Domain: freerepublic.com
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Comments · 694
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911 affected
I read that they affected local 911 services by confiscating equipment that supported that. Good to see that it may have been to help combat movie piracy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2221962/posts
Get your f***ing priorities straight.
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Re:What a good idea
Sadly, I'm beginning to think that the percieved liberal bias in the media is due to the media (minus Fox News) trying to be somewhat intelligent and empathetic, and grassroot conservatism trying to dumb things down and putting everything in terms of good vs evil, us vs them, as much as possible.
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index is frightening.
Fox News' political views are mainly a marketing decision to cater/pander to a very badly served audience.
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Re:Bullshit detectors and hockey-sticks
You're obviously a true believer and as such beyond reason. But still, here's a very good article about the history of the man-made global warming myth: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2176707/posts
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To Set The Record Straight
I live in Ohio not to far from where this happened. A note on the judge James Burge. He is a defense attorney wearing a robe. He was trying to find any reason to let the boy off. Go here and listen to what the judge had to say. You will want to listen to hour 2 of 01/13/2009. I am tried of people electing idiots into office that keep eroding personal responsibility and place the blame on everything else. It is one of the things undermining this country and its citizens from being all they can be.
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Re:What's his stance on censorship?
No one is advocating bringing back the fairness doctrine. This is a right-wing/libertarian talking point. Let it go, ffs.
How about Schumer and Pelosi? Or Sen. Jeff Bingaman? Then there's the fact that it was included as part of the Democratic Party Platform in 2000. Oh, then there's this article quoting Nancy Pelosi's support of it. Illustrious leader Dick Durbin has also advocated its reinstatement.
Just because they're paranoid, doesn't mean there's nobody out to get them.
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Re:Next up...
Oh, that has already been done:
November 1999-- Nawaq ALHAZMI (whose name is on the lease) and Khalid ALMIDHAR move into apartment 127 at Parkwood Apartments, a 175-unit apartment complex in the Clairemont, section of San Diego on Mount Ada Road near the mosque off Balboa Drive. Neighbors report them playing flight-simulator videogames late into the night. They are constantly on their cell phones. They drive a gray early-90s Toyota Camry, but are seen getting into limousines late at night.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/683026/postsClearly: Toyota is the terror car of choice. Except for limosines, which should be banned.
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Re:brokenwindowfallacy???
The same post office that paints mailboxes to look like R2D2?. Lets see, who paid for that?
Or do you mean the post office that spends $8000+ on a hotel room for one of its execs?
Certainly, you're not referring to the USPS that uses its budget to unseat a senator.
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Re:Its...
It wouldn't have to fit into a backpack. Smugglers have submarines with 15 tons of cargo capacity. Who knows how many runs they make every year. Then there are tunnels.
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Re:Let me guess...
Coal-fired power-stations DO contribute to global warming.
They do? So you have irrefutable evidence that global warming is due to fossil fuel combustion products and not, say, the output of the sun?
The fact is that most of the global warming theories are based on poor evidence and conjecture. I'm not saying that all of the theories are wrong, they might tell some of the tale, but they certainly are not a foregone conclusion. I do agree that we should work to curtail pollution, it certainly won't hurt to have less emissions from power stations and the like, but we shouldn't have irrational, knee-jerk reactions to the use of fossil fuels.
Now mercury levels from coal are a lot more substantiated because they are based on real science. Mercury levels have been measured downwind from power plants and compared to areas that are not downwind from power plants. The levels have also been measured before and after power plants have come online, and also when power plants had downtime. There is a fairly clear correlation between the use of coal and mercury in the environment. That's not to say that we should immediately stop using coal, but we should invest in cleaner coal-burning technology and also look for alternatives, such as nuclear power (which is much more containable than coal).
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Re:shouldn't be legal
Because law enforcement need to keep themselves to very high standards if they want to be credible.
There's lots of ways an unscrupulous cop can catch criminals, if he believe that the ends justify the means.
Just off the top, when government agents pretend to be red cross workers so that they can sneak in and kill the captors and rescue the hostages, did they do anything wrong?
Well, they did save those hostages. But what about the next group of hostages? What about defiling the red cross, so that when actual red cross try to come in to do humanitarian work, they get gunned down as if they were agents?
