jaded, but blatant misogyny is something I don't find out-of-the-ordinary for a politician these days.
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Maybe living in Georgia for a year has made me jaded, but blatant misogyny is something I don't find out-of-the-ordinary for a politician these days.
Blatant mysoginy is the new closet homosexual.
Why don’t we restrict votes to people who actually pay something into the system? No, I am not suggesting a return to property-based eligibility; although that system worked quite well when Parliament administered not just Britain but most of the world.
Yeah the good old days of the East India Company where everything was run perfectly and fairly and sanely by good people you could trust.
Edit - “From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy.”
Hard to believe? The credit crisis afflicting democracies around the world demonstrates the truth of this observation.
LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL
Edit 2 - Bullshit about buying beer
Yes because the rich around the world pay a disproportionate amount of the world's taxes with their massively disproportionate wages right? Not to mention that there is just as many rich people as there is poor (or MORE poor than rich like this anecdote) OH WAIT THAT IS TOTAL BULLSHIT I FORGOT STATISTICS IN MY QUAINT ANALOGY WHICH IS FULL OF SELF DELUSIONAL TRIPE.
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http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2011-05-11/news/os-legislature-unemployment-benefits-20110511_1_jobless-benefits-unemployment-laws-state-jobless-rate
I forgot how much I hate Florida.
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That fucking *sucks*, and I hope it gets destroyed in court.
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I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I doubt the "misconduct" part moves the change much. From what I've seen from labor arbitrations, ALJs tend to have their own cultural idea of what the proper balance between employer and employed is and aren't going to budge much based on new law. Unless the term "misconduct" comes with some very specific definitions attached, look for judges to enforce their old standards and brush off bad behavior on the part of employees that they wouldn't formerly have acted on as behavior that doesn't rise to the level of misconduct.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/13407908 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/13407908)
... Fuck.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/nyregion/imf-chief-is-held-without-bail.html?_r=1&hp
...and the guy is being held without bail. It's going to be hard for him to hold a campaign from U.S. federal jail as a "flight risk." Now, you might wonder why someone so high-profile would ever be deemed a flight risk. I mean, it's not like he's going to leave the public eye. Well, the answer is that he's French, and France has no extradition treaty with the US or anyone else for that matter. France is one of a few countries that won't extradite their own citizens for any purpose, so if this guy got to France and never left the country again, the US couldn't punish him even if he were found guilty.
...might be time for France to rethink their protectionist extradition policy. (Germany, Russia, China, and Japan also do the same thing.)
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His carrier is pretty much ruined anyway. I don't think anyone will want to have anything to do with him anymore, even though he was seen as the most competent potential candidate and was very likely to be the next president. (hell, I was likely going to vote for him)
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Fenrir: Could be worse, Le Pen's daughter could have a serious chance of winning now! (And if she does, my apologies)
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Thankfully, no. (Else I'm seriously leaving for Canada)
I have to admi the whole scandal is hilarious though. So absurd, it could have only happened in real life.
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So...going a while back in these topics, we had an interesting debate about gender uniforms, and LGBT nondiscrimination clauses for employers; whether it's fair to force a business to hire, say, a butch lesbian, when she might drive away customers who just aren't comfortable being around such a person.
Enter GameSpot:
http://kotaku.com/5803703/welcome-carolyn-michelle-to-games-reviewing-youre-doing-just-fine
And yeah, there's been some internet nerd rage; GameSpot seems to be holding to their position in spite of said nerdrage. It's awesome.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/CRIME/05/23/scotus.california.prisons/index.html
I'm sure everyone has heard of this already, but Supreme Court forces California Prison system depopulation.
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I dunno what they stuck in Scalia & Alito's coffee. This isn't unprecedented and has done before at a state level (I remember Freakonomics whining about this phenomenon too), and furthermore, it is completely and utterly obvious that one solution which would make Scalia happy is to build more prisons. No money? That's not the Constitution's problem. From the excerpts, they're hyping Scalia taking a very outcomes-based approach in the opinion, the exact thing he's supposed to be tut-tutting those librul activists for, rather than applying the clear language of the Constitution. As usual.
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Agreed, mostly, but my sense was that Scalia had no proposed solution and would rather have left violation of 'cruel and unusual punishment' as a right without a remedy (I'll check this later. haven't read the case yet). Alito makes a big deal out of how it's not necessarily going to be the prisoners whose rights are being violated who are going to be released. Um, so what? If the prison population goes down, the prisoners whose rights are violated due to the overcrowding will have their remedy, and that's all they're entitled to. Kennedy in his opinion said building more prisons would be an acceptable solution to the overcrowding problem, but he acknowledged what everyone already knows: ain't gonna happen with CA's financial trouble. This is a consolidation of 2 class actions, one of which is 20 years old. CA had all the time in the world to fix this problem, and it didn't.
CA pioneered the draconian '3 strikes' rule that puts 3-time felons away for 25 to life, no matter the severity of the crime. Scalia upheld the constitutionality of that rule, said it was not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a man whose third felony was shoplifting a golf club, nor was it unconstitutional to sentence a man to 50 to life for shoplifting videotapes. Those men was put in CA state prison 15 years ago, and remains there today unless they've died in the interim. Maybe they should be in the front of the line for release.
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CA pioneered the draconian '3 strikes' rule that puts 3-time felons away for 25 to life, no matter the severity of the crime. Scalia upheld the constitutionality of that rule, said it was not cruel and unusual punishment to sentence a man whose third felony was shoplifting a golf club, nor was it unconstitutional to sentence a man to 50 to life for shoplifting videotapes. Those men was put in CA state prison 15 years ago, and remains there today unless they've died in the interim. Maybe they should be in the front of the line for release.
You know, they should be, but it sounds like CA is going to try hard to not release anybody (they're planning to offload felons to county Jails or other states).
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Pah. Obviously the solution is to execute 30000 of them.
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There comes before us, now and then, a case whose proper outcome is so clearly indicated by tradition and common sense, that its decision ought to shape the law, rather than vice versa.
Strict constructionism, ladies and gentlemen.
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And yet it seems Kennedy agrees with this principle. That's why he attached some pictures of the prison conditions to his decision that Scalia so despises. Seems the undisputed fact that prisoners in CA die at about a clip of once a week from lack of basic medical care and that California has let this get worse in the decade since the last court order commanding them to do better led him to his own common sense outcome.
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I haven't read the decision straight through, but I thought those were just to underscore the "hey, guys, this is seriously cruel and unusual" point. Especially the cages.
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Sounds like common sense to me.
Don't bother with the opinion, it's really rather dull. The heart of the matter is this: California acknowledges its prisons violate the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. A three judge panel, after many years of failed attempts by the state of California to alleviate overcrowding, ordered a reduction in the percentage over capacity of prisoners in the CA system to 137.5% over capacity. California proposes to build more prisons and transfer prisoners out of state as a remedy, and says that because it has a workable plan the courts have no authority to order a reduction in capacity. Normally, under federal law, California would be right. The courts would be obligated to give them the time to see their plan through. But the panel ordered a reduction anyway because California's plan was identical to California's previous plans which hadn't worked, and because California, nearly bankrupt, clearly doesn't have the resources to follow through on that promise.
