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Found the problem

Please stop with idiotic comments about "the left" or "the right," and what they may or may not know. There are smart people across the spectrum, and it doesn't help discussion to denigrate broad, unspecific groups of people. Interest rates being tied to risk is pretty darn basic.

The right just wants Puerto Rico to pay a higher interest rate because they're brown.

Signed - the Left

http://wizbangblog.com/wp-cont...

Hydro electric power used to be one of the darlings of the energy sector. It was clean, it was safe, it was renewable. The only draw back was the local environmental effects of the dam, changing the river flow, creating a lake; but those were deemed acceptable.

Now the environmental damage caused by building a dam is an all but insurmountable hurdle.

Not to mention labour costs and standards increases that price such megaprojects out of reach.

Oh... you probably wanted some cites right?

https://www.marketplace.org/20...

http://wizbangblog.com/2012/07...

http://thehill.com/regulation/...

It's amazing watching you whip yourself into a frenzy over an image of me entirely of your own manufacture.

Accusations are not evidence. You can project your delusions onto whoever you want but you don't know me and my opinions do not define me no more than the opinions or delusions of strangers define me.

I am of half a mind to meet you in person to see how it is you manage to function on a day to day basis but the language you have used fits the profile of an SJW, and those kind are very dangerous and should be treated like the boils on society that they / you are.

So with that I am going to sign off with some good reading for you to check out.

Toodles.

http://www.nationalreview.com/...
http://www.philadelinquency.co...
http://www.therebel.media/_soc...

This last one is a good example of our conversation in regards to the co-opting behavior of Westen liberal nut-jobs.

http://wizbangblog.com/2015/09...

My guess is I have you spot on and it's probably going to piss you off more. At this point you have abandoned logic and reason and have spun yourself an imagined medical diagnosis of some random guy on the Internet and this conversation is bordering on entertaining for me.

Happy reading!

Notice how the "Conservative states dominate the top of charitable giving? See that big block of Blue at the bottom. Does this quick view of the way things are let you infer anything?

Further into the article you also see that the rich are not the most giving either. That the middle class in those states give a far higher percentage of their income out. The US is filled with good people that care and want to do good. They do not need to have their money taken from them in order to do good.

The timing of the last pope stepping down was quite interesting...a week after an HBO documentary "Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God" was released for general consumption

That shows how little you understand Vatican politics. It isn't like American politics or most other Western politics. Not only does the Church move on a time scale too slow and deliberate for that HBO show to have been a significant factor, but even if it had, the response wouldn't have been the Pope resigning.

mothers will still be carting their kids off to the churches, never mind the danger to their offspring.

Students are orders of magnitude more likely to be abused by public school teachers than by priests(*).

(*) Over a 52 year period, it is estimated that 10,667 young people were abused by priests. While over only a 9 year period, 290,000 students were abused by public school employees. Source (Apologies for linking blog spam, but you can find plenty of other source that back this up.)

Your claims are wrong and your reasoning specious (not to mention that the US only waterboarded three people, the last in 2003*).

In short, you're completely wrong.

At the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a.k.a. Tokyo Trials, . . . only seven Japanese war criminals were executed. Every one of them was convicted of either being complicit in or directly comitting atrocities and murder on a grand scale.

. . . it seems pretty clear we executed these men for charges that far surpass concerns about waterboarding.

Now it does appear that various forms of torture were a consideration in some of these cases that resulted in death sentences at the Tokyo Trials. Media Matters marshals some evidence to that effect, but again waterboarding was presented as just one of several types of torture, many of which appear to be more severe. (Media Matters also appears to cavalierly lump all forms of Japanese water torture together and, say, forced ingestion of water — an execution method centuries ago — is obviously very different from waterboarding.) . . . . There are examples of war criminals convicted of waterboarding, even alongside convictions for a number of harsh forms of torture, who were not put to death.

In no way, shape or form could waterboarding be said to have been the predominate reason any one of these people were hanged. Begala suggesting people at the Tokyo Trials were hanged for waterboarding is akin to noting that Charles Manson is guilty of trespassing on Roman Polanski’s home and then insisting that’s the reason he got a death sentence. (Not that I’m suggesting trespassing and waterboarding are equivalent crimes; I’m just making a logical point.) --- Sorry, Paul Begala — You’re Still Wrong

More:

Holder on Waterboarding — Proving It’s Not Torture While Insisting It Is
The Waterboarding Trail to bin Laden
Waterboarding and Torture
Regarding Those Claims About WWII Waterboarding

* Exclusive: Only Three Have Been Waterboarded by CIA

http://wizbangblog.com/2011/10/27/ows-vs-tea-party-by-the-numbers/owsvsteaparty/

In the face of predictions of global cooling, scientists predicted that CO2 would become the driving factor in global temperatures.

