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Discuss the US Presidential Election
We made it. It's election day. Tomorrow we'll know. So for today's election discussion story, I'm throwing it wide open: let's discuss the election itself. Who are your picks and why. And also what about your actual experience voting today? Did Diebold eat your vote or did everything go off without flaw?
... that I'm happy that it will be over at goddamn last.
FiveThirtyEight.com jacked up Obama's odds of winning to 98.1%
I like those odds.
MABASPLOOM!
I am actually surprised McCain didn't try to switfboat this election. He ran a very negative campaign, no doubt, but it seems he at least had the decency not to blast his fellow Senator with inflammatory false accusations in the final hours.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Galt's Gulch: those who know, know. Discuss.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Obama- He's my pick. He might seem socialist- but I don't think anybody can top ol' G.W. these days. I personally want what's good for society. After the past 8 years of crapping on society, killing the economy, and ruining our constitution- it's time for a change. I don't see that change in McCain.
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
I'm voting for Obama and proud of it. How often do you get a chance to support a candidate that not only uses technology to its fullest potential, but also runs a positive campaign based not on mudslinging and personal attacks, but on a REAL platform?
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Voted in western IL about 20 minutes ago. No lines (but lots of people), 8 polling booths, paper ballots filled out with a marker. A rather menacing-looking Diebold machine increased its displayed tally when I fed it my ballot.
All in all I hope everyone's voting experience was as painless as mine.
End of lesson. You may press the button.
I wrote the following for the blog I recently started ... I come at Politics from an Anabaptist (radical Christian from the 16th century) perspective, so I spend more time justifying the decision to vote in the first place than justifying who I vote for. The blog's at <a href="http://digitalscriptorium.info/">http://digitalscriptorium.info/</a> if you're interested.
--
So, here we are two days short of the election, and I suppose it's finally time for me to make up my mind. I often waver between three choices rather than the usual two:
1. I can not vote at all.
2. I can vote for Obama.
3. I can vote for McCain.
Let me state at the outset that my natural predisposition is not to vote at all. That is the choice that I've taken in the last 3 elections, and a goodly part of me wants to continue the tradition.
Now that I've offended all right-minded and morally straight Christians, in Ameirca and beyond, I hope you'll stick with me long enough to hear why, because my reasoning on this subject will inform my ultimate decision in this election. I believe that, as a Christian, I owe my primary allegiance to the Kingdom of God, and that that allegiance is fundamentally at odds with the purposes of secular government. As Philippians 3.20 says: "our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." I believe that it is no accident that here (as elsewhere) Paul borrows political imagery to describe the church--the church is, in fact, an alternative power structure that should fundamentally subvert traditional power relationships.
Now, I can already see some who will read this jumping up and down, raising their hands, and dying to say, "but we can be citizens of the kingdom of God and citizens of the United States!" Any second now, someone will bring up Romans 13 and think that they've proved me wrong. The problem with this sort of interpretation is that it reads back the political situation of the 4th century into the first, by assuming that Christian participation in government was a real possibility that Paul envisioned in the first century. Let's be clear here: first century Christians were not the rulers, they were the ruled. The issue at hand in the first century was whether Christians should submit to secular government, not whether they should join it. Paul's admonition to make prayers for kings (1Timothy 2.2) is not given so that they may be successful in their secular purposes, but so that the church may live at peace.
There is a reason to suppose that this sharp division between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of God is necessary, which is scripturally attested both in secular political science and in scripture. Scripture first:
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." (John 18.36)
Notice the contrast: there are two sorts of kingdoms. One comes from this world, and (we might say by extension) depends on worldly methods, that is, violence. The other comes from somewhere else, and seems to render violence not so much unnecessary as irrelevant. That is scripture's description of the kingdom of God. Contrariwise, scripture describes the politics (or kingdom) of this world in Romans 13, where world rulers are described as the servants of God "to execute wrath on the wrongdoer." (Romans 13.4b) But these wrongdoers are, to Paul, outside the church. Paul elsewhere envisions the church as having its own judicial function, whose sole sanction is expulsion from the church--see 1Corinthians 5.9-6.8. The division in scripture between the kingdom of this world and the earthly kingdoms is wide, deep, and complete. Our sole relation to them is to "render unto Caesar" by paying taxes, which is the real "take-home point" of Roma
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
As of this morning at 6:50 am there was a line of 2-300 people at our polling place. It makes me happy to see the high turnout, even at that time of day. Now bring on the free ben and jerrys, krispy kremes, and starbucks!
Small town in Iowa. Polls opened at 7am and I was there at 7:15. Polls were only 3 blocks away at local library, so walked. Seemed like everyone in line was excited to vote. Wait in line took about 15 minutes, voting took about 5. Used paper optically scanned ballot, though there was one electronic voting machine for people who felt like gambling.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Why pick the lesser evil?
I voted today in New York State. The poll workers recorded each voter's name and the number the voting machine assigned to his vote. I asked them why and they replied that the board of elections told them to.
What is going on? The board of elections can now see who everybody voted for. I thought we had the right to a secret ballot.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
We're getting sick of the buck getting passed.
I personally hope he is a socialist. It would be nice to see my friends and family back in the US brought up to the quality of life I've found after moving to the Nordic countries.
I hate to be the victor of this election after Bush leaves (if he does). There is going to be a lot to mop up starting with what is left of our Constitution. Unfortunately if things take the turn for the worse, the opposition will have an easy scapegoat in 2012.
McCain FTW
"Fails To Win"?
Who are your picks and why.
Third party, since I don't like either main candidate. This happened to be Barr, since I figured he probably has the best (but unfortunately still very small) chance of getting enough votes to scare some sense into the duopoly.
And also what about your actual experience voting today?
I got there at almost exactly 7am (when the polls opened), and the line was almost exactly 1 hour (I finished voting and left at 8:05). There were 10 Diebold voting machines lined up along one wall with no privacy screens, just little flaps on the sides.
Did Diebold eat your vote or did everything go off without flaw?
Well, that's kinda hard to know, isn't it? (Some might say that's kinda the point of buying from Diebold.)
...I had the option of either voting by electronic machine or paper ballot. As you might imagine, I chose paper ballot for the simple reason that it leaves unchangeable records. Electronic voting machines are far too easy to manipulate or are far too likely to have glitches. (Especially the Diebold machines based on Microsoft Access.)
The downside is that the Illinois ballots are *bleep*ing insane! First, there's no simple checkbox. Instead, you have these bizarre arrows you have to fill in. i.e.:
You are supposed to draw a line for the vote you want to cast. e.g.:
Which is then complicated by a list of about a bazillion judges to vote in or out of office. No judge runs against another judge, so you simply fill out the arrow or you don't. Incumbent judges have a "Yes/No" option to possibly vote them out of office.
I got up pretty early this morning, so it ended up taking more time to fill out these super-ballots than it did to wait in line. I then went home and listened to WGN ponder why it was taking Obama so long to vote for himself. Perhaps someone should show them one of these ballots! :-P
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I find your intolerance intolerable.
It's outstanding how in an election where I didn't start off hating either candidate, McCain's choice of talking points (and running mate) brought me to the point of incoherent spitting fury...I had to read the transcripts of the last few debates because I couldn't stand to actually listen.