Kennedy upheld the reduction to 137.5%. It could be achieved entirely by building new prisons or transferring out prisoners, but if the state of California can't get the percentage low enough by so doing it must release prisoners.
Scalia and Alito (I think) do not dispute that the 8th amendment has been violated, and do not dispute that California is obligated to remedy overcrowding, but would allow California to continue with its proposed plan, even though it's guaranteed to fail, and even though it's as plain as day that California intends to drag its feet on prison overcrowding...well, forever if the courts will let it.
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The take-away message for me is that if everyone in California goes on a crime spree, no one has to go to jail.
That interpretation amuses me, even if I do live in an area that has a reputation for excessive amounts of violent crime. You should see all the scary people I live next to. Tiny 35-year-old men walking their girlfriend's shih tzus and belligerent old ladies with walkers and the aged black men (or the freaky young white males - regardless, it's always a man) who like to ride the buses from one end of their route to the other witnessing to all the passengers whether they care or not.
...
I may have gotten onto a wee tangent there. Anyway.
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The problem with prison is that it only works as a deterrent/as punishment if, you know, you don't get let out because the system is overloaded. Remember Lindsay Lohan? (Or, well, maybe if you live outside of this crazy state you aren't confronted with her every day. I don't know.) People keep saying how she'll never learn because she gets the equivalent of a daisy chain on the wrist every time she does cocaine or drives drunk or steals jewelry. She has RECIDIVISM metaphorically tattooed on her forehead, but it doesn't quite get to her brain because the punishment is so not a punishment. It's free fucking publicity. This latest time she went to court and was sentenced to 120 days in jail and 480 hours of community service for misdemeanor (originally felony) grand theft and probation violation. They expect her to serve as little as 14 of those 120 days.
What the hell?
(Let's ignore the "star treatment" angle of this particular case. Fact is, plenty of people with "lesser" crimes and sentences are going to get a dose of "Oh fuck, I actually got away relatively lightly!" And sure, you'll have your cohort who decide this brush with the law was more than enough from them. But you'll also have the cohort who sense this enormous weakness in the system and set out to exploit it, as the seedy underbelly often does.)
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Reminds me of a little experiment my mother tells me they did in Boston back in the '70s: enforcing jaywalking laws and giving tickets to every violator. It ended 2 weeks after it began in the face of incredulous members of the public laughing, ripping up tickets, and generally completely ignoring the police trying to uphold the law. Now that's what I call voting with your feet!
...
*ahem*
It seems to me prison will remain a good deterrent to crime in CA as long as they carefully tailor the population of prisoners they release. If they make it clear that new inmates aren't getting off the hook, it should work all right. When you get down to it, prison as a deterrent to crime pales in comparison to societal pressure. For most folks you don't commit grand theft (other than grand theft: shitloads of mp3s) because it's wrong, y'know? And for the crowd of mostly poor mostly minority young men who, because of their upbringings, feel little societal pressure not to commit crime, prison is such a normal part of their culture that I wouldn't be confident in saying it's much of a deterrent as things stand.
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The take-away message for me is that if everyone in California goes on a crime spree, no one has to go to jail.
Alternately, there's a message that even the state government does, eventually, have to take its fingers out of its ears and accept that doing expensive things (like committing to house and feed someone for life if they steal three golf clubs) when you don't have any money has consequences.
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http://www.toledoblade.com/news/2011/05/25/Michigan-Senate-approves-school-funding-cuts-as-budget-voting-continues-in-Legislature.html
As always, western civilization has its priorities straight *nod*
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Reminds me of a little experiment my mother tells me they did in Boston back in the '70s: enforcing jaywalking laws and giving tickets to every violator. It ended 2 weeks after it began in the face of incredulous members of the public laughing, ripping up tickets, and generally completely ignoring the police trying to uphold the law. Now that's what I call voting with your feet!
They should have made that it was legally a jaywalker's fault if they get hit by a car. Irate enough people would solve their problem.
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but the problem wasn't the jaywalkers. it was the pesky police trying to intrude upon a sacred way of life. If I can cross 4 lanes without getting hit, I don't deserve a fine, I deserve a reward!
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Come now, that logic only holds true for speeding. Unless you meant award instead of reward, as in Darwin!
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I, uh, don't think they give Darwin awards to people who are in the position of collecting them.
Anyway, it's only stupid if you get hit. And if you DO get hit, then I'm fine with you getting a ticket for jaywalking.
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I've heard of people getting jaywalking tickets in other cities, and in some places it's effective.
It sounds like in this case the problem was the unenforceability, though. Unlike cars, you don't have a licence plate tatooed to your head. What does the police officer do if you tear up the ticket and walk away? Arrest you and fingerprint you? Unless they're willing to go that far....
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The "problem" is culture. People get tickets for speeding and they gripe about it because it sucks but they deal with it, because they know people get tickets for speeding. No one up here knows anyone who's gotten a ticket for jaywalking. It's something people do, and people don't see any reason to change their ways. I don't have numbers but I'd hazard a guess that jaywalking doesn't increase the incidence of car accidents in cities where it's common, because drivers are on the lookout for walkers, and walkers aren't crazy enough to dart out in the street if there's a possibility a car will actually hit them.
Take it from a guy who cuts through the middle of a 5-way intersection every morning.
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/alabama-lawmaker-abandons-gop-over-teacher-rights-stripping-law.php?ref=fpblg
State lawmaker in Alabama jumps ship from the GOP to the Democrats. Um, what?
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http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/nj_goper_premieres_anti-abortion_suspense_flick_this_weekend.php
For people who thought Seven was a cool movie but the serial killer was the real hero, teaching people about the deadly sins and the fallen state of man.
There is a "pro-life twist" at the end, so I presume our captives will be thanking the captor Stockholm Syndrome style for preventing them from making the terrible mistake of abortion. The movie will not think about the panic caused for their families and husbands, or the wasted police effort trying to find our kidnapper that could have gone to stopping other criminals, or the fact that only the threat of murder from Our Hero would be stopping the captives from aborting on their own back-alley style (unless they were literally chained to a bed at all times, which would be its own form of torture).
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Idiot of the Day is a few threads over, Snowfire.
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Blame Dune for closing the abortion thread, where I first went to post that.
Anyway, in penance, I shall post a new link instead.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/world/americas/06peru.html?hp
For those not following Latin American politics, all the sane centrist candidates split the vote and didn't make it to the runoff, leaving behind the probably corrupt conservative daughter of Alberto Fujimori (Keiko) and leftist Ollanta Humala. And it looks like Humala won in Peru. This is scary as he said nice things about Hugo Chavez before and, like Chavez, was a military dude involved in a failed coup attempt. He hasn't campaigned that way, at least, and campaigned as a centrist... but you never know. Chavez has certainly reminded people of the old problem of "One man, one vote, one time." Fujimori would not have been a great pick either, but... I dunno. We'll see. Hope for the best and all. (Morales in Bolivia hasn't been a completely terrible ruler, at least, so I have some hope for quasi-democratic Chavez allies.)