What if you are a Washington employer looking for talent but word gets out that you are just another FBI front?
If we did not have entrenched monopolies acting like a telecom industry, there would have been some fall-out from them allowing agents to illegally and unethically capture all data through their pipes.
Just another example of lousy priorities by our esteemed law enforcement officials, all while they viciously protect their budgets no matter if they have to confiscate your property for whatever reason they can come up with to break even.
We do not have enough protection from these local para-military forces and their deeply ingrained conflicts of interest. What if crime actually goes down?!? Will they lay off police or will they figure out a new class of people to persecute to make up for the budget shortfall?
People shit on the school system, saying things like "throwing money at the problem doesn't help" but nobody ever holds the police to performance standards. Look, the worse cops perform, the more money we offer them.
There is zero accountability, laughable oversight, coupled by constant examples of incompetence and corruption at all levels...it's a sacred cow that nobody dares to consider touching...until they are the ones with their door kicked in and their dog shot down in front of them.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/30/AR2008073003299_pf.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/978249/posts
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2007/04/police_shoot_dog_during_backya.html -
Re:Anonymous Coward "Worried".. Well,
If the hard drive owners come to you saying they own her vocal cords or the sounds her vocal cords make... Because they are using the Harley-Davidson vs Honda muffler trademark/patent defense...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1464309/posts
http://thekneeslider.com/archives/2007/11/21/harley-davidson-dynamic-exhaust-system-patent/
If the hard drive manufacturers want, i imagine they could try such a stunt. But, the backlash might be more than they can handle.
But, if your wife can shatter glass, fend off attorneys, and kill hard drives and stop car ignitions, she might be worth all you can defend her for...
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Re:Quick, tag this 'whatcouldpossiblygowrong'
Caterpillar and NASA are working together to do just that.
/Disclaimer, I work for Cat. -
Re:50 million can't use a computer? Ain't it funny
McCain's part with regards to technology.
McCain is not a technophobe or a retrograde — his campaign is using technology quite a bit and has posted its share of YouTube videos (a very cheap way to get once message out). It is not as techno-cool as Obama's, but no less so than Hillary Clinton's or Biden's own campaigns were. Indeed, Bill Clinton — everybody's favorite bubble-creator — has sent a whopping two e-mails during his 8 years in office.
What keeps McCain himself from a computer — as has been repeatedly pointed out since Obama's revolting attack — are the injuries sustained in Vietnamese prison, where his torturers were twisting his broken arms (waterboarding is for wussies). The man can't lift his arms above his shoulders to this day — I wonder, why Obama has not ridiculed his inability to comb his hair by himself...
And if you want to look forward, Sarah Palin — McCain's choice for a vice-president — is an avid e-mail user and has even come under criticism, as she found a creative solution to get around the law, with which the lawmakers aim to infringe on their executive's domain. How good, do you think, is Biden with computers?
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War critics, stop being illogical
Yes, this war was unnecessary in that we were not attacked by Iraq and it costs money. But put away your emotion and knee-jerk ideology and Bush Derangement Syndrome and note some important facts:
1) Compared to the chief role of the US government today - redistribution of wealth - The Iraq War is a mere drop in the bucket;
2) Compared to other wars, this one is rather cheap, and we are spending about 38% on the military today compared to what we did in 1960;
3) The war won't last forever. Government programs will.
I am not ignoring the costs of the war. It all adds up. But for God's sake people, we are spending 60% of our budget on entitlements (not called for by the Constitution) while we spend 17% on the military (called for in the Constitution). Get some perspective.
I'll be reasonable and say the war costs money. OK, that's bad. Now it's your turn to be reasonable and say that spending $1.8 trillion of our $3 trillion budget with a $10T debt - and the $75T off-budget Social Security and Medicare liability looming - is a larger problem than any temporary war, and is not only bad, but really really bad. -
Not to mention Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae
Which are about as "capitalist' as the post office. Government-created monstrosities exempt from the law, which were leaned on by Barney Frank (see also, Barney's Rubble) and Chris Dodd to lend to poor people with bad credit.