I just refuse to vote for someone who ran a filthy campaign whose only issue was "the other guy sucks." That's my favorite logical fallacy, the "argument from ignorance": the other guy is bad, so we must be better.
McCain was a guy I'd have voted for in 2000...Hell, I did vote for him in the primary. And I think this country wouldn't be worse off if he'd been president for the last 8 years. But he sold his soul for the brass ring this time around, and that level of intellectual whoredom I cannot abide.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I remember thinking this on election day 2000
Tomorrow we'll know.
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Obama only seems socialist if you ignore the 700 billion dollar bailout we handed to businesses - easily the largest act of socialism ever in US history. Oh, it was penned by republicans, too.
Called my dad this morning and he said they were in and out in an hour. About 35 people in line but it went fast. He said the poll workers were really helpful and seemed well organized. I'm sure it's not going that well everywhere but the news isn't all bad.
If the Republicans get crushed and lose Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, I wonder if they're going to clean house or keep on with same failed people and platform that put them in the tank? Or if they'll blame Palin and minority turn out?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Election? What election?
I pride myself on keeping apprised of current events, but I wasn't aware of an election today.
Who is running and for what position?
Srsly, whoever this CmdrTaco is who posted the story should at least give us this basic information in the summary.
I was thinking the exact same thing- thanks for typing it out and saving me the trouble.
I wanted McCain in 2000 as well- hes been nothing but a disappointment this season.
I was amazed by the wording of some of the proposed amendments to the Florida constitution. One example was the marriage "keep the gays from marrying" proposal. First off, I happen to believe that marriage is a personal issue and has no need for government intervention but that is not my point here. The language was worded very biased, in that it started by stating that passing this amendment would "Protect marriage". As if I voted not my wife would someone stop loving me tomorrow or something. Second, it was the only amendment that ended with an entire paragraph dedicated to informing us voters that if we pass this the economic effect on the budget is "unknown at this time but likely minimal". This was on no other initiative. Holy bias Batman!
"This message was sent from an Apple
most of us know it as the tiny hamlet clser to montreal than anything else in far northern new hampshire that releases its election results shortly after midnight on election day (since there is only 21 people voting there)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixville_Notch,_New_Hampshire#Midnight_voting_tradition
quaint and pointless mostly. this year, they landslided for obama (15 for obama to 6 for mccain)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7707667.stm
why is that notable?
in all previous elections, back to 1968, they landslided republican
so that's an interesting changeup, north country new hampshire, solidly republican, giving us a glimpse of a new trend?
portent of things to come later this evening for the rest of us perhaps?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
She kicked it off last Saturday.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
If McCain is the next president, the world will say "Ya know what? We're done here. Game over. Thanks for playing" and it will hurt (a lot) in the short run, but once the American Empire's wings are clipped, the rest of the planet can set about building a future that works.
Economic? Send the dollars back home. How? Buy up the assets. Devalue the currency. Don't loan them money.
Diplomatic? The USA as a pariah state, sim. N Korea today or Libya back in the day. Turn off the WTO and IMF. Look elsewhere for partnership.
Socially? Don't let Americans out of America. Make travel difficult. Strict Visa reqs, limited visas, etc. Let them know that when they visit, they know they are thought of as ASSHOLES.
The Americans would bitch and moan and threaten and swagger, but since they're basically bankrupt and have dumped a substantial amount of their wealth into non-wealth generating assets (the military, first and foremost) the USA is really at the mercy of the rest of the planet and some. And if some swaggering third rate imperialist like McCain or, godferbid, his delusional retard of a VP, Palin, comes around acting like a dork, the simple and obvious reply is to shun them.
Now, before you think I'm some sort of Obama supporter, you're wrong. Obama is every bit the imperialist that McCain is - it's just that his focus is not on global domination, but on the much more realistic goal of regional domination. In other words, McCain is a unipolar imperialist and Obama is a multipolar imperialist. The multipolar option is the ONLY realistic option for the USA right now.
So, if the USA has ANY sense of self preservation, it will put Obama in as president. If it wants to drive itself off the cliff of history and explode on the rocks of self-inflicted stupidity, then it should vote for McCain.
The reality that is going to come crashing in is simple: energy. You either have it and use it wisely and with great thrift, or you act like Americans and permit atrocities like Las Vegas and the Cadillac Escalade to exist. Get with the program, or die off. It's a simple choice.
Now, go vote, and vote wisely.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Agreed. I love how Republicans call him a socialist as if that's a bad thing. they say he reads MArx like that's a negative trait. Have these people got any idea what they're saying?
Snopes has some good articles about myths and urban legends about each candidate.
McCain
Obama
Joe Biden
Sarah Palin
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
....F#cks the world? The original "FTW"?
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Just a thought, from a guy who used to work on gambling ("gaming") systems back in the 90s--your average 20-year-old slot machine is light years ahead of a current voting terminal, in terms of the independent multiple party audit capability, internal logging requirements, tamper detection, and ruggedness.
Me, I'll be demanding a paper ballot at my polling place.
Remain calm! All is well!
The presidential election is OVER. Has been for a long time. Obama has won this in a big way. The question is the senate seats. The pubs pulled all their dollars on McCain nearly a month ago, as well as a number of seats such as Colorado's Schaffers and Musgrave. Instead, they targeted seats that are on the edge such as Coleman (vs. franken) in minn. If there is any cheating going on, it is doubtful that it will be systemic. But if the polls, and exit polls match up with results in most areas, BUT do not match up with those contested seats, then it will be time to consider what is going on. And I fully expect that neo-cons will pull garbage in those areas IFF they have the capability.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I voted for Kodos.
[Insert pithy quote here]
An ironic ending for a guy who was a VICTIM of this very kind of dirty politics in 2000. Of course, that was back before he had spent 8 years abandoning every single principle he had once stood for (including, most tragically of all, his opposition to the very kind of POW torture that he himself had once endured). In short, when John McCain loses today he can blame Bush, Palin, the economy, Obama, etc. all he likes. But, in truth, he has only himself to blame.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I was thinking about this as I showed my 7 year-old daughter how we vote in MD (this year anyway...diebold is going away). She pressed the green button and the machine spit out my card with a "kachunk" and said my vote was registered. I walked away feeling a bit incomplete. My daughter said, "That's it?" That's how I felt about it. I felt the same way four years ago. How would I know if the computer actually registered my vote. I feel like if I can't slip a ballot into a box I should at least get a receipt. Probably the most disappointing moment was when I had to get the I Voted sticker off the roll myself. I could have taken the whole roll if I wanted to. My daughter loves stickers. Seriously though, does anyone have a story where they're certain the machine did NOT register their vote?
Tends to suggest that Obama has already won and the rest is just semantics.
Is that what the Mayans forsaw, the event which caused the end of this round of civilization?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I don't get this socialist BS.
Bush spent 8 years imposing government rules on our daily lives, taking away civil liberties, inherent human rights, and personal privacy, and has rounded out his term by buying up (e.g. nationalizing) huge swaths of the mortgage/finance/banking industries.
If you want socialism, vote for the big-government republicans.
(Does anyone else miss small-gov't, pro-personal-liberties republicans? I'm a dyed in the wool liberal, but man am I ready for the neocon/religious right section of the GOP to dry up.)