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http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/republican-new-york-senator-comes-out-for-gay-marr
See URL.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opinion/17carter.html?_r=2 <-- Jimmy Carter talks about the war on drugs.
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Jimmy Carter continues to be the best ex-president ever.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/opinion/18specter.html?ref=opinion
Arlen Specter: Congress should intervene and force the NFL owners and players to come to agreement. Congress allows the NFL to operate as a monopoly due to a special antitrust exemption, so no one should have cause to complain that Congress is interfering with business if it does so.
I post this because I'm a sadist and I think super will agree with this position, and that agreeing with Arlen Specter will cause him excruciating pain.
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I am glad Congress gets to spend time on al the important issues.
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Gotta disagree with Arlen Spector here.
Oh, I have nothing against some of his other suggested NFL legislation; the fact that American sports teams don't pay for their own stadiums in America sickens me.
But really? The economic impact? Come on. Hockey is significantly bigger in Canada than NFL is in the States. Know what happened during the long NHL strike? People...did other stuff. Went out to the movies more. Got into other sports (like the CFL stopped being a non-entity). Seriously, an NFL lockout might actually be good for the economy, because small businesses would benefit at the expense of the NFL.
Hell, this isn't even like Canada's NHL lockout, where people really had nowhere else to turn. FFS the college football league in the states is still ridiculously big.
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Gotta disagree with Arlen Spector here.
Oh, I have nothing against some of his other suggested NFL legislation; the fact that American sports teams don't pay for their own stadiums in America sickens me.
But really? The economic impact? Come on. Hockey is significantly bigger in Canada than NFL is in the States. Know what happened during the long NHL strike? People...did other stuff. Went out to the movies more. Got into other sports (like the CFL stopped being a non-entity). Seriously, an NFL lockout might actually be good for the economy, because small businesses would benefit at the expense of the NFL.
Hell, this isn't even like Canada's NHL lockout, where people really had nowhere else to turn. FFS the college football league in the states is still ridiculously big.
An NFL lockout would have an ugly localized economic impact in some cities (Especially ones like Green Bay and Jacksonville, where the football team is one of the only draws). I doubt it'd have a serious one on a broad scale. I fully expect this lockout to be over before it could come to this, as A: owners are nearly as fucked as players in a strike unless Doty lets them access their strike fund and B: There is going to be a ton of pressure from sponsors and the like.
That said, Spector is once again talking out of his ass.
Similarly, in the ’90s, when several professional football and baseball teams threatened to move in order to pressure cities to pay for stadium construction costs, I introduced legislation that would have made the antitrust exemption conditional on having the N.F.L. and Major League Baseball (which has a similar exemption) pay three-quarters of such construction costs. Again, the legislation was opposed by lobbyists and did not pass.
One of the strongest assets of any football team is the stadium; it's why a bad team like the Texans have so much value while teams that has been good of late (Like the chargers and vikings) are near the bottom of the NFL franchise value chart. Much of what you derive from a stadium is unshared revenue (Like parking and concessions) so teams that have newer ones have a notable advantage even with revenue sharing.
Of course, cities shouldn't pay for stadiums and outside of Green Bay they're a bad net economic investment.
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The solution obviously is to kick the owners' asses and create more teams like Green Bay *nod*
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http://beta.news.yahoo.com/wal-mart-wins-supreme-court-sex-bias-case-142932169.html
The first big case cut apart by the Supreme Court decision to change their stance on class action lawsuits. Disheartening but expected.
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Don't think it's THAT disheartening. The discrimination case sounded very, very loose - Wal-Mart giving their managers too much discretion, basically. I can buy that this specific case was too flawed.
Anyway, actual news to post about: New York's Senate, after a lengthy conversation with Mephistopheles and some phone calls from the shadowy Gay Satanist Investment Banker conspiracy, decides to drag the entire state into Hell along with it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/25/nyregion/gay-marriage-approved-by-new-york-senate.html?_r=1&hp
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Don't think it's THAT disheartening. The discrimination case sounded very, very loose - Wal-Mart giving their managers too much discretion, basically. I can buy that this specific case was too flawed.
It's not as loose as it sounds; lots and lots of data shows that when you give male managers in a male-dominated culture free reign to hire whoever they want they shaft women, and that's exactly what happened here. The majority is basically laying out a blueprint for discrimination: let local managers you know or should know are going to do it do it for you, have a nominal but never-enforced policy against it, and you're immune from the consequences of that decision.
The Supreme Court, which is filled with people who know better, had the gall to say that a policy of letting local managers do what they want is "no policy at all" (their words) and hence is not something the defendants are liable for. That's a disingenuous formation. A policy of local control is a policy of local control.
Wal-Mart put foxes in charge of the hen house, told them not to eat anything, and looked the other way. The Supreme Court is allowing them to wash their hands of that.
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Well, the thing is, I'd argue that stores have a very good reason for not wanting to micromanage low-level employee promotions and the like: they'd be crap at it. Even if this was mandated from on high, local management would still basically control the assessments being read / processed, short of some kind of secret shopper deal which can't possibly cover everything. Now what I'd want to know is what proportion of Wal-Mart's store managers and other local management are men, and what the average in similar industries is. If somehow Wal-Mart favors men at the local manager position - something which the national organization would be responsible for - then that'd be actionable as a class-action deal, sure. I don't know the details, though.
Also on the SCOTUS talk, know it was already posted in misc. links, but meh. Brown v. EMA finished up, with a 7-2 ruling against "violent video games aren't protected free speech so we can regulate them." I'm a little worried by Alito & Roberts' lukewarm concurrence, but whatevs, Scalia / Kennedy / Ginsburg / Sotomayor / Kagan are still a majority on their own. However the real gem is Thomas's dissent. A++ for comedic value, would recommend again.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-1448.ZD.html
In the Puritan tradition common in the New England Colonies, fathers ruled families with absolute authority. “The patriarchal family was the basic building block of Puritan society.” S. Mintz, Huck’s Raft 13 (2004) (hereinafter Mintz); see also R. MacDonald, Literature for Children in England and America from 1646 to 1774, p. 7 (1982) (hereinafter MacDonald). The Puritans rejected many customs, such as godparenthood, that they considered inconsistent with the patriarchal structure. Mintz 13.