The great irony is that you had an essentially government-forced-lending program created and protected by Democrats, while calls by Republicans to regulate it were opposed and called "ideological". And now the free marketers are being blamed! That's like blaming Slashdotters if voting machines failed to work right. -
Re:So what?
http://www.martinrothonline.com/Christians&War/Christian_suicide_bomber.htm "If youâ(TM)re World War II kamikaze pilot Ichizo Hayashi you write a final letter to your mother stating that âoefor to me, to live is Christ and to die is gainâ and you vow to âoebe sure to sink an enemy vessel.â Then you fly off on your deadly mission with your Bible and hymn book." http://www.theglobalist.com/StoryId.aspx?StoryId=4223 "And consider the 19-year old Loula Abboud, a dark curl kissing her forehead and a golden cross around her neck. A Lebanese Christian, she was one of the first women to earn the title of istishhadiyah when she blew herself up in 1985 as Israeli troops moved in to capture her guerilla group near the town of Aoun in southern Lebanon." http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/821425/posts "The spokesman of the Orthodox Church praised suicide activities carried out by Palestinians deep inside the Hebrew State [Israel] in the name of religion (Ist'sh'had). He emphasized that 'the suicide bombers who carry out their activities in the name of religion are national [Islamic] heroes and we're proud of them."
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Re:I don't get it
As is often the problem with these matters, someone with that background gets it in their head to tell other people.
Not that it matters anyway; people will hear whatever they want to.
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Re:Not just anti-Bush
Here's another one: Here's some more pathetic blame shifting: In 1992, the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston published a report citing racial discrimination in the mortgage lending industry. As a result, Clinton administration Secretary of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) Henry Cisneros and later Andrew Cuomo increased the percentage of sub-prime mortgages that could be held in the Fannie/Freddie portfolios. The Clinton administration also revamped the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a 1977 law designed to motivate banks to âoeinvestâ (aka lend) more in the minority communities. Clintonâ(TM)s bank examiners now scored banks on how much âoeinvestingâ they were doing. The failure to achieve an adequate CRA score would mean trouble for any bank in the highly regulated industry. The Clinton administration encouraged âoecommunity groupsâ to get involved. Consequently, groups like ACORN or the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America (NACA) were given the opportunity to essentially run extortion rackets against banks. In 1999 President Clinton named Franklin Raines CEO of Fannie Mae. Mr. Raines and his friends in Fannie Mae were âoeincentivizedâ with bonus packages tied to Fannieâ(TM)s earnings. The more loans they made, the more money they got as individuals. The more of these risky loans Fannie Mae made to people who couldn't pay them back, the more the government (i.e. the taxpayers, i.e. you and me) were on the hook, because Fannie Maie is a government sponsored entity (GSE) and as such it benefitted from the implied backing of the US Treasury. But it's all Bush's fault. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2087284/posts 3:36 PM
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Re:Free market
The invisible hand of free markets probably works as long as...
The free market 'works' (in the sense of being as efficient as possible whilst saying nothing about fairness) if the conditions of the first theorem of welfare economics are met. There's a wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FTWE (though it's not Wikipedia's best...)
The conditions required are so excessively restrictive that no sane person could believe them to hold even approximately in the real world. It is, however, a solid starting point for studying deviations from them, and half of (the academic subject of) economics seems to be about doing this.
Several conditions have been mentioned in this thread. Banks and AIG, however, seem to have suffered particularly from principal-agent problems: agents (managers and employees) have been under an incentive not to act in the best interests of their shareholder. Read, for example, the section called 'Assumptions and Extraordinary Personal Profits' in this: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2084907/posts
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Re:Before Anyone Starts Blaming Republicans
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Re:Mouse Embryos != Human Embryos
Perhaps the moderation as "troll" is because you state that the "mom forced her child to have three abortions in the span of six months" (the article only says that the first one was forced by the mother), but what of the man having sex with his 14-year-old "girlfriend" and the girl who got pregnant three times? Bravo for selective outrage.
Here's another article that cites an AP report that describes the mothers involvement. As for "selective outrage", I'm as concerned as the next person about statuary rape, but rape is a crime and not relevant to D&X (intact dilatation and extraction).