That's the citation I was talking about, not what you have given me. Find me anyone in the 70's talking about AGW. Would be even better if you could produce a study predicting this as you claimed.

I don't think the EPA has done you any favours by dumbing it down like this.

Insulting me does not change the fact that you were wrong. I know how the greenhouse effect works, I also know it was analogized with the effect a greenhouse produces (trapping heat). EPA is simply an authoritative source that defines this analogy.

You have shown that you don't understand what 'it' is by assuming that it is responsible for heating greenhouses.

Sorry, I can read, I understood what the greenhouse effect was long before conversing with you. My point in saying it only works in a greenhouse is to say: it does not work in the atmosphere. I would contend that the lack of cyclic warming is proof enough of that. Or how about the fact that C02 concentrations were manifold higher in the past than now yet the planet didn't turn into Venus? These facts should do something to dissuade you from your argument. No, I’m sure you’ll find some reason why super high C02 concentrations didn’t uncontrollably warm the planet via the greenhouse effect in the past, then state it as if it was a well established fact.

Based on your misunderstanding, I can see why you were skeptical.

I understand that nobody understand exactly how the earth’s atmosphere and climate work. That’s what makes me skeptical of people making dire predictions hundreds of years in the future. I know that nobody knows exactly how the "greenhouse effect" works. For instance, consider radiative cooling, something not considered in the greenhouse effect, yet we know it exists. How can you leave radiative cooling out of any equations? Or solar cycles? Volcanic activity? The list goes on and on. To claim that because we understand how gases behave in the lab means that we know how gases behave in the atmosphere is naive. It seems that you and other AGW proponents believe that "All that can be known is known", and anyone contradicting your "facts" are idiots and should be treated as such. And now the obvious question, since all scientific theory must be falsifiable (I know you hate that) please tell me what would falsify 'greenhouse effect'. Or did you just conclude that it could not be falsified?

If temperatures had gone down instead of up then the scientists in the 1970's who said that CO2 would become the driving factor in global climate would have been provably wrong. It turns out they were not.

for the past 15 years there has been no 'statistically significant' warming. - Phil Jones

Does that do anything to falsify it then?

No, I didn't think that would dissuade you.

Sure thing. I see by the link you provided that you are confused between US temperatures and global temperatures.

First, I gave you raw temperature data for many regions not just the U.S. and all show a decrease in the last decade, why this does nothing to even shake your resolve is troubling. Then you give me this junk from Hanson and have the audacity to call it raw when you very well know it is not? You tell me I’ve sided with some unnamed special interest and you go to the center of the controversy to find your data? It's the most widely publicized fraudulent report in the history of science! I refuse to accept Hanson's work. This man has done more disservice to sci

I get it, I really do. There are simulations created by climate scientists that predict what the climate will be like 100 years from now. The bad part about these simulations is that they cannot accurately predict the climate 100 days from now. If you're making a simulation using differential equations your error (distance from accurate measure) will only grow the longer you run the simulation. In other words, if you can't get the first 100 days correct your outlook 1000 or 10,000 days from now is going to look absolutely alien.

Look at Ehrlich's predictions: "England will not exist in the year 2000". It may upset you but he is an AGW proponent and said that back in the 70's. There have been many other outlandish claims made by other "experts". "Coastal cities will cease to exist." "Drinking water will become scarce.". And these are the predictions of "experts" more than 30 years ago. What happened? Why were they wrong? Where is the uncontrollable warming? Even Even Phil Jones conceded there has been no warming in the last 15 years. The simulations and predictions call for uncontrollable global warming. By now, 15-20 years after the original prediction, you must concede as Phil Jones did, there is no warming. Certainly no spiral out of control as predicted.

You say I don't get it, but how many times will you listen to these false prognosticators? They have been wrong 100% of the time. Is that really the sort of track record you feel you can rely upon?

I would like to know what has you convinced. What did you read that made you say “ah ha, these predictions must be true”? Lacking any strong deductive evidence I refuse to buy into the AGW theory/religion/whatever.