Part of the father’s absolute power was the right and duty “to fill his children’s minds with knowledge and … make them apply their knowledge in right action.” E. Morgan, The Puritan Family 97 (rev. ed. 1966) (herein-after Morgan). Puritans thought children were “innately sinful and that parents’ primary task was to suppress their children’s natural depravity.” S. Mintz & S. Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions 2 (1988) (hereinafter Mintz & Kellogg); see also B. Wadsworth, The Well-Ordered Family 55 (1712) (“Children should not be left to themselves … to do as they please; … not being fit to govern themselves”); C. Mather, A Family Well-Ordered 38 (1699). Accordingly, parents were not to let their children read “vain Books, profane Ballads, and filthy Songs” or “fond and amorous Romances, … fabulous Histories of Giants, the bom- bast Achievements of Knight Errantry, and the like. The History of Genesis, pp. vi–vii (3d ed. corrected 1708).
This conception of parental authority was reflected in laws at that time. In the Massachusetts Colony, for example, it was unlawful for tavern keepers (or anyone else) to entertain children without their parents’ consent. 2 Records and Files of the Quarterly Courts of Essex County, Massachusetts, p. 180 (1912); 4 id., at 237, 275 (1914); 5 id., at 143 (1916); see also Morgan 146. And a “stubborn or rebellious son” of 16 years or more committed a capital offense if he disobeyed “the voice of his Father, or the voice of his Mother.”
etc. etc. etc. Thomas goes ON AND ON about how parents were in charge of everything in 17th-18th century America, which of course leads to the usual originalist argument... except the insane version, that we must interpret the First Amendment not just in light of what the writers meant at the time (1780s grammar), but also the cultural values of the time. And cultural values of the time said that free speech doesn't really apply to children. He even quotes Thomas Jefferson's written instructions on the proper upbringing of his kids... never mind that these was a PRIVATE FAMILY MATTER rather than a law.
In other words, if the state legislatures all passed a new Amendment this year that simply said "The First Amendment is repealed" and then followed it up with the EXACT SAME TEXT as the "original" First Amendment, then the video game law would be unconstitutional! Because now it'd be interpreted in the light of modern values, which do not consider the Father Master Of Everything. That sounds like fun, actually - we should totally just pass the First Amendment again every year, to keep it up-to-date. Who would vote against that?! Plus we apparently need to in order to meet Thomas's guidelines.
Troll harder next time, Thomas.
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The Wal-Mart case can be seen, I think, as a microcosm of womens' rights in general. What Wal-Mart did was not in any respect exceptional. They, and many other businesses, allowed 'business as usual' to continue, and business as usual meant casual and pervasive discrimination against women. It is 'merely' a reflection of the widespread sexism that causes women to be paid dramatically less than men, today in 2011, in pretty much every profession. The conservative men on the Supreme Court have thrown up their hands, said that men are just going to be men, and declared that a nominal anti-sexism policy is all that management of a huge corporation needs to immunize itself, for all practical purposes, from the results of underpaying its female workforce.
As for the violent vidjagames case, it just goes to show that the Supreme Court is a bit unpredictable and protectionist when it comes to children. Frankly, I expected this to be another 8-1 with Roberts leading the majority and Alito dissenting, just like the crush videos case and just like the funeral protesting case. Roberts has been zealously pro-free speech in past cases and Alito has expressed a narrow view of what the first amendment protects (nothing he finds icky upsetting, more or less). But no, the two of them have a lukewarm concurrence together, Breyer and Thomas are dissenting for some reason, and Scalia's writing the majority for the 3 other liberals + Kennedy. Go fig.
Thomas' dissent...wow. If the founders had really meant the 1st amendment to be so static, they would have sacked the Supreme Court the second they handed down Marbury v. Madison.
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http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/30/bennett.drug.legalization/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
How wrong do you have to be to have Barney Frank and the NR editing staff both disagree with you? There are several poor statements here (High THC counts are bad, so let's not legalize and not put it under government control! to only big dealers to go jail to my favorite, DRUG USE WILL GO UP 100% NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO to the always popular conflating an issue (Hint: painkillers are extremely addictive and our teen drinking rates aren't exactly declining either). I know he is a former drug czar, but you'd think he could write a better piece than that.
ALSO. If your first point is 'HEY WE SCARED CHILDREN INTO NOT USING', perhaps you are short on facts and long on hyperbole.
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Drugs again.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/02/florida.drug.tests.welfare/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
>_<
A controversial law requiring adults applying for welfare assistance to undergo drug screening has gone into effect in Florida.
What the fuck. We're going to increase the social stigma of welfare by making people undergo drug tests before applying? That is insulting.
The aid recipients would be responsible for the cost of the screening, which they would recoup in their assistance if they qualify.
Doubly insulting. Hey if you qualify you get your money back for this demeaning drug test! Ignoring that the law is likely unconsitutional and will be overturned by the courts, I'm still not a fan of it. Anything that pushes people on the edge of society further out and more likely to go to prison should be something we try to avoid.
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Yo dawg I heard you liked pressuring drug addicts into finding illegal sources of income, so we made a law that made it impossible for them to get a legal one at all so you can force them into finding illegal sources of income while you pressure them ino finding illegal sources of income.
Sounds like a good way to turn more people that are users into dealers (which has a tendency to reduce the quality of the product on the street thus making the habit even more dangerous) or just straight up get more addicts stealing.
This law is THE BEST.
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The Republican leadership in the House does something sane for once.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-shuts-out-bald-eagles-motherhood-and-other-symbolic-resolutions/2011/06/30/AGOBPbwH_story.html?hpid=z1
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On the one hand: neat, a step in the right direction. I expect them to get 50% more work done.
On the other hand, my cynical side notes that 150% of zero is still zero.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/12/world/middleeast/12israel.html?hp
Israel bans advocating boycotts, or participating in them, against the state or the settlements. Didn't the Old South attempt to arrest boycott organizers during the civil rights movement? Except at least in American law, you had to make up some other crime like disturbing the peace... I can't even begin to see how you square such a law with free speech. And how exactly do you ban participation? If somebody invites you to do business in the settlements you MUST accept?! How can that possibly be adjudicated?
Sigh. Hope the Israeli Supreme Court overturns this one.
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This reminds me of the alien and sedition acts - at least the purpose for a specific ends. Irony though: is Ilon Gilon's quoted response borderline seditious? What about Hagai El-Ad's rhetoric? If ideas of boycott are developing within the government, perhaps they should host more discussions concerning said reasons, rather than trying to "legally" protect their backs?
There's this delusion that banning speech and assembly is something that can be fully policed and impartial, though it's quite glaring the same cannot be said for Israel's Parliament. Israel's catching wind on boycotts, and I imagine enforcers will run around like chickens with their necks cut off.
I actually like comparison with the Old South, though they succeeded in illegally jailing non-criminal persons for the purpose of weakening the several movements' momentums. The indefinite amount of time in jail was meant to scare off more boycotts, but this is where the local governments realized that the "arrest-everyone" mentality didn't work once it caught national and international attention. I feel like Israel's *always* had international attention, so I wonder how the pressure they're used to will pan out??