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
The polling place was much busier than I've ever seen it in the 24 years I've been voting. I usually vote in the morning because the polls are less busy. Normally I have a 5 minute wait, tops. This morning, about 40 minutes. My vote was #91 to go through the tabulator. It was a longer ballot than some years due to a constitutional amendment question and three local school district levy questions.
We have (in central Minnesota) a fill-in-the-oval ballot which is then read by machine similar to tests in school. I saw no issues with either the election judges or the ballots, and the machine seemed to be working fine, although you really can't tell if it correctly tabulated your vote. But it's pretty low tech, so should be fairly reliable. Ballots were readable and the ovals were clearly aligned with the listed choices. On the whole, MN seems to have pretty good voting methods and equipment.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
I voted early, but got a call from the Obama campaign saying that the county hadn't received my ballot (which I mailed). I showed up at the county courthouse yesterday and they were right. I filled out another one.
Voted straight Dem ticket this year, except the county auditor (who was in the room -- small county) who is an R. I figure, the fact that my ballot didn't arrive may not have been his fault, but the fact that I found out about it and was able to correct it is at least partly due to him, so kudos, and 4 more years!
Also I wrote myself in for sheriff. I feel good about that.
Synergy is your friend
McCain graduated at the bottom of the class at his naval academy and now he is old. Brains get worse quickly at his age, and he didn't start with much.
Meanwhile, we have a brilliant candidate who graduated at the top of his class in law school.
Seems clear to me.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Title pretty much sums it up. The election officials don't know their ABCs, so you pretty much had to grab the book and find your name in it. They didn't have pencil sharpeners, but they had boxes and boxes of brand-new unsharpened pencils.
Remarkably, the R's and D's were behaving themselves, across the street from the polling place, quietly holding their signs.
Supporters of other issues on the ballot (mostly new sales taxes to support special-interest groups) were campaigning INSIDE the polling place and refusing to leave, in violation of state law. I expect they were eventually escorted out by the police, but I didn't have time to stick around and watch. Election officials just ignored the whole issue.
because it brings out those inbred rednecks to vote, and they will vote Republican.
We in Missouri dealt with that in 2004 (unfortunately, the white trash got the Constitution amended successfully), so maybe we'll go Dem this time.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Marx is great, in theory.
Just like communism is great, in theory.
It's when the theory hits the practice. Problem is, when you hand communism (or any 'everyone works together' theory) to the people, they're still greedy and inherently flawed. Thereby ending up with a situation similar to... China.
Note: Similar to, not exactly like.
Use what works.
Make sure you vote at least 5 times before lunch, and at least 3 afterwards.
Thank you.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Its not the President that is going to make the necessary change. Its Congress, American business, and the America people.
1. Congress makes the decisions on domestic policy and passes legislation. The President can sign or veto the proposed legislation, but congress can override that veto by a 2/3 majority
"After passage by both houses, a bill is submitted to the President. The President may choose to sign the bill, thereby making it law. The President may also choose to veto the bill, returning it to Congress with his objections. In such a case, the bill only becomes law if each house of Congress votes to override the veto with a two-thirds majority. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress]
So what good is the President on domestic policy when his decisions can be overridden?
2. Look at the current credit/economic crisis in America. Greed and overspending on the part of business and the populus. Short of the SEC and Fed making mistakes, 90% of that is due to non-governmental factors.
3. The President [at this time] has the obligation to preside over foreign policy matters and matters of national security. Thus, the next President must have a keen sense of foreign policy and diplomacy as we do live in a now "global" community.
In as far as either major candidate (yes, there are four others), I don't think any of them have the intelligence and experience to meet today's requirements.
Congress, That's where we need a change. They are the branch of Federal Government that is responsible for 90% of our domestic policy. Make the change there.
BTW, The House is majority Dems and the Senate, tho is 49/49 Rep/Dem, the remaining two seats have aligned themselves with the Dems, giving them de facto control.
INSERT INTO comment VALUE('Doh!') WHERE user='you';
Denmark, Norway and Sweden are stunning examples of what socialism really means. Some of the highest tax rates in the world, yet everybody is looked after so well. Education is of an exceptional standard, and every person from every background is given equal opportunity to do and become whatever they choose. It's basically social capitalism, by which I am implying that raw capitalism *in practice* is one of the most anti-social and dehumanising concepts on earth.
Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
I saw three choices this year. I could:
1. Vote for someone
2. Vote AGAINST someone
or
3. Vote my conscience.
#1 and #2 would involve votes for people I didn't really agree with but either of which had a realistic chance of winning. Once I had worked this out, I realized that I was being suckered into the classic popularity contest. Not the one where "I'm popular", but the one where "I successfully picked the WINNER!".
That was crap.
So I went back to the ballot to find someone that I agreed with... and came up semi-blank. The solution, it was clear, was going to be more complicated that I had thought.
I began working my way through the party descriptions again, looking for something I might have missed. Then I compared the track records of the elected officials that identify w/ each party and worked out a rough graph with two axis to determine how well each candidate had met the stated goals of their party. I thought of it as a 'Truth in Advertising' metric. How often do candidates of party X meet their promises? Once I had that, I aggregated the data and set it aside.
I then wrote down my core beliefs and popped them into Excel alongside the data for the 'TiA' metric and generated a quick 3D histogram to find which political parties were closest both in belief to my own and high in followthrough (the TiA number). Finally, I had my spreadsheet take this graph and do a pivot on the results and generate the party answer.
Unfortunately, my grasp of Excel is presumably sub-par, so the answer field populated with some sort of complicated error. I tried debugging it, but I didn't know how to modify VBS, and then when I _could_ get to it, I couldn't figure out how to set tracepoints. I tried to bypass the error by initializing a pointer that I could push and pop to in a handy little block of assembly, but I couldn't quite seem to figure out how to use pointers in VBS, so eventually I just voted the Libertarian party.
Look up "aencephaly." And tell me if it's fair/moral to knowingly bring this child into the world. Let me help, so you don't have to RTFA! Most of the baby's brain is missing with a gaping hole in the back of its head and it's spinal cord is mostly exposed. It will die shortly after birth, and spend its brief moment of life on meds or in agonizing pain and mother knows this for most of the pregnancy. There is NO medical treatment for this, it is 100% lethal! Then she gets to watch her child die. Does this make God happy? Who is this fair to, the mother, father, grandparents, or the child? Don't give me any of this it's God's plan crap. Who does it benefit to not allow this mother an elective abortion? This is only one example of many. For a human to choose death is not always wrong. Thank God for freedom of religion or freedom from it!
How about curtailing it a little next time lads?
(Speaking from an outside-US position) I've been following this whole thing with great interest since the Obama/Clinton things started - and going back a bit I stayed up all night watching the Gore/Bush thing - so I'm not knocking it.
But do you not think it's a bit long in the tooth at this stage? It's been pretty much going for two years and when you think about it, all you are doing is selecting one individual from a list of 30 or so - surely you don't need 2 years to make that decision.
Maybe some work needs to be done on limiting the scale of the thing - both in terms of time and of money, which is verging on the ridiculous too.
See you in 2 years time...
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
An idiot or a lawyer? Not a very easy choice...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
he behaved more presidential despite all the mud flinging at him
Of course! It is easy to stay above the fray when the press takes all the mud for you. Joe the Plumber was investigated more thoroughly than William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezco, combined!