It has been proven that C02 follows temperature increases not the other way around. Even though the AGW theory flies in the face of this fact the AGW faithful are not dissuaded

You are absolutely right! (Except for the last part which doesn't quite follow) Higher temperatures means more CO2 will be released into the atmosphere from the oceans. This is one of the (many) positive feedbacks that have scientists worried.

You need to show how your theory works and make it falsifiable.

It is basic physics. Crack open a university textbook and this will be explained. This has been well understood since 1824. Fourier was the pioneer in this field.

They have been right every decade since.

They have been wrong every decade since. They have predicted uncontrollable warming. This has not come to pass.

Warming has been consistent with a forcing of 3C/doubling of CO2. This is the expected warming.

Even Phil Jones conceded there has been no warming in the last 15 years.

I'm sure you understand that statistical significance in a noisy signal cannot be obtained over a short period. This does not mean that the last decade was not warmer than the previous one - it was. The trend is clear.

Ehrlich, an AGW proponent, said in the 70's that "England would not exist in the year 2000". You can't really believe that "they" have been right every decade since. I'm going to need a citation of a AGW proponent in the 70's that predicted the climate we have today. And while you're at it explain how you, or anyone, knows with any certainty how the climate works. I'm anxiously awaiting your reply.

If you really want to understand a scientific field you would do well to ignore what any one person says and focus on the literature. You would also do well to ignore any one paper and focus on the picture that emerges from the sum of the findings.

Most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century has been caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, which result from human activity such as the burning of fossil fuel and deforestation.

Even if it were so, correlation != causation. You need to show how your theory works and make it falsifiable. If you cannot do that you should start to ask yourself why you believe it. In the next 10 years is there any force of nature that would cause you to question your faith in AGW?

They have been right every decade since.

They have been wrong every decade since. They have predicted uncontrollable warming. This has not come to pass. Even Phil Jones conceded there has been no warming in the last 15 years. Ehrlich, an AGW proponent, said in the 70's that "England would not exist in the year 2000". You can't really believe that "they" have been right every decade since. I'm going to need a citation of a AGW proponent in the 70's that predicted the climate we have today. And while you're at it explain how you, or anyone, knows with any certainty how the climate works. I'm anxiously awaiting your reply.

LOL

Enjoy looking like a fucking raisin, you dipshit. Dioxin is nasty shit but nothing to be afraid of until you've absorbed enough of it to look like ass, but by then the CEOs will have bailed out to the bahamas with their golden parachutes while the California Raisins wring whats left of their hands over what to do about it. And there'll probably STILL be Republitards screaming in Youtube videos to LEAVE THAT COMPANY ALONE!!!1! when people suggest that the companies that poisoned them be held responsible.

In the end the entire country will end up one massive superfund site paid for by your tax dollars because corporations cried about breaking eggs to make omeletes, then skipped town without paying the check for the eggs.

People assume that a download is worth less than a physical copy because they can't physically hold it, however if you consider the actual cost of a dvd the difference in cost will be a couple of cents at most...

About 5 years ago the cost breakdown for a CD sold in a store included 80 cents for packaging/manufacturing, 90 cents for distribution, 80 cents for retail proft, and $3.89 for retail overhead. So if we are talking about retail price in a store selling the game, the cost of making and distributing that disk added up (then) to $6.39. See: http://wizbangblog.com/content/2004/10/14/does-a-cd-have.php

Even the taking retailing costs entirely out of the picture it is $1.70. Do the game makers only sell their disks from their website? Even if so we must adding shipping/handling costs to this $1.70 . Not exactly "a couple of cents at most."

To sum up the data: Per Capita Income in "Blue" states is 20% higher then in Red States and Graduation rates are 5.4% higher.

Easily attributable to the Democratic politicans being better at siphoning the federal pork.

In terms of taxation, "Blue" States overwhelmingly pay far more in taxes then they receive in federal outlays

Per person? Anyway, I'm not going to bother with statistics, which even you admit to be partisan. There are many ways to misrepresent data like that — by, for example, excluding certain monies from "federal outlays", or not counting certain kinds of crimes, etc. If you play with data enough, you can come to rather dire conclusions just about anything you (pre)set your mind to.

Also, in many cases, a Democratic government can enjoy the situation left over by the previous Republican administration. And where such is not available — such as New Orleans or New York until Giulliani, the Democrats are demonstrably a disaster.