Edit* So I don't double post:
If anyone is interested in the public school testing scandal in Atlanta, be not surprised. I would love to boil it down to being in the South and the linear relationship it has with quality education, but that's doing these overworked, underpaid and (a lot of the times) one-year contract teachers a significant injustice. So the Atlanta Public School System (oddly including an investigation outside the metro area) are implicated in cheating on the CRCT - basically a comprehension exam of basic subjects like math, english, science and history/geography.
I believe the test goes from 4-8 grade. Teachers are accused of editing scan-trons, administrations are accused of pressuring teachers for pass-able test scores and the School Board is the mastermind behind it. To me, the CRCT was *very* easy (but I came from New Jersey before taking the test twice). Georgia's public school education is a joke, and has been a joke. A few years back after I graduated high school, my county lost its accreditation for several mismanagement and testing issues. Since then, many AP schools have been scrutinized for poor grades, student results and retention rates (my graduating class should have been 700 roughly, only 363... graduated I think?). I had the same teacher in a new subject every year because schools were using fresh college grads as insurance tags and momentary replacements because of constant fluctuating budget costs. These teachers (whom I believe were much better than the established teachers) were forced to adhere to a testing-curriculum as opposed to a comprehension-curriculum: "teach us how to pass the test."
Keeping in mind the pertinence administration felt for pushing kids out of the system, strained financial support, little community involvement (financially, also), increasing crime, increasing teen pregnancy and somehow youth's increasing disrespect for their elders and you have a very bad situation. Case in point: I took several AP courses. Passing the course meant I did not have to take several sections of the graduation test - so the administration told us. Come several weeks before graduating, and the administration tells us we *must* take the test in order to graduate. But what if we fail? What if we're nervous? What if we aren't attending our graduation because we're out of town due to plans made? Then the secretary begins to tell us (in an accusatory way as if it's our fault, or not a problem) that it doesn't matter what we put on the test. We just have to take it and fill a quota. For some damned reason, I was the only one to lash out while everyone balked to their superiors: "Why are we being held responsible for your inability to counsel graduating seniors properly? Why don't YOU guys just fill the tests out and put our names on it?" She got real PO'd then. I just don't get it. Even with the funding that came in because of reported inflated test scores, that's still not enough to save the system here. It's so fucked up.
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Greece is defaulting on its debt. First EU country to do so.
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Hoooooooly fuck. Not shocking, but holy fuck.
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Does that mean Republicans will back off the idea, since the socialist Europeans are doing it?
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Republicans were seriously considering it? I thought it was just all dick waving because actually defaulting will be amazingly terrible for both the US and world economies.
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They generally consider that a positive.
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If the GOP allows the US to default, Wall St. will be funding Democrats next election. Additionally, polling has shown (thus far) that people want the ceiling raised and that they blame both parties for not coming to an agreement on it. However, even self-identified Republicans blame the GOP more than they blame the president for the failure to agree. Cross your fingers that's enough incentive for House Republicans.
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http://boingboing.net/2011/08/02/wisconsin-democratic-voters-targeted-with-koch-funded-absentee-ballot-notices-advising-them-to-vote-2-days-after-the-recall-election.html
Here's a headdesker. -_-
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That's gonna be trouble for the distributors. Usually when you hear about stuff like that it's tough to prove who did what, exactly. Doesn't seem like the case here.
Anyway, I have about zero desire to talk about the debt ceiling, so let me just echo the rest of the country: fuck you, Congress. Particularly you, Republicans.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/cbsnyt-poll-congressional-disapproval-at-an-all-time-high.php?ref=fpblg
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http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2011/08/awesome_3.php?ref=fpblg A much cooler TPM link. I thought Christie was going to throw his water bottle at the moron who asked him the Sharia law question.
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New Jersey. Somehow proving politicians can be sane.
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*cough* (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2636117.htm)
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...and the US's credit rating is now downgraded for the first time in 80-odd years.
Thanks, Republicans!
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*cough* (http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2636117.htm)
I said sane. Not uncorruptable.
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...and the US's credit rating is now downgraded for the first time in 80-odd years.
Thanks, Republicans!
Yeah, what are we now -- AA+, right? Originally AAA+? This'll have negative implications for consumer borrowing rates, since the government is going to have higher borrowing rates. I can only imagine my unsubsidized student loans, and how much even 600+ dollars could affect my payback amounts.
On Shale's Republican note, I figured I could provide some intriguing reading material from Robert Reich, 22nd Secretary of Labor, on what I call "On Republicans, Reconsidering Roosevelt and Remuneration." I simply like this alliteration.
http://www.alternet.org/economy/151922/why_we_can_thank_republicans_for_a_double-dip_recession/comments/
We need a bold jobs bill to restart the economy. Eliminate payroll taxes on the first $20,000 of income for two years. Recreate the WPA and the Civilian Conservation Corps. The federal government should lend money to cash-strapped states and local governments. Give employers tax credits for net new jobs. Amend the bankruptcy laws to allow distressed homeowners to declare bankruptcy on their primary residence. Extend unemployment insurance. Provide partial unemployment benefits to people who have lost part-time jobs. Start an infrastructure bank.
I'm uninterested in the accusatory, and noticeably partisan side of politics. I must admit I enjoy seeing thoughts like this bubbling up through the cracks, especially from people with political gusto. I believe these ideas were also echoed in chat by some secret Democratic Socialists. I support these ideas anyway. The irony in all this is that I feel many Americans are trying to move away from labor-intensive or simple clerical work in hopes for something more bourgeois. Though, I totally wouldn't mind the federal funding for art programs and initiatives considering our government's growing philistine reactions to the arts.
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Oh, I think both sides are morons overall, but this was the Republicans - the Tea Party wing in particular - starting a major fight over a procedural vote to allow borrowing they already voted for in this year's budget. It was stupid and duplicitous and will have very real negative consequences that could have been avoided by not being assholes.
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cursory following suggest that the only blame to lay at Democratic feet is Obama and other leaders not having the balls to stick to their guns when compromise was so obviously not enough. Those revenue increases HAD to come through and didn't because no one fought for them.
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Shale, yeah. I didn't mean to imply that you were accusatory (I was sorta responding to the comments hoopla on that article).
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The funny response to that would have been to tell Shale that it is all his fault.
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cursory following suggest that the only blame to lay at Democratic feet is Obama and other leaders not having the balls to stick to their guns when compromise was so obviously not enough. Those revenue increases HAD to come through and didn't because no one fought for them.
I don't think that's quite right. Despite what S&P said about taxes the real problem they had wasn't long-term but short-term. Make no mistake, the US is being punished for the debt ceiling crisis, not being neutrally adjudged of our future creditworthiness. So much of the world's debt is invested in US dollars that until all that money can be disentangled it's almost meaningless to talk about our creditworthiness. We owe money in dollars, and we have the capability to print as many of them as we want. If we sink, China and the world sinks with us, which means as a practical matter that in the short to mid-term we're incapable of sinking. Unless someone on the inside sabotages the boat. We're being punished because it's structurally possible for Congress to cause the US to default, and they recently demonstrated that they were willing to take that risk. If the US had reached a deal a month ago that included zero revenue but increased the debt ceiling anyway, I'm confident we wouldn't have faced a downgrade.