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Re:gore
Whoa there. There is not a TON of oil off our coastline. There is oil in the Eastern Gulf; there are no deposits off the East and West Coasts (at least, according to the US Geological Survey, and I would trust them). The oil contained in the Eastern Gulf is enough to meet America's current consumption for three years, which is not enough time to wean ourselves off our oil teat. That three year figure assumes that a) American consumption holds steady and b) that the oil can be pumped out fast enough. Neither of those assumptions are terribly good ones. Also, the timetable in being able to start getting out of the Eastern Gulf is not the "couple years" you say, but between 5 and 10.
That is not to say there isn't a vast supply of oil in America. There are deposits in North and South Dakota into Montana, as well as a mother lode of oil shale in the Appalachian Basin. However, it is difficult to get usable oil out of either those deposits, which results in higher costs in extraction and therefore higher costs of crude and higher "prices at the pump." Indeed, in 1999, when the Dakota reserve was found, it was dismissed as uneconomical (because oil was ~$10 a barrel). It might be more economical now, but it will always cost more than other crude. Also, there are vast deposits in the Arctic, but it is unclear whether we will be allowed to drill there (Canada might get the rights).
So, we have oil. However, in order to get at most of that oil, it will take the ~20 years you say it will take to get alternative sources like wind, solar, nuclear, etc. to come online. The oil that has already been mapped out will take at least 5 years. By the time we are able to get oil from our reserves, we will be able to consume much less oil, if we start aggressively pursuing alternatives now.
Now, that's not to say we shouldn't extract this oil. If we wean ourselves off oil, and then drill this oil, we can make ourselves a pretty penny and probably have a similarly large influence over geopolitics like OPEC countries now have. However, saying that we should start drilling so we can keep feeding our oil habit is stupid: there is a gap where we are still extraordinarily dependent on foreign oil, and the time it takes for both oil production and alternative energy sources to come fully online is roughly the same. Additionally, due to the costs of extraction from our deposits, we will not see much of a decrease in price. So because both (most of) American oil and alternative energies are a) expensive and b) ~20 years away, we might as well invest in the renewable energy source. -
Re:In FEMA's defense
Well,when YOU are sitting there in the path of a hurricane in waist deep water while the buses that could get you to safety are sitting there idle then you can say everyone should "do for themselves". besides I thought that was the whole POINT of having a government in the first place? There are some jobs like national defense and disaster relief that are simply too big to "do it yourself",therefor we pay taxes so that an organization with "supposedly" better resources can handle the big jobs.
As someone in AR who went down and saw how the mobile homes sat here unused until they were sold off,the amount of mismanagement was just unbelievable to me. But of course anyone that dumps a million gallons of fresh water in the sewer has shown they are simply too incompetent to continue existing. But as always this is my 02c,YMMV
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Re:Cue the rationalists....
Some reading material... http://www.anenglishmanscastle.com/archives/003995.html
http://www.globalwarming.org/node/388
http://climatescience.blogspot.com/2008/06/historic-co2-level-data-deception.html
http://antigreen.blogspot.com/
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1806245/posts
Once you see the REAL data you figure out that CO2 is not causing a crisis/ -
Re:All they have to do now...
Off topic but in response to your sig.... if you read http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1818862/posts you will see that when a town in Georgia made gun ownership mandatory crime rates plummeted even as the towns population more than doubled.
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Ted Kennedy on the Do Not Fly lists
but havent there been congressmen and other officials who have been held up by airport security and such? Christ, I want to say Ted Kennedy was one of them but Im too lazy to fact-check so....wasnt Ted Kennedy one of them?
;)Yes, Ted Kennedy was stopped from boarding planes several tymes because his name was on the Do Not Fly lists. So was Cat Stevens.
Falcon
For those who don't know, Cat Steves was a popular singer song writer in the 1960s and '70s.
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who originally wanted it ?
Bill Clinton, he wanted congress to pass the Comprehensive Anti-terrorism Act of 1995 which would have given him many of the powers the PATRIOT Act gave Bush.
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Re:Life or Death Violation of K.I.S.S.
I'm sorry, I shouldn't have implied that the BFA debris alone caused all that damage.