When my home state, Florida, got hit by Hurricanes in 2004, crop yields fell by 40%. But unlike Nicaragua, we were part of a large country, most of which was not hit by a Hurricane, that was able to carry us through for our eating needs.

Even a 60% crop wouldn't cause a famine in Florida... As for your being part of a large country, that's irrelevant, because you didn't get food as charity from the government — you paid for (most) it, with industrious, profit-driven capitalists in a hurry to deliver supplies in exchange for money. If Nicaragua had any of that (instead of living harvest-to-harvest) — they would've been able to absorb an occasional hurricane too.

Don't rewrite history. I remember when it took days and days for the government to get *anybody* to the Superdrome as 20,000 people were in dire need of food and water.

Yes, and how and why the heck did they all end up in that structure in the first place? Could that have been the fault of the local government? The Federal government did turn out unprepared for such a situation, no doubt (nor should it even be preparing for that, in my opinion, but that's separate). But to cause such a problem requires an incompetent local government.

It was a terrible display of incompetence, and voters saw it too, with the disaster triggering a huge structural decrease in Bush's approval ratings.

Voters saw, what the anti-Bush Tv and newspapers have shown them. That part of your argument is a non-starter, really... If they had drilled as much on the hundreds of the school buses, that were never used to take people out and instead allowed to flood (millions of dollars of gratuituos losses in itself), perhaps, the voter's perception would've been different.

Unless the pre-Katrina government of New Orleans engaged in policies that nationalized the means of production, then calling them "Socialist" makes you look like a dumbass.

Yes, you are right — a mayor can't nationalize anything, that kind of task would require a community organizer. I should've used the word "Democrat" — that's the only thing known about New Orleans mayor. Oh, and that he is racist and incompetent... In my defense, the word "Socialist" in my post was left over from the person I was responding to.

Sulu offered nothing either and was basically "Harold" (from Harold and Kumar fame) on the bridge of the Enterprise... oh and he could fence. Was that an attempt to pay tribute to Picard or just an excuse to do a pointless and extremely cheesy sword fighting scene (I can't believe CmdrTaco thought this was the least cheesy Star Trek film!)

I haven't seen the film yet, and I'm not even a big fan of TOS, but even I know that Sulu was a fencer. There's a story behind it, too:

George Takei - the actor that played Sulu - was part of the Japanese internment camps of World War II where his family was relocated to a camp in Arkansas. He is one of the most notable early Asian faces on American television that went beyond the war-soured stereotypes (or background characters on M*A*S*H) ... In one episode of Trek, Sulu goes a little nutters and the script said he was to fight Kirk. Takei was determined to fight in any style except kung fu and told the writers he knew fencing and then promptly worked his ass off learning how to fence.

Maybe educate yourself?

The Japanese version of waterboarding and the CIA version of waterboarding are significantly different.

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/04/27/regarding-those-claims-about-wwii-waterboarding.php

You've seen the many-digit number they call the National Debt right?

I've seen the many-digit number they call the Porkulus plan.

The only thing that bill stimulates is government spending. Now the democrats want to follow it up with the "taxulus" plan.

Their licenses will get extended the 116 days the switchover is delayed:

US Senate passes bill to delay digital TV switch

There is an interesting politics as usual angle to this too:

Chicago politics lands in DC

But that's obviously not true, because the ethics law does not specify that some other law needs to have been violated in order for the ethics law to have been violated. It is specifically designed to cover a situation where no other law was broken, yet the otherwise legal actions were taken for some personal gain. It would be rather pointless if you already had to have broken some other law with stiffer penalties to begin with.

So you contend that if a State trooper taser's his 10 year old stepson, embezzles by using his state fuel card to fill up personal vehicles, illegally hunts while on duty and without a license, Makes racist comments to minorities and a couple of other things should keep his job because firing him would/could have benefited the Governor in some way is OK? The ethics laws were never designed to prevent something appropriate from happening.

The red light situation is inappropriate; the law already defines that as not being a traffic violation. Suppose instead you were a traffic commissioner, and you executed your perfectly legal authority to modify the traffic signal timings, and did it in a way that you could claim improved overall traffic flow, yet it also just happened to be in a way that specifically improved your commute to work and back. Further assume that there was a law which said such manipulations for personal gain are unethical. Certainly said law could have been violated in this case, especially if it appears as though the personal gain was more important than the practical justification. And in the specific case of Palin, this is what they believed happened. Yet at the same time, they didn't suggest any punishment, so I don't see how "We think you probably violated this ethics law, but oh well whatever" is making too much of it.