Where I've heard Democrats are truly at fault, and this seems correct to me, is that they did not insist on raising the debt ceiling in exchange for allowing the Bush tax cuts to continue until 2012. Those tax cuts were set to expire in 2010, which means that Democrats had a structural advantage at that point in time - all they had to do was not agree to deal and the cuts would have expired automatically. This is the mirror of the advantage Republicans had in the debt ceiling debate. And political analysts contemporaneously were scratching their heads that Obama didn't demand a debt ceiling increase at the time. So you can blame Obama, and Democrats in general, for not driving a harder bargain last December when they were the ones with the upper hand. Let's hope they get this right next time the cuts are set to expire.
(Oh, but don't let that stop you from blaming the GOP first and foremost. Blaming Democrats for the downgrade is like blaming SWAT when hijackers shoot the hostages.)
EDIT: managed to make it through a whole argument without using a single one of the many and various bad words I used when I was talking about this in chat! Yay civility?
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The general point being "Democrats are at fault only in that they won't fucking stick to their guns and raise taxes like everyone knows needs done", and the debate is a matter of WHEN they needed to get that shit done.
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http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/08/20118923045869251.html
The best line: "Having judges second guess the decisions made by the armed forces halfway around the world is no way to wage a war," attorney David Rivkin said in a statement on Monday.
"It saps the effectiveness of the military, puts American soldiers at risk, and shackles federal officials who have a constitutional duty to protect America."
LOL
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Re: the downgrade: http://www.thedoghousediaries.com/?p=2945
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The best line: "Having judges second guess the decisions made by the armed forces halfway around the world is no way to wage a war," attorney David Rivkin said in a statement on Monday.
I musta missed the announcement where Donald Rumsfeld decided to relocate the Department of Defense to Iraq.
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http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/08/13/pokemon-movie-quoted-herman-cain-gop-presidential-candidate/
I am disappointed in all of you not focussing on the important issues at hand to this community.
When a presidential candidate is quoting Pokemon movies during speeches I expect to know THAT day from you people, not two weeks later on a comics website archive.
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He says so much insane stuff pokemon quotes don't really stand out.
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To be fair, you could play "The Power of One" and I wouldn't recognize it as pokemon music. I'm not sure I've ever seen that particular pokemon movie.
EDIT: actually listening to their closing statements, I can't help but thinking "I'm so confused: this Jon Huntsman person seems so sane; why have I not heard of him?"
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http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/cantor-spox-if-theres-hurricane-damage-costs-will-have-to-be-paid-for-with-spending-cuts.php?ref=fpa
Fuck you, Eric Cantor.
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I'm glad you plan to leave a state destitute in the name of your PURE IDEALS, Mr. Cantor.
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http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
Well this was a sobering read.
Blah blah disclaimer obvious bias on the part of the article and myself but damn.
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http://www.truth-out.org/goodbye-all-reflections-gop-operative-who-left-cult/1314907779
Well this was a sobering read.
Blah blah disclaimer obvious bias on the part of the article and myself but damn.
That...pretty much sounds exactly like my current assessment of American politics. Except I probably have a more negative view of Democrats.
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"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." (That was President Eisenhower, writing to his brother Edgar in 1954.)
I like that quote. It really says quite a lot about how much the world has changed.
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"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." (That was President Eisenhower, writing to his brother Edgar in 1954.)
I like that quote. It really says quite a lot about how much the world has changed.
The fact that the Texas oil millionaires and business man-politicians happen to be the ones controlling the parties? Well, yes.
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That. It's still a splinter group, just one that now has the capacity to make a spectacular amount of noise out of proportion to their size.
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http://www.epi.org/publication/regulatory-uncertainty-phony-explanation/
A quick kneecapping of the entire take on Republican economic philosophy right now. Republicans wanted to make this all Obama's fault, and I guess adopting voodoo economics was the only way they could.
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*sigh*
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/article/2011/10/13/house-passes-hr-358-the-let-women-die-act-of-2011
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It'll get axed in the senate, vetoed at worst.
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The problem is that it is even proceeding.
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the "Protect Life Act."
would, among other things, allow doctors and hospitals to "exercise their conscience" by letting pregnant women facing emergency medical conditions die.
Ahahaha, what? Can we change false advertising laws so that they apply to congressional bills please?
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I find several of Alternet.org's articles to be full of Leftist editorial jargon, but unfortunately it's not too farfetched from the languages others are using to describe this bill.
In better news, we're supposedly on the verge of a malaria vaccine.
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http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/mg21228354.500-revealed--the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world.html
Interesting source for a not so shocking article.
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In breaking news, banks control most of the money.
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But this time physicists are letting you know! Not to mention all the primary resources and the manufcturing as well.
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On the issue of "minority group controls majority share," have any of you seen footage from the ouster of the Occupy Oakland movement from the City Hall plaza?
It's not nearly as impressive on TV as it is in person, but you'll have to settle for the online/TV commentator version:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/parks-and-demonstration---oakland-riot?xrs=playershare_fb
I feel like I should say something about the protesters, and the cops, and the mayor, and the president, but there's too much to say. So here's a small highlight summary:
- The protesters occupied a plaza outside Oakland City Hall for 2 weeks. They did not take care of the space. Downtown Oakland isn't really known for being "safe" to start with.
- The city waived the law against occupying public space overnight, then rescinded it and chased everyone out with cops in riot gear.
- Protesters threw paint and garbage cans and bottles at the police officers. Police officers deployed tear gas and flashbang grenades. Who knows which came first?
- The mayor was out of town lobbying in D.C. while all this happened.
- We had to call in cops from the rest of the county for reinforcement because Oakland PD is short-staffed and severely underfunded.
- The president had a $5,000-$7,500-a-plate campaign fundraiser meal across the Bay in San Francisco on Tuesday, the same day Occupy Oakland was ousted.
- The White House media restricted access to the fundraiser: no local media was allowed, only a portion of the Washington, D.C. media.
Much of this has me *facepalm*.
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Facepalm bill of the day:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/michigan-anti-bullying-law-bullying-gay-students-activists-article-1.972241?localLinksEnabled=false
http://youtu.be/zDK-ja8PLgg
"Matt's Safe School Law", named for 14-year-old Matt Epling who committed suicide in 2008 after being bullied by his classmates, includes a provision specifically noting that the law doesn't prohibit expression of religious or moral viewpoints.
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This sounds like a disproporionate reaction to me? I mean, this is a bland restatement of the 1st amendment. If it stops there - "*expression* of moral viewpoints is okay - then at best a judge can say "Okay the legislators intended special care to be taken to not misinterpret religious debate as bullying." But it doesn't say "bullying that is religiously motivated is okay." (Or if it does, then that doesn't come through from the article, although people are clearly interpreting it as such.)
e.g.:
Impolite but allowed: "Vikram, just so you know, Vishnu is a false god and demon from the pits of hell trying to ensnare you with lies. You should embrace Jesus as your personal savior."