Via JGreely's reply, see this article concerning a similar event at Camp Pendleton, where the BFA shattered without damaging the barrel so badly that the gun couldn't fire. He also refers to reports in Hatcher indicating that in tests, "partial obstructions were often blown clear, damaging the muzzle rather than the breech".
You're right, the circumstances are very suspicious, and I suspect the French army is as prone to cover-up as any other, but it seems at least plausible that this was a huge blunder, not a deliberate massacre.
In any event, though, the point is that at least two of the fundamental rules of gun safety were violated in this incident:
* All guns are always loaded (taking blanks as "not really loaded"), and
* Don't point a gun at anything you aren't willing to destroy.The gun described in the opening article is designed to encourage violations of the same rules. No good and very bad.
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government
I think some people are so deep into their cynicism about governmental incompetence that they rarely stop to check if their cynicism is borne out by the facts...
And some are so deeply enamored with government they don't stop to check why there is a problem with health care. The problem is because the government passed wage control laws during WWII, employers weren't allowed to pay employees more. However because this caused a problem for employers the government allowed them to offer fringe benefits such as health insurance, and gave them tax breaks for doing so. Now if the government allowed employers to pay employees more, without raising taxes, then people could buy insurance on their own instead of depending on employers for it. Competition would then drive prices down.
Falcon
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No deviations, but errors, certainly
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Re:One reason:
Ah yes, the tax savings... There won't be much left to save after Uncle Sam takes away all his money for giving up his citizenship here. This was also covered by Slashdot (or a reader) a while back... BTW, Canadian taxes are actually a little lower than ours, and they get free healthcare! taxes in Canada.
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Re:There's a Reason for That
Actually, the B2 has been retrofitted (sans rotary munition magazine) to hold a really really really big *something* supposedly called the 'M.O.P.':
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1915871/posts
Excerpt: "$88 million to modify B-2 stealth bombers so they can carry a newly developed 30,000-pound bomb called the massive ordnance penetrator, or, in military-speak, the MOP. The MOP is the the military's largest conventional bomb, a super "bunker-buster" capable of destroying hardened targets deep underground."
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/7/26/212543.shtml
I can see Kucinich running around screaming 'the sky is falling' and 'Impeach' in the same sentience... (Personally, Mr. Kucinich, I am not too keen on Iran *EVER* having *ANY* nukes, despite potential for local Iranian nuclear contamination to their environment!!! The idea is to to keep the radiation contained OVER THERE not to have a big boom OVER HERE!! ). http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1108-21.htm -
Re:Powell: Stupid or Spineless? You decide!
A 15 year old artillery shell containing mustard gas has much less destructive potential than a 1 megaton nuclear warhead. The Bush adminstration and its pals conjured up the term "Weapons of Mass Destruction" to put all these things in the same category so that they would be better able to scare the American public into supporting an invasion of Iraq to prevent "mushroom clouds over Manhattan".
First, it wasn't a 15 year old artillery shell in 1995 when the inspectors were first removed. Second, I'm not entirely sure what your attempting to get at with the warhead. I don't seem to remember anyone claiming Iraq had a nuclear warhead. At best, it was that he was attempting to get one. Third, It wasn't the Bush administration or his pals who "conjured up the term "Weapons of Mass Destruction"". That was first used by the Clinton administration in reference to Iraq. The term is actually a wording from the UN resolution the brokered the armistice to end the first gulf war. Both Bush's and the Clinton administration has used the term. George H. Bush only used it in referencing the cease fire. And Clinton and the democrats had used the term in the same way that Bush has. Of course there are the right wing sources too, I can even find Video of Clinton saying it in '98. Finally, "mushroom clouds over Manhattan" was never used to describe the Iraqi threat. As a matter of fact, The first I remember it being reference by the administration was in the Jose Padilla "dirty bomb" case and then it was used to claim that a dirty bomb isn't exactly "mushroom clouds over Manhattan". That was in may of 2002, about a year before we went into Iraq.
Apparently you fell for that BS. Gratz.
Yes, obviously I was paying attention throughout the years and not only when Bush get elected. BTW, there are sources all over the internet. It really is inexcusable for you to make incorrect accusations without even looking for them. Did you actually believe that I would not provide them for you or something or that I was incapable of paying attention like you seem to be?