Well, No. The law doesn't define that. Or at least after a search of Ohio Code and the local laws, I can't find any reference to it already being legal.

And again, no, if I was the traffic commissioner and I changed the timing of the lights, for the benefit of everyone, I couldn't be in violation of the ethics laws. The ethics laws are there for when the benefit is the primary reason for the change, not if there is an ancilary reason for the change. In the Case with Palin, The state employment/personnel board who had to take the issue up after the Branchflower report made the claim. The state employment board said that there is no probable cause to believe Palin or any other state official violated the Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with the firing. remember, this report was because of the first one which claimed the law was violated.

Yeah, it'd sure be refreshing to have a leader who leads "from the gut" and doesn't listen to what all those people coming to them with "facts" and "educated opinions" say. The last thing we need is another Decider.

Look at what all the Educated Opinions and facts got us with Bush. I'm not so sure I would put that much blind faith into it. Bush Surrounded himself with some of the most brilliant people of former successful administrations and look at where we are today. Maybe a From the Gut approach wouldn't be all that bad after all. Besides, I don't think she would ignore the input of advisers, that would be like the failure we called the Carter presidency.

nyway, that's not what makes me see her as a setback to women's rights. I personally consider reproductive rights to be a critical component of women's rights, and the gain that would be breaking the (2nd) highest glass ceiling (when it's already on the chopping block) would not result in a net win when the women who does it only does so by being ardently against that. Even if she would have no practical chance to change it. But that's just me!

Well, like anything else in American politics is 90% of one party moving with 40-50% of the other..

Many democrats voted against this but the reason its being pushed by its leadership is because of things like this:

http://wizbangblog.com/content/2008/09/19/congressional-black-caucus-and-its-cozy-relationship-with-fannie-mae.php

And this:

http://nwrepublican.blogspot.com/2008/09/democrats-caught-on-tape-fanie-mae-not.html

--

Many republicans are voting for it because they also know where their bread is buttered..

The two parties really are remarkably similar..

"No officer, I'm not stealing WiFi while sitting in my car with my pants off. I just bought a Chrysler."

Given that the idiot in Toronto was half naked in public and surfing kiddie porn yet got arrested for the stealing WiFi, this should be a perfectly watertight defense.

You may notice: I am not a lawyer.

The smart thing to do when a line is not clearly drawn in the sand

That's the point: it's not clearly defined.

the public faces of the global warming scare are building vast energy-hogging mansions

Sigh. He, his wife, their home offices, and the security people who live there are required to share a 15'x15' studio apartment before they get off your shit list? (And, by the way, that "energy-hogging mansion" uses slightly less than average amounts of energy -- from green sources, at that -- than average, per square foot.)

But don't let mere facts get in the way of your attack-the-messenger parade.

Don't let mere facts get in the way of your lame debunking, especially since your religious beliefs are being questioned.

The Krumms are fortunate enough to live in a relatively nice section of West Nashville, just like Al Gore. We moved in to our house in late 2002, just like Al Gore. We then began a major renovation of our home, just like Al Gore. We also have a large home, although it's only about half the size of Al Gore's. So let's do some math.

Rather than taking the TCPR at its word about the Gores' energy consumption, lets rely instead upon documentation provided by Nashville Electric Service just today. It shows that in the last twelve months he consumed 194,250 KWH of energy, ranging from a high of 22,619 KWH in August to a low of 12,098 in December. That compares with our annual energy consumption of 35,215 KWH. Accounting for home size, the five members of the Krumm household consumed 7.34 KWH per square foot over the last twelve months. During the same period, Mr. and Mrs. Gore used 19.43 KWH per square foot-nearly three times our family's energy consumption. ...

But wait there's more. That's just the main house. When you add in the Gore's pool and pool house ($6,528 last year) they paid $1.30 per square foot for gas-more than five times what we spent during the same period just a few blocks away ...

Better numbers come from the 2006 Buildings Energy Data Book which shows that the average American single family home is 2,047 square feet. Dividing that into the 15,447 KWH of average annual usage in the South East Region, and we find that the average energy user in this area annually consumes 7.55 KWH per square foot of home-not the 19.83 KWH that Anonymous Liberal erroneously claims.