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
even if mccain won, none of the things you say woudl come to pass
your problem is you are confusing popularity with power. certianly, the usa has become immensely unpopular under bush, but it has lost none of its power. continue bush's policies though, and it WOULD lose power, but not because of anything you worte, but simply because america's ability to create and project power would be diminished because of internal factors
for example, before the global economic meltdown over the last 2 months, there was much hemming and hawing about becoming a non-us centered world, economically. however, as the meltdown progressed, the us dollar perversely gained in value. simply because, even though the problem was started in the usa, it was still the most stable thing still standing as the whole world went down with the usa
someday, the usa will indeed not be the center of the world economically and militarily. but it won't be for any of the flowery and powerless popularity contest-level considerations you put forth, but simply becaus esome other country, such as china, will siply be able to create and project economic and military power, again, simply because of internal efforts, having nothign whatsoever to do with what the rest of the world thinks of china
your understanding of how the world actually works is quite... silly
for example: "Strict Visa reqs, limited visas, etc. Let them know that when they visit, they know they are thought of as ASSHOLES."
any country that woudl be foolish enough to do that, would see their economy suffer, since americna businessmen wouldn't be able to get in the country and do business. do you know any country then that would give up millions or billions simply to make a statement that they hate americans?
again, learn: popularity is not the same thing as power
it is possible to be deeply hated, but be in complete control
it is also possible, by the way, hint hint, to be loved everywhere you go in the world, but be absolutely powerless to affect any change about any issue you care about
no, the truth is, even if obama wins (and please god, let him win), the usa will be hated by many (and loved by some), and see its power still quite large in the world, but still slowly dimming while china slowly amps up. and this would be true even if mccain won
power!=popularity
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Mayan Doomsday: December 21, 2012
Inauguration Day: January 20, 2013
Seems like the Mayans were a bit off...
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
The good news is that, like Ron Paul's supporters, I'll be able to easily tell if Diebold ate my vote.
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I don't like either of the major candidates and am still wondering how we ended up with the two of them as our only reasonable choices. Neither were front runners in the early days.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
If Obama were a Marxist (which is a laughable concept when you take the world view) then you wouldn't be paying tax, you would be returning that which you had stolen from the working classes.
And while we're on the subject I would definitely argue that a negative income tax isn't Marxist or Socialist - the idea was invented by Milton Friedman, the darling economist of those notorious lefties Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
Don't worry, it would be worse if it was an idiot lawyer.
Isn't it obvious??
CmdrTaco doesn't want the Slashdot community to go out and vote today, so he posted this to keep us busy with flame wars all day!!
Conspiracy!!
This year I realized what my actual philosophy is, so I voted that way. Voting for the lesser evil is still... evil.
The voting machines around here are still mechanical-lever type, so I'm pretty confident the vote was tallied correctly.
Obama's tax cuts are aimed at people who actually work, so lazy people who are sitting around and not contributing aren't going to get anything back.
Now, let's talk about Alaska. They don't pay income tax up there. In fact, every single man, woman, and child (even infants) get paid by the government to live there. Alaskans all receive an "equitable share of the state's non-renewable resources." That certainly doesn't happen in Texas!
Now, let's talk about Palin.
Palin said: "Alaska-we're set up, unlike other states in the union, where it's collectively Alaskans own the resources. So we share in the wealth when the development of these resources occurs"
Palin passed a windfall profits tax , literally taking profits away from oil companies, and redistributed it amongst every man, woman, and child in America, to the tune of an extra $1200 on top of what Alaskans got that year from the Permanent Fund Dividend.
:(){
McCain didn't change the Republican Party. The Republican Party changed him.
Ironically, I thought McCain was going to be the one to change the party. The GOP has lost it's way, and every year the party moves to the religious right. John McCain always seemed to stand up for what was right. I'm lean left but I respect some of the core republican causes. I once donated to McCain's Senate campaign, because I thought McCain would be the leader to save the Republican Party from itself.
And yet in the last couple years McCain completely collapsed-- it's like he lost his independence, and quickly started spewing the same vitriol that I hear coming out of the far right. John McCain, what happened to you?
I'm not sure if he chose Palin because he liked her, or because his Masters told him too. Either way, she is not a good candidate for VP by any stretch of the imagination.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
It's funny how the socialist tag only seems to apply to handouts to poor people. Somehow, when businesses, farmers, and others have their hands out, it's not socialism--it's investing in America.
To the Democrats: when Obama wins this election, you're going to claim that you have a mandate from the people and as a result you're going to go hog wild and pass bill after bill under President Obama's rubber stamp. You feel like you've got a decade of repression to overcome. You also are blinded by your own hubris; you think that somehow humankind can overpower the universe itself and all that is needed is just willpower. But you're wrong, and you're stupid, and despite being on the short end of the stick for so long you just can't learn any humility. I hate you because you wear rose-tinted glasses. I hate you because you fight against the fundamental forces of the universe -- you think you can change human nature; you think you can turn basic economic principles on their ear and things will work better merely by the force of will; you think that all of humanity is somehow collectively more powerful than the very planet we live on and brighter than the sun we orbit. I hate you, you elitist snobs.
To the Republicans: thanks for turning your back on fiscal conservatism and mortgaging my child's future. Again. Also, while I think Jesus is great, but please keep your fucking religion out of government. It is not for you to judge me; most of you sensibly relegate that responsibility to God. Now you just need to tell your radical right-wing to shut the fuck up and "live and let live". Unfortunately, many of you allow your faith to blind you to reality. I hate you because you are hypocrites. I hate you because your being in power for so long has corrupted all of you, and you don't even realize it. You deserve to continue to lose power because you need to learn some lessons. But I know you won't, not really, and I hate you for that too. I hate you most of all because you have real contempt for the common man but you're too stupid to realize it; you don't even understand that you are condescending to an entire nation!
I hate both of you because you treat me like a ten-year-old; I hate how you try to pander to my base instincts and assume I have an IQ of 80. I hate both of you because none of you have any balls and won't allow yourselves to go off script; I hate both of you because you both require your politicians to toe the line. I hate both of you because you lie and you "spin". I hate both of you because of your implicit collusion to keep the status quo.
I lament the death of the U.S. I hate you, Republican and Democrat alike, for killing our great nation.
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
Seems like the Mayans were a bit off...
You mean like a parity error?
Why do Eric Schmidt and Warren Buffett endorse Obama? Because he is for growth-oriented, social democratic capitalism. Growth through innovation, educating your populace, with a safety net, and did I say education?
McCain's capitalism revolves around military contractors and, what I am not unafraid to call plain old imperialism. It is also based on monopoly capitalism - like the monopoly Verizon has over the local loop. Exploiting low-educated workers to the last penny.
The choice of Obama is obvious, unless you're of the worse-is-better school.
It's as if this whole country has a collective memory loss and just keeps bouncing back and forth between two bad choices.
The problem is that as long as people make one of the two bad choices, the remaining choices will all be infeasible to make, unless a large chunk of people agree to make them.
Duverger's law is a principle of political science which predicts that constituencies that use first-past-the-post systems will become two-party systems, given enough time.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_runoff_voting)
You may have heard the phrase "Every vote not for number two is a vote for number one". Think Ralph Nader.