Out of curiosity, did you rush out to enlist for the invasion or were you already in the armed forces and request a transfer to a unit that would be part of the invasion force?
Actually, I was too old to join when the second war started. They would probably take me now if I could get a medical waiver but not when the war started. I signed up for the marines before the first gulf war but was in an automobile accident on my way to boot and they didn't want me after I was healed. They said the injuries would cause issues in the field. My foot and ankle still gimp up every once and a while. However, that doesn't really matter. My service or willingness to serve has no bearing on my views about what we should have done or when.
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Re: "I want my personal nuclear weapons!"
I assume that the point you're trying to make with your sarcasm is, "The second amendment is out of date because our founders could not conceive of the guns today." Let's assume for a moment that you're right, that the founders did not conceive of the kinds of personal arms we have today. By the way, you're not right about that, but for the duration of this paragraph, let's assume you are. Now, let's apply that logic to the First Amendment: "The first amendment is outdated because there was no internet, TV, or radio then. These new communications tools make the individual much more dangerous today than our founders every imagined." How do you feel about that?
Now, about your spurious point that the founders did not envision powerful weapons in the hands of individual. Perhaps you know the line from our national anthem, "And the rockets' red glare?" At the time the Second Amendment was written, there were rockets, mortars, and bombs. And none of them were excluded from the Second Amendment.
Consider the fact that the Colonists possessed rifles that were more accurate at greater range than the English government troops. The modern parallel would be if we as individuals possessed Heckler and Koch XM8 assault rifles while the government possessed only M-16s.
Ask yourself this question: Would you prefer to live in a society where every citizen is unarmed, so that the physically stronger are always able to prey upon the physically weaker? Or would you prefer to live in a society where every adult has the ability to take responsibility for his/her personal safety, and can be trusted with the power of life and death? And do you think that we'll get to that point by continuing to infantalize our population with laws that limit our rights?
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Re:No net neutrality these past 5 years has meant.
I thought net neutrality was supposed to treat everyone's comparable traffic that same and not to charge extra for preferred delivery of packets.
I think that's what Richard Bennett, TFA writer, is missing about net neutrality. Nowhere does he address the possibility of ISPs demanding one content provider, such as Google, pay them not to slow their traffic.
It sounds like "I feel bad, therefore we should pass a law".
Generally I don't like, I actually oppose, new laws however what TFA writer misses besides what I say above is free speech. Say PHB at cableco X is a conservative and hates liberals so he has his engineers slow down connections to Daily Kos whereas PHB at cableco Y hates conservatives and slows down traffic from Free Republic. Both websites deliver html but their politics are different. Another thing he misses is that the government has given more than $200 billion of taxpayer money to buildout the broadband infrastructure, which for the most part they have not done.
Falcon
"Should there be a law?" -
net neutrality
I noticed Richard Bennett does not address a couple of things that concerns people who push for net neutrality laws, the throttling of of traffic from some websites but not others even though they the same type of files, such as with political websites or commercial websites. Say a PHB at cableco X doesn't like Daily Kos so s/he has it slowed down whereas PHB at cableco Y doesn't like Free Republic so that company slows it down. With commercial websites cableco X goes into partnership with Amazon and so slows connections to bookpool. The only difference between these websites are the originators, they are in competition with each other.
Falcon -
Re:Spam for McCain!The right will vote for McCain, regardless, at this point.
You SURE about that ??
There are a LOT of conservatives planning to sit this one out.
Take one of today's headlines on The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:
"McSh*tsandwich, In His Own Mavericky Words"Look on FreeRepublic, the right-wing equivalent of the DailyKos...
LOTS of people who refuse to vote for McCain.
The idea is, at least to many on the Right, that an Obama Presidency will be so disastrous as to guarantee a GOP President in 2012. . .
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HSBC Bank vs BSA
Free-speech cuts both ways. Local government seems to have no problem supporting the Boy Scouts' policies.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/648019/posts -
personal privacy vs continued genicide.
What a annoying choice to make. I wish oboma was not a supporter of genicide ( aka abortion) then the election would be an easy choice, but until the dems stop supporting abortion and buggery I guess me and most of the religious middle will keep voting against economic and personal self intrest in the hopes that one day the killing of millions will be abated.