If you really believe that global warming is a grave danger, then arguments about usage-per-square-foot might make for an interesting college paper on ethics. But the Earth doesn't care about that, especially if Gore's total output is greater than it should be. An energy hogging mansion is still an energy hogging mansion, no matter how efficient it is. Especially when compared to this guy's house:

The 4,000-square-foot house is a model of environmental rectitude

Geothermal heat pumps located in a central closet circulate water through pipes buried 300 feet deep in the ground where the temperature is a constant 67 degrees; the water heats the house in the winter and cools it in the summer. Systems such as the one in this "eco-friendly" dwelling use about 25% of the electricity that traditional heating and cooling systems utilize.

A 25,000-gallon underground cistern collects rainwater gathered from roof runs; wastewater from sinks, toilets and showers goes into underground purifying tanks and is also funneled into the cistern. The water from the cistern is used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the four-bedroom home. Plants and flowers native to the high prairie area blend the structure into the surrounding ecosystem.

No, this is not the home of some eccentrically wealthy eco-freak trying to shame his fe

It is my opinion that this should be modded Off Topic. The subject matter is freedom of speech, not Katrina or the equitable redistribution of wealth. It may also be a Troll, although that may be debatable. I'll respond none the less.

"FEMA outsourced all their equipment to the former head of FEMA....just gets the profits."

So FEMA get's the profits? FEMA is making a profit? It is my understanding that FEMA does not have a CEO or stockholders.

"but the actual fact was that buses were planned and ordered but never arrived."

Unfortunately, these buses were under the control of Mayor Ray Nagin and he refused to send them. Why he would do this nobody knows. But this was not FEMA's problem, it was Ray Nagin's problem. See article here.

Although this is a perfect example of government failing. People entrust something important to a large bureaucracy thousands of miles away and are surprised when it fails. The National Weather Service did not fail in provided radar images and a forecast but FEMA certainly failed to act on them. This is why local communities are much better at organizing things like this. A community watch type program would go much further in helping people evacuate than some faceless government project composed of people with no vested interest in helping people because they don't know them.

"I'm sick of the mentality that accepts 100% corporate control or it's Communism. Our drug companies make huge profits on drugs our government subsidized to research... but above on beyond the argument that "profits=progress" why is it every woman in this country must spend about $35 a month for birth control? Wouldn't it make sense, that the government research this basic need, and provide it for free or perhaps a $1 month? Where did the Public Good, change to "someone needs to profit?" There is no inherent right to profit or even existence for corporations -- yet that's how our government now acts."

The main reason for this is something called human rights. We in this country have traditionally believed that a man deserves the fruits of his own labor. And that he deserves to be paid according to what his labor is worth. Nothing in the world is free. For your free services to exist there must be someone to provide them.

There are three different ways they can be provided. People can be held at gunpoint and forced to work to create theses "free" products (which is what Marx and Lenin suggested), other people in other industries can be held at gunpoint and forced to pay the people who create these free products (mixed economy) or people who believe anyone should have access to birth control pills can voluntarily give money to the cause (Capitalism.) So if you like the idea of free birth control pills it may be a good idea to start a charity and get out and convince people that they should give to your cause. Although it will be hard to convince many people since they have worked all their lives and bought birth control pills themselves. It's hard to imagine a case outside of disability or insanity where a person would be unable to save $35 over a course of a month.

"what people earn or "work for" is an arbitrary value"

On the contrary, it is a very specific value whether it is 12,000 or 12,000,000. It is exactly the amount that that person will work for.

From this point onward you seem to collect a few different claimed problems and present them. The exact point of all these escape me, you're saying the country is bad off? Yes, we all know that. Bush has been a complete fool. But some of the problems you mention cannot be fixed, many should not be fixed (I can eat what I choose to) and some simply do not exist.

I can't believe posts like this still happens. The entire remainder of the post seems to be a plea for central planning. For anyone who is interested in historical analysis of the subject matter, I sug

vote rigging scandals ... that we get from the Republicans

Vote rigging? I ask because every time somebody hollers disenfranchisement, it's a Democrat. Fortunately, every time I've read about dead people, convicted felons or illegal immigrants voting, voting tours across multiple precincts, underage voting (see part (B)), and pushes for voting without identification, they always seem to be voting for Democrats, so in the end it all balances out, doesn't it? ...if not, I can keep going.