We can analyze this in the framework of Game Theory: suppose you're a not-so-moderate leftie. You want Nader to win, then Kerry, then Bush, with payoffs [N=10, K=2, B=-10]. Suppose there's three percent like you, and the rest vote K=48%, B=49%. If you all vote Nader, you get payoff -10. If you all vote Kerry, you get payoff 2. Your goal is to maximize your payoff; what will you do?
Voting for the big two is probably a Nash Equilibrium, when the voting game is formalized the "right" way, which means that it's in everyone's self interest to keep doing what they're doing as long as no one else change what they do.
One thing you probably want in a voting system is that voting honestly (:= for the candidate you prefer the most) is a dominant strategy (:= it's at least as good as any other strategy).
As long as people vote for the big two, they have to vote for big two to get what they want unless the game (i.e. election system) changes. And the election system won't change as long as people vote for the big two, because the politicians who have the power to change the game have higher payoffs from the game being what it is.
If you believe that those three weren't actually investigated, you match the description of a conspiracy nut. Regarding Ayers/Rezco, there are plenty of people who are interested in those stories and plenty of people who go around claiming they have those stories. The problem is that their sources of information are pretty shaky, and much of what they "uncover" is totally contrived and usually irrelevant.
As for Wright, I think a fair comparison would be Palin's church, and I generally hear much less about that one than I do Wright.
Speaking of earmarks, Palin says "sometimes these dollars go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research in Paris, France... I kid you not!" ( Palin speach).
Nature magazine studied the origins of this earmark and it seems to be pertaining to olive fruit fly research in order to safeguard California's Olive Oil industry (link between stories) and so perhaps collaborating with France is what she disagrees with? France was conducting this type of research and it seems the money was spent to fund this research abroad. Regardless, she speaks of fruit fly research as though it was completely ridiculous... But of course, genetic research may be against her beliefs.
The following will be incredibly Racist, mod me accordingly:
The Nordic countries aren't full of career welfare blacks and disgusting white trash entitlement whores.
The fact is, America has 300+ million people and too many of them don't actually contribute to the economy in any meaningful fashion. If you get rid of the noncons then you might make a socialist system work. But with millions of people who expect to DO NOTHING and have all of their needs provided for it just won't work.
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
1. i think we should abolish the electoral college, since, as 2000 demonstrates, you can lose the popular vote and still win the election (and hasn't the last 8 years proven that to be a mistake)
2. however, if you use the existence of the electoral college as a reason not to vote, no: you're wrong. the electoral college is a negative tweak to a system that still works. removing the electoral college merely makes it work better. the existence of the electoral college doesn't nullfy the entire process and doesn't nullify your vote. it merely warps the value of your vote in ways that are really kind of arbitrary, neither favoring one ideology or another. it's noise in the system. bush could have won the popular vote and lost the ec election in 2000. it favors neither left nor right
now, there are people out there with learned helplessness, with deficits in their ability to trust. there are plenty of reasons and examples of the system creating distrust, but there are also people in this world with a pathological disability: an inability to trust
such people are not disenfranchised by the system, such people disenfrachise themselves
so if you do not vote, simply because the electoral college exists, you are looking hard for a reason not to vote, and you found a very flimsy one. its really not a good reason not to vote, its a very lame excuse on your part to think you don't matter, when you most certainly do still matter
then the question is: why are you looking for an excuse not to matter? if you don't vote because of the electoral college, there's something wrong with you. its self-disenfrachisement. your rationalization for not voting because of the ec points to character flaws you possess. it tells us that you invent excuses not to matter, not to care, walling yourself off from the world by thinking about how you can't affect any change in your world, in utterly helpless ways. self-fulfilling prophecy
your excuse not to vote is wrong, and lame. the ec is a tweak on your vote, not a nullification of it. you need to think long and hard about the way you think about your relationship with your world and remove some deeply seeded issues with trust you have
your psychological problems are showing
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Anyone have any good stories?
I live outside philly, in a traditional republican area, and while I waited to vote, two election officials were openly discussing how to slow down the line by forcing people to que up outside the building instead of in the large lobby. I thought it kind of interesting.
And let's not forget the millions that have died at the hands of communism.
Please let's be clear here: I haven't ever heard of anyone who was killed by communism. (That would be like saying that everyone killed by US troops in World War II were killed by "capitalism"...) The millions you're talking about were killed by repressive totalitarian dictators using the name of "communism" to make themselves sound more palatable to the ordinary people. Their economic systems may have been partially communist-based, but their political systems certainly were basically your garden-variety dictatorship.
Anyone who holds up Stalin as an iron-clad reason why Communism is Evil doesn't actually understand what communism is.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
I do really wish that we would move past the single-vote plurality system when voting for federal office (President, Senate, House). I like approval voting for its simplicity and its moderating effect. I love the idea that it might be possible to elect a true compromise candidate instead of violently swinging from one extreme to the next.
But that's not what I want the most (nor is it all that likely to happen any time soon).
What I want the most is for the US to finally welcome international inspectors to watch our elections. We expect emerging democracies to admit inspectors, so we really should eat our own dog food. Would it be painful and humiliating? Quite possibly, for the first few years. But it would be a nice step toward shedding our reputation as a nation that says, "Fuck the rest of the world, we're the US-of-goddamn-A." Oh, and it might actually drive improvements to our voting system, just maybe.
Never approach a vast undertaking with a half-vast plan.
Brooke Coleman, head of the NFA, calls Obama's position on biofuels "infinitely better" than McCain's. As a daily reader of http://www.greentechmedia.com/ I can tell you that Obama is so so so so so much better than McCain on his understanding of technology and how to use it (great Fast Company mag article on Obama and Facebook worth finding), his understanding of the challenges and opportunitties of renewable energy ( see : http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/driving-change-how-us-prez-candidates-could-impact-cars-5113.html ) and c'mon who is going to make us look better in the eyes of the world??? Obama !!!
I find calls for âoetax reformâ to be somewhat comical, when you take into account the history of American taxation.
The first income tax was in 1862:
âoeThe income tax is imposed upon a certain proportion of the income of these two classes, viz:
1st. Every person residing in the United States; and every citizen residing abroad who is in the employment of the Government of the United States.
2nd. Every citizen of the United States residing abroad and not in the employment of the United States.
Every person in the first class will be taxed at the rate of three percent when his or her annual gains, profits, or income exceed $600 and do not exceed $10,000. Every person in the first class will be taxed at the rate of five percent when his or her annual gains, profits, or income exceed $10,000, after the following deductionsâ¦â (From the 1962 Federal Income tax Return http://www.taxhistory.org/thp/readings.nsf/cf7c9c870b600b9585256df80075b9dd/9134d0498e7c820085256e4400040844?OpenDocument )
$600 in 1862 is $15,000 in 2007.
Congress then got fast and loose with their terms and the Supreme Court over turned a law in 1894 in the Pollock Case, because the language was not clear if it violated the Constitution or not. This then was the impetus for the 16th amendment, which is a very poorly worded amendment⦠But eventually we get to a tax of 1% on incomes over $3000 ($75,000 in 2007), topping out at only 6% in incomes of excess than $500,000 (12,500,000).
Those are truly modest amounts compared to what we pay today.