I find it ironic that our first black president should he be elected will be with the support of the orginization that was founded primarily as a eugentics programs against Negro people (aka NOW).
http://www.blackgenocide.org/negro.html
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1294086/posts
Still it is a hard chioce to make, continue to let the country slide deeper and deeper into the bush/republic style anti-privacy police state or let it continue to slide into an amoral fascism where people are jailed for trying to stop babies form being killed and thier children from being taught that anal sex is a component of a healty alternative life style.
What can you say ... bad choices on either side. -
Restraint doesn't work like that.Zelos has already touched on this, but I want to emphasize it.
I'm reminded of an exchange I observed on FreeRepublic; it was on plain ol' porn in general, but the point, I think, applies here as well.
In reply to "BTW, just what is so great about pornography that compels you to spend so much time oozing to its defense??":Oh, no, you don't. Pornography need not be great to deserve protection. Freedoms don't require justification. It's the revocation of freedoms that requires justification, and that justification had better be ironclad. The rantings of a madman are no basis for a totalitarian clampdown on free speech. Check that...I suppose the rantings of a madman are the only possible basis for a totalitarian clampdown on free speech, so perhaps it was inevitable that the anti-porn lobby would go in that direction. But that doesn't make it right.
"I can't think of a good reason not to" is never a good reason to ban something. Speech gets the benefit of the doubt; that's the whole idea. You have to show a damned good positive reason for banning; being unable to think of a reason not to ban is no excuse. "Even slightly reinforc[ing]" a bad idea doesn't even come close. -
Re:No surprise...
Not really. The LA Times had an article where all the city mayors were arranged around a map of LA. One set of mayors were given casino chips reflecting the expected growth of the Mexican population in Southern California. The other set of mayors were given casino chips reflecting how much land they had available for urban development. Their task? Exchange the two sets of casino chips so that the two amounts balanced out. Needless to say, the mayors owning agricultural land were not happy.
The philosophy of the Mexicans is to get out of high-school as fast as possible, get a job and buy a house and start a family. Basically, they will have a large family (5+ children before they are 30), while the middle class families will have two children after they are 30. At that rate, in 60 years, you have 25 Mexican families, while you only have 4 middle class families.
Since neighbourhoods were never really designed for that population density, you have resource conflicts and gangs forming.
They just won a lawsuit requiring the state of California to provide them with similar funding to the private high schools in LA. And many community hospitals (60+) have been forced to close due to demands being placed upon them.
A new argument about immigration -
Re:US madeI think the past couple months of economic headlines are putting to rest that notion that destroying your manufacturing base is a good idea. Where did you get the idea that the US manufacturing base has been "destroyed"? Sure, a lot of labor intensive work has migrated to locations with low labor cost. But US manufacturing output has increased in the last 10 years. For example manufacturing output in Michigan rose 6.6% from 2001-2006 and Michigan is one of the harder hit states in the recent economic downturn. Employment in manufacturing has fallen but actual output has increased quite steadily. It's no different than the farm industry. Fewer individuals are directly employed in farming but output is higher than ever. Here is a link to a powerpoint presentation given by an economist at the Fed. His basic conclusions? Manufacturing in the US has never been higher. and productivity increases have been massive. Disagree if you want, but please support your position with facts and data, not vague assertions that the sky is falling. We were a lot better off when a lot more stuff *was* US made. Why do you say that? There are very few economists who would agree with you. Please study the concept of comparative advantage. While there are certainly downsides to global trade, there is overwhelming evidence that on balance it is beneficial to those who participate. Just ask North Korea how successful their economy has been by isolating themselves from the rest of the world.
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Re:IQeye
You may be entertained by this news story.
I don't know if it would work as well in a larger community, but I would personally be quite willing to live in such a community. -
Re:So if it does hit a sat will we know about it?
Unfortunately for us all, it seems that much of the rest of the world will remain content to simultaneously revile and rely on America, as people have been doing since before this defense of America was published.
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Likely folks to receive checks.As some wish to modbomb me into oblivion, here goes it again... These folks would be most likely to make a deal.