You don't have to belive everything The Party tells you, comrade.

I predict they will team up with Nike to produce an iShoePhone

Oh, the commercials we would have seen! Don Adams, you left this world too soon!

~Philly

She did yell out to Bush and Jintao, which maybe could be considered disturbing the peace or something ... maybe it was in bad taste on her part, but I don't see how she did anything as bad as the press makes it out to be.

It's also racist to assume all the others involved are white people trying to keep the blacks out of the city. I never said there aren't blacks working. I said the OP expected blacks to have New Orleans handed to them again. Because it's the attitude he has.

And it's not a lie, from someone on the ground in New Orleans: $6,000 signing bonuses. And I've seen similar in Mississippi, and I've heard similar ads on New Orleans based radio stations.

It's bullshit to say that white people are keeping black people out of New Orleans. Even if it is just $500 with a $10/hr pay check, buy a goddamn tent with the $500 and work your ass off. People here in MS are still living in tents. They cant' get their houses built because there's no one to build them, they didn't get FEMA trailers. But they're here, and they're working. Some of them are black, I'd wager. But they're not fucking lazy whiners who want another free house.

Find me where I said "all blacks are welfare lazies." I'm strictly talking about the people living in hotels, for free, in other states, that were displaced, that are still free loading, and not trying. I never even said blacks, until I addressed OPs attitude. You're just another race-baiting asshole.

How is this 'Troll' material?

It happened, just google for Columbus police eat banana

This guy has it right in his first paragraph.
http://wizbangblog.com/archives/005088.php

Yahoo Shoots Down VoIP Speculation
By Jim Wagner

Officials at Internet portal giant Yahoo (Quote, Chart) are denying a report that it will launch a VoIP (define) service in the next two weeks.
In a research report issued this week, Safa Rashtchy, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, said the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company was likely to launch a service similar to the popular Skype application.

The analyst noted that such a service would "expand Yahoo's content footprint and further establish Yahoo's brand as a comprehensive provider of content, search and communication services," and likely run as both an advertising-based basic service and paid premium service.

That's not the case, Yahoo officials said.

"The rumor from the financial analyst is not true," Terrell Karlsten, a Yahoo spokeswoman, told internetnews.com.

Yahoo has been making a number of moves this year to advance its voice offerings. That's sparked speculation over the company's VoIP strategy.

Slashdot: Bogus news for nerds... Stuff that really doesn't matter.

In case you missed it, you don't need to turn in your Windows licenses yet. This is all speculation, and it's not even Microsoft basher speculation for the most part, it just seems to be journos trying to get a scoop by making stuff up.

Though Microsoft has recently created 11th hour license fees on the FAT file system, and I'm sure Apple's paying those on every iPod sold.

Anyway, this looks like a better story.

Here's what the facts really are http://wizbangblog.com/archives/006750.php

1. M$ doesn't HAVE the patent yet, as it hasn't been granted yet
2. M$ is unlikely to get the patent, as their is prior art
3. Media outlets, incl. apparently /., reporting on the story have the facts wrong

The root causes of terrorism

OK, I've been giving some thought, and I think I've got a handle on The Root Causes of Terrorism. Just why do people turn to terrorism to achieve their goals?

1) It's simple. It has an ease and ready accessibility that essentially any group, of any size, can pull off a "terrorist" attack with very limited resources.

2) It's flashy. Terrorism is "the new coolness." It gets a lot of attention, very quickly.

3) It's empowering. The one element that all terrorist groups have, at the start, is far more passion than power. They care a great deal about their cause, but they simply can't get anything done through more legitimate means. So they start getting violent, to increase their profile and extend their power.

4) It's deniable. If a government wants something done, but doesn't want to risk the backlash of doing it openly themselves, they can try to get some "terrorists" to do it for them. This way, they can stand back and say "tsk, tsk" when something bad happens that benefits them.

5) It's cheap. Modern weapons and training cost far, far more than an average individual or group can afford. But bomb belts probably cost less than a couple of hundred dollars to make. Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols put together the Oklahoma City truck bomb on their average salaries.

6) It's tough to fight. A long time ago, a bunch of countries laid out a set of rules for warfare. These rules were designed to, among other things, minimize the number of civilians killed in war. In exchange for some serious restrictions on what combatants could do, large groups of people, institutions, and buildings were declared "off limits." The terrorists systematically look at those restrictions and use them as guidelines for how to best attack our forces.