Prior to our modern income tax scheme, the Federal government was funded mainly by import tariffs. Congress would get to bicker on what to raise or lower the tariff on, sugar and cotton were favorites. The problem was this meant a man of meager means paid a larger portion of his earnings to fund the federal government. It was then proposed that the government be able to tax the vast sums of accumulated wealth of the likes of the Rockefellers, the J.P. Morgans, etc, which held about 80% of the wealth of the nation. The reasoning was money that creates money through investment should be taxed because no effort is expended in the creation of the additional wealth. Also, as an excise tax on the increase, the original principal is left untouched to continue to grow.
The speeches in congress at the time were quite noble, the idea was to remove the burden of funding the federal government from the poor or common man to those who could better afford to pay it. People spoke nobly about it, and that is was an instrument that would be wielded with considerable care as it would a direct line into the bank account and household of every American.
Given our current state of affairs: 30%+ taxes, bail out after bail out, it seems that any modern tax âoereformâ is just a shell game. True reform could only come as a consequence of government reform, and specifically the role of government. As we go forward, we continually enlarge the role of the federal government. We never talk about doing away with federal governmental operation, because we think more of something we want must be better. For example, the Department of Education. We all want education, so we are too scared to eliminate the department of it, because that might mean that our county-operated schools might suffer (how exactly?). We are contemplating national healthcare which we all know to be an active industry full of people inventing new ways to spend money. It grows 3x the rate of the GNP.
People are going to the polls today to vote for either big government or bigger government.
I am reminded of the words of Alexander Tyler (1787):
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Joe the Plumber was investigated more thoroughly than William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezco, combined.
However, the three subjects (the plumber doesn't count) were brought up by either McCain, Palin or even Hillary back in the primaries.
As for the so-called plumber, spare us, please. Who invokes his name every thirty seconds, Obama? No, McCain and Palin. He's also gotten himself an agent and wants to cut a country music album, the asshole wants and seeks all the free publicity he can get. Then he said things so outlandish, that he was smacked down on Faux News, of all places! Once again, please, spare us.
How often did the media bring up McCain's associations with characters like Gordon Liddy, Charles Keating and that Texas megachurch crackpot, who supports Israel so it can be destroyed to bring about the second coming in his lifetime?
Moreover, how often have the press stated the fact that the Bush and Bin Laden families were business partners and have been dear, dear friends for decades now? Much less often than we've heard the names Ayers and Wright.
Y'all quit with the cherry pickin' now, it's become extremely tiresome, leads to nowhere and says more about you than about whatever it is you're talking about.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Oh please. You can't seriously claim that a destroyed pagan civilization is comparable to the end of the world.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Frankly the 1-party thing was a drum I beat for 6 years, and I'm tired of beating on it. The Republicans need a good old fashioned asswhipping to kick their sorry asses back toward the middle and maybe, maybe to kick some of the damn social conservatives back into their caves. At the very least their massive arrogance needs to have some holes shot in it.
When good Sentors like Chuck Hagel and Arlen Specter are called traitors to their party because they don't suck up to the social conservatives, there is something seriously wrong.
The absolute LAST thing we need in this country is two parties who think they've got the right to legislate how we live our lives.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
McCain abandoned his opposition to torture? This would be the McCain who said in a national debate:
"I'm astonished that you haven't found out what waterboarding is... Then I am astonished that you would think such a - such a torture would be inflicted on anyone in our - who we are held captive and anyone could believe that that's not torture. It's in violation of the Geneva Convention"
That's pretty clear cut. Regardless of whether McCain is the best man for the job of President, his clear anti-torture stance - which went against the general Republican stance at the time - was something he should be admired for.
Afford a tank of gas? Think about retiring?
Look someone in the eye and say, "In the US we don't torture prisoners of war, we don't unilaterally invade other countries, we don't imprison our citizens without a trial, and we don't allow the government to spy on citizens without due process of law."
If you can look back on the last 8 years without feeling sick with shame, there is a problem.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Yeah, but that had everything to do with a small group of bankers borrowing heavily from international money markets, investing in bad assets, and those assets subsequently falling in value, and nothing to do with how they organise their own society (whether you call it socialism, or not).
Yep, and the UK, France, Germany and much of the rest of Europe are stunning examples of the failure of socialism. They're cutting back on social programs and privatizing where they can because they just can't sustain the system. And they've got these problems despite the fact that people are taxed heavily at all income levels.
One thing that always gets me is how people compare a nation like Denmark or Japan to the US. Those countries have relatively small and homogenous populations, unlike the US. They're in a situation where they have most of the population paying the system ensuring it's sustainable.
And even then, eventually problems arise, like in Japan, because of declining birth rates there aren't enough people paying in to support the aging population. From everything I've seen, unless we completely abandon any monetary system socialism is always doomed to failure in the long run.
Bankrupted by an out-of bounds banking industry that was totally deregulated and ten times larger than the Iceland GDP i.e. the real Icelandic economy. These banks were counter parties to many Wall street institutions that pushed their toxic sludge bonds on the Icelandic banks. Totally not related to their welfare system.
Nice try though.
Ummmm this is generally how dems behave as well, that somehow they are the sophisticated light and anything else just isn't socially acceptable or permissible. At least republicans take a stand on issues rather than constantly whining about how they would have done things better and dangling theories in front of their party members. "Oh if a democrat were president 9/11 would never have happened" "If a democrat were president, we wouldnt be in the war" "if if if...for the love of pete, give it up and SHOW the world things will be better". Yes I voted blue this round, but as the Simpsons democrat quote goes "We will screw it up somehow".
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
The first Monday after the second Wednesday in December. Which, in 2012, will be December 17.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Don't worry, it would be worse if it was an idiot lawyer.
I disagree.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Communism doesn't kill people, people kill people
I disagree! People with mustaches kill people.
Those of us who think they know everything annoy those of us who do.
[sarcasm]As opposed to Bush, who, as we all know, was a great respecter of the Constitution.[/sarcasm]
Obama is an expert on the Constitution to a level that is hard to even define...He taught Constitutional law at one of the most prestigious law schools in the country. So it's not unreasonable that he may have criticisms of the document, the same way any expert may have criticisms of things under his area of expertise.
But I do not think that he has anything like the arrogance and disrespect for the law and the Constitution that has been shown in the last 8 years, and having anyone imply that with a straight face makes me laugh.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
shuttup you! =)
Nice try.
But there are alternative search phrases, as you note. Let's check some others.
Hardly the massive media conspiracy you describe.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
You are forgetting about the american dream. The dream that one day YOU will be elite, the rich, the powerful. Eat dirt today because tomorrow you will be eating cake. And of course, if you are eating cake tomorrow, you hardly want to share that cake or have it turned into bread for all. No, eat dirt today, because tomorrow...
It is the american dream. If you were cynical, you might see it as a near perfect ploy to keep the masses content. Not that dissimilar to how certain religions do it. Suffer life now, the after-life will see you rewarded. Never mind dear suicide bomber that you are pisspoor despite millions in support to the palestines. Your reward awaits you in heaven, never mind that your leaders life in luxury in the west (check were the palestine leadership lives, and for instance how many millions old beard face had and where he houses his wife)
The american dream tells americans that they too can one day have it all, and since one day they will have it all, why should they then share it or ask those who have it now to share?