Bullying: "You goddamn pagan, we hate you and you should go die."
At the very least if I was a juror that's how I'd interp such a provision.
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"Vikram, just so you know, Vishnu is a false god and demon from the pits of hell trying to ensnare you with lies. You should embrace Jesus as your personal savior."
I dunno. Obviously that's acceptable in the world at large, but if I heard that in one of my classes I'd be inclined to step in and put a stop to it, and probably talk to the student after class (though the talk would be more along the lines of "you should be more sensitive to the beliefs of others" than "you violated policy x, principal's office is thataway", to be fair). Of course, bullying is much more than just isolated quotations; even ones more benign (or "morally motivated") than that one could become bullying if repeated often or said to obviously get a reaction out of another kid.
No real opinion on this law; the article is pretty unhelpful and provides a slanted view as well.
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This sounds like a disproporionate reaction to me? I mean, this is a bland restatement of the 1st amendment. If it stops there - "*expression* of moral viewpoints is okay - then at best a judge can say "Okay the legislators intended special care to be taken to not misinterpret religious debate as bullying." But it doesn't say "bullying that is religiously motivated is okay." (Or if it does, then that doesn't come through from the article, although people are clearly interpreting it as such.)
I agree. Particularly because the religion language is right next to language saying that the bill doesn't infringe on first amendment rights.
The religion language is in the bill is clearly directed at an incident where a student in a Michigan school spoke out in a class about being offended by homosexual conduct because it was against his religion and the teacher disciplined him for it (http://volokh.com/2010/11/04/anti-homosexuality-speech-in-high-school-classes/). You can see how this would make religion-conscious legislators a bit more cautious.
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Here are the relevant parts of the bill, 2011 MI S.B. 137, so decide for yourself. Sorry about the caps. For what it's worth, I'm completely convinced that if a student engaged in a course of conduct directed at another student that included frequent reminders that student A did not approve of student B's sexual orientation on account of student A's religion, and it was objectively clear that student A's conduct would upset student B, then student A would be found to be "bullying" student B as defined under the act.
(1) NOT LATER THAN 6 MONTHS AFTER THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF THIS SECTION, THE BOARD OF A SCHOOL DISTRICT OR INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL DISTRICT OR BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF A PUBLIC SCHOOL ACADEMY SHALL ADOPT AND IMPLEMENT A POLICY PROHIBITING BULLYING BY PUPILS AT SCHOOL, AS DEFINED IN THIS SECTION.
(10)(B) "BULLYING" MEANS ANY WRITTEN, VERBAL, OR PHYSICAL ACT, OR ANY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION, BY A PUPIL DIRECTED AT 1 OR MORE OTHER PUPILS THAT IS INTENDED OR THAT A REASONABLE PERSON WOULD KNOW IS LIKELY TO HARM 1 OR MORE PUPILS EITHER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY BY DOING ANY OF THE FOLLOWING:
(I) SUBSTANTIALLY INTERFERING WITH EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES, BENEFITS, OR PROGRAMS OF 1 OR MORE PUPILS.
(II) SUBSTANTIALLY AND ADVERSELY AFFECTING THE ABILITY OF A PUPIL TO PARTICIPATE IN OR BENEFIT FROM THE SCHOOL DISTRICT'S OR PUBLIC SCHOOL'S EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS OR ACTIVITIES BY PLACING THE PUPIL IN REASONABLE FEAR OF PHYSICAL HARM.
(III) HAVING AN ACTUAL AND SUBSTANTIAL DETRIMENTAL EFFECT ON A PUPIL'S PHYSICAL OR MENTAL HEALTH OR CAUSING SUBSTANTIAL EMOTIONAL DISTRESS.
(IV) CAUSING SUBSTANTIAL DISRUPTION IN, OR SUBSTANTIAL INTERFERENCE WITH, THE ORDERLY OPERATION OF THE SCHOOL.
(9) THIS SECTION APPLIES ONLY TO CONDUCT BY A PUPIL DIRECTED AT 1 OR MORE OTHER PUPILS AND, EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY PROVIDED IN THIS SECTION, DOES NOT APPLY TO CONDUCT BY ANY OTHER PERSON, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, A SCHOOL EMPLOYEE, A SCHOOL VOLUNTEER WHO IS NOT A PUPIL, OR A PUPIL'S PARENT OR GUARDIAN.
(8) THIS SECTION DOES NOT ABRIDGE THE RIGHTS UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OR UNDER ARTICLE I OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION OF 1963 OF A SCHOOL EMPLOYEE, SCHOOL VOLUNTEER, PUPIL, OR A PUPIL'S PARENT OR GUARDIAN. THIS SECTION DOES NOT PROHIBIT A STATEMENT OF A SINCERELY HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEF OR MORAL CONVICTION OF A SCHOOL EMPLOYEE, SCHOOL VOLUNTEER, PUPIL, OR A PUPIL'S PARENT OR GUARDIAN.
As for the argument that this bill is "worse than nothing" I have to disagree because,
(7) THIS SECTION DOES NOT PREVENT A PERSON FROM SEEKING ANY OTHER CIVIL OR CRIMINAL REDRESS AVAILABLE UNDER LAW.
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The thing is, you don't have complete freedom of speech in a school setting, as ruled by the supreme court:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick
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Yeah, you're right, but I'm not sure that matters all that much. Taking the two parts of (8) separately:
THIS SECTION DOES NOT ABRIDGE THE RIGHTS UNDER THE FIRST AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OR UNDER ARTICLE I OF THE STATE CONSTITUTION OF 1963
...means nothing. It doesn't enlarge students' speech rights beyond what they are afforded by the constitution, which as you point out are less than what the general public gets.
THIS SECTION DOES NOT PROHIBIT A STATEMENT OF A SINCERELY HELD RELIGIOUS BELIEF OR MORAL CONVICTION OF A SCHOOL EMPLOYEE, SCHOOL VOLUNTEER, PUPIL, OR A PUPIL'S PARENT OR GUARDIAN.
...is somewhat more ambiguous. Is it meant to reiterate a right students already have, like the first part, or is it meant to give them something more than that? Whatever the answer to that question is, I believe this statement does NOT give students carte blanche to torment their peers with mean-spirited taunts, even if those taunts are quite legitimately based on a "sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction."
The reason why I believe that is the difference in language between the definition of bullying, which includes "any written [or] verbal act," and the definition of what the act does not prohibit, namely "a statement of a sincerely held belief or moral conviction."
If the act were meant to exempt ALL religious or moral language from being defined as bullying, either it would have excluded it from the definition of "bullying" entirely, or it would have mirrored the language of the definition of bullying, coming out something like this: "this section does not prohibit any written, verbal, or physical act, or any electronic communication of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction, by a pupil."