Free Republic
LGF
Michelle Malkin
A group that would probably receive some sort of funding( and a holder of the previous two )
Pajamas Media
The only problem with these is that one of them's misfired themselves off of Fox. Another has trouble carrying the message outside of their choir. As for freerepublic, their message seems to only reach the loyal and converted. -
You need to read more.
Last year, China went past Canada as our number 1 partner. The real problem is that China has prevented us from exporting to them, while Canada and Mexico actively encourage it. In addition, NAFTA has allowed all 3 countries to expand while China was contracted out jobs. In fact, with the yuan being pushed up, even slowly, it is certain that a LOT more dollars will flow to China, since they acocunt for about 17% of import.
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It explains more than a few people.
These folks would be most likely to make a deal.
Free Republic
LGF
Michelle Malkin
A group that would probably receive some sort of funding( and a holder of the previous two )
Pajamas Media
The only problem with these is that one of them's misfired themselves off of Fox. Another has trouble carrying the message outside of their choir. As for freerepublic, their message seems to only reach the loyal and converted. -
The military decided it wasn't worth paying for it
Since there are so many sites that will do it for free:
Free Republic
LGF
Michelle Malkin
Etc. -
Re:Retort
The US supported Iraq because Iraq threatened us? That exactly why the US shouldn't support Iraq. Perhaps you meant Iran threatened us. There's a problem with this though, the US did support a dictator before his overthrow.
Well, lets see, we were talking about the differences between Reagan and the first Bush's policies towards Iraq. So no, under Reagan, it was because Iran threatened us and when Bush SR. did his about face on sanctions and other policies, it was because Iraq threatened the US and Israel. I think the actual quotes were something along the lines of "to make fire burn half of Israel," with a "the binary chemical weapon". He made similar threat to our carriers in the Persian Gulf about a month before. This was in 1990 which is when Bush 1 did his 180 on policy.
Your talking about this stuff and I am severely surprised that you didn't know about that. Were you young at that time?
Also, I need to set something straight. The 1925 Geneva conventions apparently outlaws the use of poisonous and other gases. Iraq signed on with a statement to the treaty But the US and France didn't. It is and was considered international law "by civilized societies" at the time they used the chemical weapons but there was nothing addressing the development, storage, or transfer. Here is an interesting list of signing statements for it. But that doesn't change much on our attitude of tilting toward Iraq. Here is another Interesting list of Iraq and how he got his weapons. It appears that a lot more then the US was involved.Ok, here's more: bush taliban $43. Your CATO article is #5. I don't see the link I provided on the first page of results, instead my TFA I had saved years ago. Ah, adding "opium" to the search then my link is #5 and the CATO link is 7.
I looked, we weren't on the same page which explains some of the confusion.Ignoring Blowback isn't exactly smart either, it makes us look reckless as well.
There is always going to be a certain amount of blowback. I'm not sure if it was ignored or originally calculated as acceptable. I don't find fault in the logic though. It seems that if you don't have the hindsight capability to see what happened, it was sound policy until Saddam shifted and turned on us.Even the CATO article does not say anything about the Taliban getting any more money. Googling bush taliban $43 opium "down payment" returns no results saying the payment was a down payment to the Taliban.
This links says it. It isn't the one I originally remember but it covers the bases. Apparently is wasn't bush but Colin Powell who made the case as the start of more to come. It also appears that the original effort did include monitors, advisers and such to oversee the distribution of the funds.
As a side note, and some insight to what Saddam was thinking, here is a link to a CBS interview with George Piro, the agent who interrogated Saddam before his trial. It appears that Iraq didn't invade Kuwait because of slant drilling but because of a comment by a Kuwaiti official who made a comment referring to Iraqi women as 10 dollar whores. Who in their right mind would invade another country in the face of international pressure over a comment like that? The blow back you mentioned earlier might have been difficult to judge when one of the actors is actually insane. Here is a couple more links, Saddam thought we were bluffing on a few things. -
Re:I actually agree with the article.
This actually gets us MORE protection, not less, as they can be more efficient with their time and resources.
Ah, government efficiency. You may want efficient government but not me. I want a small and limited government that is inefficient, I want government to get out of citizens' way.
Government efficiency leads to fascism. However the USA's Founding Fathers created an inefficient government.
Falcon