Make no mistake, the american dream is the ultimate enslavement tool. Because the truth of course is that NOT everyone can make it, no matter how they try because a capatalist system needs its homeless to allow for the superrich. The american dream at best is an lottery, but one where the winners can buy the winning tickets.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I voted Obama a couple weeks ago by mail-in absentee ballot. Give me free karma!
;)
Or alternatively, mod me funny and "redundant" repeatedly to trash my karma.
Once again, I must point out to the politically naive that you NEVER, NEVER, NEVER listen to a politician's WORDS. To get the truth, you must always look at his ACTIONS. And John McCain's action in this matter was quite clear. Back in February when the Senate passed a bill to force the CIA and other government agencies to follow the Army Field manual procedures on enemy interrogation (which specifically bans torture and techniques such as waterboarding), your anti-torture hero John McCain voted against it (even after vocally supporting it earlier and sponsoring an earlier bill to establish this restriction for the Army).
When it comes down to the wire, John McCain's talk is cheap. But we won't have to worry much about that after today.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I just got back from voting, it seems I picked a good time to go, only had to wait 10 minutes before I was making my selections. The key is to go mid morning or mid afternoon and avoid early morning, lunch, and after work (if possible).
I went in thinking I would just request a paper ballot instead of using the Diebold machines (in Ohio we can request paper ballot if we want)... but at the last minute I decided to go with the machine because I was trying to get in and out quickly (every poll worker was 70+ years old, didn't want to do anything out of the norm). I get to my machine, make my choices.. and went it was printing out the paper ticket so I could review my selections, the paper roll was jammed so nothing was happening. I told a poll worker that it didn't work, and that I wanted to cancel this ballot and do a paper one.
Lesson learned. Of course then they only gave me the first page of the paper ballot (which left off a few local proposals). I pointed out the missing proposals, they found page two, and I got to finish. I was the 9th person to do paper ballot, so the previous 8 didn't get that 2nd page.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
At most places in the state of Washington, normally a swing state, we've had more than 60 percent of people return their absentee ballots before election day or vote early or emergency (e.g. military being posted or sudden business travel).
Additionally, all the polling places have had more people vote in the first hour since they've been open than usually vote all day, so it looks like in person voting in the only two in-person counties (King and another Blue county) is off the charts.
I'm predicting a landslide, and that the GOP will lose two seats in Congress.
Minor problems with some electronic machines, but virtually everyone other than handicapped/disabled/blind votes using paper ballots that are optically scanned - either by mail, dropoff, or in person.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It's funny you pull mention his talking-point on waterboarding, because John McCain in fact voted against a ban on waterboarding. So his stance is maybe not as clear as you think.
LOL funniest thing I have seen in a while, you get modded up and I get modded down. Doesn't bother me but I find it funny.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
I think the government is getting dangerously big.
I want smaller government.
Therefore, I don't have a vote.
Vote Republican you say? LOL!
The Repub's oversaw the largest expansion in spending in history.
Vote third party you say? ROFL!
We have a two party duopoly headed for a one party monopoly.
Karma plus paying for your mortgage and gas too? WTF else do you want? :p
Denmark does have a surplus on oil trade however, we drill less oil per citizen than the US does. If the American spend as little oil as Danes did, the US too would be an oil exporter.
I voted Obama a couple weeks ago by mail-in absentee ballot. Give me free karma!
Don't worry, you will be getting that in the form of raised taxes and a weaker economy. Enjoy!
--
My parents went to Slashdot and all I got was this lousy sig.
I suspect that Obama is shooting (haha) for laws that are somewhat akin to a motto that I came up with:
"Private weapons should be legal but regulated to a degree proportional to their utility and destructiveness."
That adopts a libertarian stand of anything should be legal provided that it does not harm other's rights, and yet recognises that there is an inherent risk regardless of noble intent.
This is an easy test: What is the risk to the population as a whole if it is intentionally or accidentally misused? A baseball bat is much less likely to kill or injure than say a hand grenade if misused. A baseball bat can be used for constructive purposes, while a hand grenade is pretty much only useful if you want to hurl small pieces of metal in random directions at high velocity. Ergo, a grenade should have a much higher level of regulation than a baseball bat.
I think its a fair request to have more dangerous weapons regulated. The bill of rights wasn't written to permit you to needlessly endanger your fellow citicens while excercising your own rights. Obama's stand seems to reflect this idea.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I voted, but as in the last few it wasn't for my candidate of choice, it was against the candidate I couldn't abide by winning.
My candidate would not become a whore to Corporations, would effectively ban lobbying by groups (of ANY kind).
Would respect the Constitution, even the parts they didn't like.
Would only sign single issue Bills.
Would endeavor to clean the garbage and deadwood out of the US Code of Federal Regulations and our nations Laws.
Would abandon our current taxation system and go to an end user consumption tax for ALL revenue other than import duties.
Would respect my privacy and not spy on me or my countrymen.
Would balance our budget and generate enough surplus to begin paying down our debt. (see above)
Would work with Congress to issue appropriate letters of Marque and Reprisal to eliminate those who threaten us, and bring our troops home as quickly as prudent.
Would begin an immediate effort to eliminate all Federally funded Energy programs which have not produced based upon their historical record, and transfer that funding to new programs with promise to reduce or end our energy dependence.
Unfortunately, my candidate does not exist
Never ascribe to malice or conspiracy that which can be adequately explained by ignorance or stupidity.
I find it telling that statisticians have long noted the correlation between education levels and political leaning. It is fact: smarter, better educated, and better informed people tend to vote Democrat. Find a Republican in the AAAS or NAS. Why do you suppose that is? The better educated stand more to lose, since they tend to be wealthier. (I have a feeling that there's a golden amount of wealth that allows us the luxury of investing in the future, without the pathology of being obsessed with accumulating money.)
I also find it telling that most everyone saying anything negative about Obama has referred to him using his middle name. This echoes the standard content of the message: "He does not look like us, therefore he must be evil." They don't tend to address actual policy issues, but simply try to instill fear/hatred/uncertainty/doubt based on rumours.
Could we, as a society, maybe move beyond that?
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I don't care who wins, per se - but what has driven me nuts is the Bush Bashing. I know that he didn't lie, the very claim that he did is itself a lie. Yet it is repeated so often it is actually believed.
So: what history is being rewritten? Just look at this article from The New York Times, as reported from the Wall Street Journal:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122575933265095405.html
I dare say that the big loser of the past 8 years has been the American people and how we've let ourselves be brainwashed by the agenda driven Media.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Would it be so bad if the government were able to do nothing?
No, it would be totally awesome if the government wasn't able to do anything. I mean, look at Hurricane Katrina. That was so awesome when the government failed to prevent/prepare for/respond to that disaster. I just get warm fuzzies inside every time I think about it.
So the government can prevent hurricanes? People choose to live in a sinking bowl of mud with no bedrock and water on three sides of the city, and it's the governments fault? It's the governments fault when those people didn't leave when they were warned that, hey, there's a fscking hurricane coming, get out of Dodge. That's the government's fault?
I know what you mean. I get those same warm fuzzies when I realize people like you vote.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
1) She was/is the highest rated governor in the Country.
2) Alaska joined the Union for its oil reserves, and Palin strongly believes that this country needs energy independence (despite any reasons / understanding or how closely she may have had business with oil companies).