Because it does neither of those things, it's safe to assume that a course of conduct, rather than a one-off statement of disapproval, would be bullying no matter how sincere the moral conviction. Even with our first amendment, there are a number of laws that punish speech when speech alone becomes a course of conduct that disrupts another's rights (sexual harassment and stalking are the most relevant examples). If a man leaves his ex-girlfriend 40 messages on her answering machine every day for a week, he could be prosecuted for it even though his conduct consisted only of speech. I think the distinction between a "statement" and any "verbal act" will turn on similar considerations, meaning targeted, malicious speech, particularly if repeated, would be punishable under the act, even if the product of sincere belief.
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http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/ten-miles-square/2011/11/dumbass_training_and_the_uc_da033608.php
I should be asleep, but hey finally got the bug to dig into some news about Occupy stuff. I won't bother talking about the actual politics of it, I am sure by this point we can generally take a guess where each of us stands on said issue.
Instead it can be an interesting study of the application of non-lethal weaponry on general citizenry. So here is an article that Machiavelli clearly would disagree with.
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http://news.yahoo.com/gop-contenders-extend-anti-terror-patriot-act-013945491.html
ASDF
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So not necessarilly some political news, but here is an interesting article on shifts in modern media trying to adapt to teh internets.
http://filmmakeriq.com/2011/11/cnn-fires-editors-photojournalists-because-amateurs-will-work-for-free/
Now this is pretty fucked up for many reasons. One of the most important componets is freedom of the press and the extra they provide. For example something like what is quoted in the following article is not supposed to happen to Press (in most of the First World anyway).
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/11/some-occupy-protesters-allege-violence.html
Collins, who lives in Albany, N.Y., said she got an emotional phone message from him some time after his arrest. He posted on Facebook, "They beat me and stole my camera." Collin said her brother had not been an Occupy participant previously and apparently went to the encampment Tuesday night just to take pictures.
So if you are relying entirely on amateurs to provide your coverage in any element (so even if it is just photographic) then you are severely limiting the kinds of news coverage that you are actually able to report on and provide solid supporting evidence (or cynically, only able to get through to people without tl;dr). In a growing age of massive media conglomerates and ever more dispersed quality news sources it is all the more important to provide such basic coverage rights to the people at these events that are simply there as observers of the truth.
Now on to the Grefter Socialist component however, not that it matters because during the Occupy movements Police are still continuing to ignore whether people are even actually there to demonstrate, if they are there is an observer for whatever reason (especially as a member of the press) or just happen to you know, be in the general vicinity. Everyone is getting treated the same, which is to say brutally, oppresively and most of all with an aggressive mind to cripple people's ability or will to form such movements in the future.
Case in point, yet another piece of press being arrested. Of course an Exiled editor does the gonzo journalist thing and reports on it as it happened to him anyway.
http://exiledonline.com/alert-exiled-editor-yasha-levine-arrested-jailed-during-police-attack-on-occupy-la/
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Okay, just staright up Occupy spam today.
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/02/9166035-foreclosed-homes-empty-lots-are-next-occupy-targets
For anyone that has said that the movement actually need to get out there and do something. Well here is something.
Edit - And just to clarify, I do actually really like this as an act of protest. It is much better way of opting out of the system than just moving to a hippie commune in the middle of nowhere.
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http://nymag.com/news/politics/liberals-jonathan-chait-2011-11/
Interesting article about liberals and presidential expectations. I'm not sure how much I agree with it, but I think there's a point in there somewhere.
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Personally, I'd consider it the job of progressives to be disappointed in liberal presidents. As progressives, the primary goal is progress, evolution in a fundamental way. Make no mistake, compromise and half-measures are pragmatic necessities and are often improvements to the status quo, but it is important not to look at these things and think mission accomplished. Instead, the job of the progressive is to remind everyone that this is a single step, and neither more nor less.
But for cripes sake, again, pragmatism. Letting a republican in isn't going to send any message to the democrats, so STOP guys. Although you could argue that's more how the whole thing is systemically broken and significant change may not be possible to start with. Hell if I know.
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Not going to dwell on it to much, but in the context of the current administration, I think progressives have every right to be disappointed somewhat when they were hoping for change and what they got was a government that continues to allow extraspecial interrogation techniques in off shore holding.
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Yeah, pretty much what Grefter said.
Personally, I'm not comparing Obama to other Democrat presidents (who have also failed, it's true; it's not like Bill and Hillary's health care bill passed at all, whereas Obama passed...something, even if it was a shell of a bill). I'm comparing Obama to Canadian administrations, who...actually get things done.
And I'd blame the American system, except Republican presidents do seem to get things done; like passing the Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind. (Two bills I have pretty strong opposition to, and was really hoping Obama would repeal--notably, in 2011 Obama signed a 4-year-extension on several Patriot Act provisions like roving wiretaps, searches of businesses, and surveillance of "lone wolves"--defined as individuals suspected of terrorist activities).
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Part of the Patriot act that attack linkage blindness with LO are good; the wiretapping rules and search stuff are really terrible.
re that article:
There hasn't been a liberal in office since Carter (Or an effective one since LBJ). Some of that is the US's politics being more right of center than say Canada's, but I think that's also a reflection of the two main parties. The Republicans have been very good at party discipline and using primaries as a way to keep things within a strict ideological range. The democrats... welp.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxzONeK1OwQ
I feel like I should maybe post this in IotD. Rick Perry's campaign ad....
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http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/the-real-g-o-p-dark-horse-none-of-the-above/?src=recg
Interesting numbers on what percent of Republican voters would find their current crop of nominees to be acceptable candidates for president. I am happy to say that Santorum comes in dead last (tied with Paul) even behind Bachmann and Cain.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/the-nightmarish-sopa-hearings/2011/12/15/gIQA47RUwO_blog.html?hpid=z5
adfjkqifjr2qfdijqwd why is this all so stupid. I don't get it. I don't fucking get it.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhDQkSqii-E
So...a bunch of kids get arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial. (Apparently this happened six months ago, and was a response to an upheld court case where a woman was arrested for dancing at the memorial).
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http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/16/sopa-delayed-but-not-for-long/
I hate this country.
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Reserve your hate for if it actually passes.
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There won't be any hate left if it passes, only despair.
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What is that, like the shittiest version of Pandora's Box ever?
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An apt summary of politics.
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http://thepotterblogger.blogspot.com/2011/12/occupy-protesters-are-terrorists.html
Occupy London protestors are apparently terrorists, worthy of the same attention from security agencies as Al Quaeda.
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http://exiledonline.com/occupy-atlantic-avenue-the-night-before-the-occupy-boston-clearance/
And Boston falls as well.
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http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2011/12/gingrichs-message-to-gay-americans-vote-for-obama/
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Boston Occupiers became hostile to the homeless population. Such a paradox.
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It's just about time for the new year, so that means a new politics topic.
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New thread is here: http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,5912.0.html