Many people look at the terrorist attacks [in the civilized world] and wonder why it's happening. I look at the above and wonder why there haven't been more.

I think any estimation of their demise is a little unrealistic, at least as far as serious news and policital blogs are concerned. I run a caption contest, on a voluntary basis, on OTB. Even though my role is more frill than substance, the blog itself contains a lot of serious news and commentary. A couple of others that seem to address a serious role in politics, news, and sometimes entertainment are: Wizbang Poliblog and there are a number of others more popular than these that seem to address politics and news in a more or less serious manner. (Just check some of the links from the ones above for
Instapundit
Michelle Malkin
and others

For those so inclined. Found these as I went searching for the commercial.
http://pictureshq.net/candice_michelle

This was linked from here:
http://wizbangblog.com/archives/005007.php

Sort of like this dumb-ass? (Not goatse, but not so work-safe.)

"McEnroe" has twice recorded a 0.0 rating. At least the Open Source show couldn't get any worse; not even the XFL got negative ratings...

• Kerry's story about how Nixon sent him to Cambodia during Christmas, and how this was "seared, seared" in his memory. Only now we find out that he was never in Cambodia, and Nixon wasn't even president then anyways.

Wrong on several counts; he never said Nixon sent him -- here's an anti-kerry blog with a compendium of Kerry's Cambodia quotes here's another -- show me a "Nixon sent" quote or you'll have to retract. Sure, Kerry mentions Nixon, but he never says what you claim. Next, on June 16, 1971 O'Neill told Nixon that "I was in Cambodia, sir." This was recorded by Nixon's secret taping system. That story even made it to freepers, so you have no excuse for missing it!

What we have is, in the 1970's both Kerry and O'Neill agreeing they were in Cambodia, and in 2004 O'Neill changing his story. To you this is proof Kerry lied? A number of vets have come out against O'Neill's group's claims. Read about it here. According to this article, Kerry's boat was very near the border; how can you prove he wasn't on the Cambodian side?

• It was also seared in his memory about when he was in Vietnam when he heard MLK Jr. was shot. Only MLK Jr. was shot months before Kerry went to Vietnam.

Correct, Kerry is in error here, although Kerry never uses the word "seared" regarding that memory. Kerry was on the USS Gridley, mostly in the Gulf of Tonkin. Exactly how far is that from Vietnamese territorial waters?

• Kerry has admitted that his first Purple Heart "may have" been self-inflicted (by accident). This is mainly because Kerry's journal from the time stated that they hadn't been attacked yet.

False. Kerry admitted no such thing. The "self inflicted" claim comes from this line of logic: Kerry was first wounded Dec 2, then wrote in his journal Dec 11 "A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky,". Kerry-haters, reading this journal entry, have claimed the wound must have been self-inflicted, but Kerry said no such thing.

• Kerry said he got an honorable discharge before schmoozing with the North Vietnamese, but in fact he was still an officer.

False. Kerry never said he was discharged when he met with the North Vietnamese in Paris. The error is in an AP timeline; not in Kerry materials. You can read about it here. Show me where Kerry claims he was discharged before Paris, or retract.

• He now claims that he requested and signed up for the most dangerous job in the Vietnam War, but in actuality he tried to sign up for the safest. (After failing to get a deferment.) How do we know this? Not only because of records (swift boats were changed from easy coastal patrols to dangerous river missions after Kerry signed up). But we also have Kerry's own admission of this fact a few years ago.

False. Show me where Kerry claims he "requested" the "most dangerous job." Kerry explains he volunteered for the Swift Boats so he could be near the action but not in it. Here's a direct quote: "They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing." It is a measure of K

Right Wing News Allah Is In The House Little Green Footballs Cavalier's Guardian WatchBlog Iraq The Model Instapundit Power Line Michelle Malkin Ace Of Spades HQ A Small Victory The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler Israpundit Jihad Watch IMAO Moxie Niel Boortz Lonewacko Wizbang Dumb Celebs Fear And Loathing In Iraq Kim du Toit PABAAH Ann Coulter La Shawn Barber Mark Steyn David Limbaugh

Red meat eating, gun toting Americans like myself read stuff like Allah, IMAO, ASV, Wizbang, the Commissar, and OTB. They've gone a little overboard lately focusing on the Rathergate thing, but overall, they're a good mix of conservative blogs.