3) She is not a Washington insider / new face
4) She is a role model for women that take the same position as her on women's issues, not to mention she is a very positive example of a person that takes that kind of position
And as I mentioned earlier, all together, I think the pair / plan would have beat Hillary. It is just senseless against Obama. The GOP picked the perfect weapon, for the wrong type of target.
McCain sold the "I am not Bush" plan. Palin is the "I am not Hillary" plan. In addition to being the complete opposite of Hillary with respect to the issues mentioned above, Palin is a more likable person (remember polls saying in 2000 that Bush was the candidate voters would most like to sit with and have a beer? I meant something), and 5) she is really hot.
Hillary never would have had a chance.
Want Big Business out of government? Take away the incentive and start by getting government out of big business!
It's not exactly racist, it's more classist.
Have you ever been really truly poor? I mean so poor that you are wondering how you are going to eat and keep a roof over your head? So poor a meal at a fast-food restaurant is a big splurge?
Being on welfare isn't pleasant. Ignoring the social consequences, what you are getting while on public assistance is somewhere around the bare minimum needed to survive: the cheapest apartment available (typically 1 bedroom per 2 people), and some combination of WIC and food stamps. That's it: enough to eke out a meager existence. Any idea that you can get wealthy on public assistance is simply ludicrous.
I am officially gone from
I try not to do me too posts, but you're basically spot on.
The Republican party has overseen one of the largest expansions in income redistribution in American history and somehow taking a very small portion of future redistributions and leaving it with the poor and middle class workers is somehow immoral.
It's amazing how people complain about workers in America being lazy when we're the most productive in the world and the gains in productivity end up being redistributed to those that don't really need any more money.
And for the record, David Duke was a former grandmaster for the KKK, he wasn't just a member. I don't know how their power structure works and the title might not be right, but he was a leader of the movement and fairly high up.
That being said, I have been heavily involved in the academic institution for a while at the College level. I wouldn't say the correlation between Higher education and democrat has much to do with the democrat platform being any more sound than the republican one. Rather the democratic platform favor's schools FAR more. You are also mocked in your career if you are a PHD and a republican unless you are a poly-sci instructor. Democrats also are in favor of looser policies for research and development.
Another thing you need to remember, just because I have a PHD doesn't mean I am predisposed to rational behavior. It just means I am really good at focusing all my attention on a subject.
Also the better educated are not always the wealthier. Of the PHDs I know they tend to be poorer as they took the instructor route.
Remember the whole causation correlation memo that is constantly thrown around here.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
"Or, like, going to the post office and waiting often for minutes in short lines with government workers who are helpful and fri... wait, that wouldn't back up your example."
Yes, it does, only in ways you didn't think of. The USPS is run more like a corporation than a government bureaucracy now. It's easier to fire a USPS employee than it is to fire drone in another federal agency. And the USPS has to compete with other private firms, like FedEx and UPS. So it keeps them on their toes. They're also governed like a corporation, with a board of directors, and an Executive that basically has all the powers of a CEO. They heavily subcontract out work to non-government third parties to reduce costs.
The key here is competition. The Post Office has it, and thus treats people like valuable customers than can be lost. The DMV doesn't. Where else are you going to go to get a drivers license?
"Oh yeah, Wal-mart."
But Wal Mart is a perfect example of markets. Their motto is "low prices, always". You're making a choice when you go to a Wal Mart to forsake other things... better service, for example... in exchange for the lowest price possible. But you have a choice. You can choose to take your money to other places... Target, Circuit City, Sears, JC Penney, Macy's... where you have the choice to spend more money and get better service.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Because the state of South Carolina refuses to acknowledge that Elections Systems & Software (ES&S) voting machines are poorly coded, unreliable and easily hackable, I will never know if my vote was counted or what it counted for. Sure, the good-ol'-boys here have been rigging elections for a long time, including those using paper ballots, but I don't think it has ever been easier.
"The GOP has lost it's way, and every year the party moves to the religious right."
What a crock. The party has been led by the religious right since 1980. You're acting like you woke up one day and found Jerry Falwell had kicked out Nelson Rockefeller yesterday. I don't know what party you've been taking about, but Republican politics has been dominated as much by social issues as economic since Reagan, Schafly, and southerners took it over from the liberal northeasterners in the late 70's. And they've had a pretty good track record of success since then.
You're right in one respect about the party losing it's way... Bush embraced "campaign finance reform", "comprehensive immigration reform", and new spending with the same gusto as Democrats. So did McCain on the first two issues.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Also:
- States and localities are supposed to be prepared for and handle the first three days, while FEMA's charter (at the time) was to mobilize the big stuff (financial aid, rebuilding, food restocking, etc.) that comes in after that time.
- The fed was PROHIBITED (by The Posse Comitatus Act) from coming in without permission from the state's governor - which was withheld. So the fed mobilized as much as it could meanwhile, bringing some of it up to the state line and handing off some others to Non-Governmental Organizations (one of which was the Salvation Army) to bring in. (Then the NGOs were blocked from entering by the state and local authorities, too.)
(One tinfoil hat theory is that the NGOs were deliberately blocked in a political move to increase the suffering and thus the administration's embarrassment when it was blamed on them.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Err....it did as he was leaving. Remember that dot com bubble bursting? Bush 2 essentially inherited a recession...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
It's amazing how people complain about workers in America being lazy when we're the most productive in the world and the gains in productivity end up being redistributed to those that don't really need any more money.
But it doesn't work like that. Do you know anybody who has their own business and DOES make more than $250,000? Here's the theory. They got that way by growing their business. Maybe started off barely able to make ends meet but took all their extra money and corporate profits and reinvested to make the business grow. Then the business got big enough to give them a health salary. Now, with their big salary, they take their extra money and add a location, or buy a new truck or more equipment. That, in turn, creates jobs which allow everybody else to make some money. If the average profit margin for a company is 8%, which I'm not saying it is, but that works for the folks I've worked for, then increasing taxes by 8% pretty much wipes out profits. Wipe out profits, wipe out growth. Wipe out growth, wipe out jobs. Wipe out jobs....well...you guess.
You'll have that sometimes...
Err....it did as he was leaving. Remember that dot com bubble bursting? Bush 2 essentially inherited a recession...
Nah. He's got you there. Say what you want about Clinton, but he did a good job with the economy. That's pretty much undeniable. He made it a priority early in his presidency to focus on reducing national debt instead of tax cuts as a good way to keep the economy strong and he was right. It worked. Huge surplus, record low unemployment, smallest growth in government spending in a while...He did a fine job. I don't think you can really provide evidence that says otherwise.
You'll have that sometimes...
Just heard Obamas victory speech.
We here in Australia, are traditonally extremely cynical about politicians in general. But to my amazement I was inspired and moved in a way I rarely have by a speech of any kind. I was too young to hear JFK speak at the time, the same for Dr King, and this was the closest thing I have heard to the recordings of their speeches. I fell like a pivotal moment has come.
Hopefully Mr Obama can restore the admiration the rest of the world has had for the US for as long as I can remember prior to this century.
I dont believe it, for the first time since 2001 I feel some hope for us as a species. Shit.
Damn that cynical little voice thats telling me "You've been sucked in"
Heady stuff indeed.