I don't see how you can separate this from rationing. Is it not plainly obvious that as they get older and sicker the incentive to euthanize them would become greater? Would not a system where euthanasia is never an option lead to fewer euthanizations due to greed, corruption, etc?
As it was described by McCaughey and Palin, it was an attempt to have doctors try to talk patients into euthanasia. There's no evidence for that.
Additionally, nothing in the health care bill makes any change to the laws regarding the legality of euthanasia. So really, the only difference that would be made is that patients are covered for the costs of discussing these issues with their doctors, and the rationing decisions made today by for-profit insurance companies would be made by not-for-profit government employees. I'm not seeing the reason for the uproar about this.
If you take the issue of 'death panels' with an open mind, for example, you will find that there is some substance to the fear that underlies it. In a given system with limited resources, someone has to decide who lives and who dies. In a capitalist system this decision is based on who can pay for the treatments and who cannot. In some other system it would be dealt with in some other way, but with limits on the resources it will have to be dealt with.
Of course this is true that there is always rationing going on. Right now your coverage gets decided by insurance company bean counters and lawyers with profit in mind. In a government-run system it would be a bureaucrat with financial solvency in mind (assuming the system is required to pay for itself like it was proposed).
However, that's not what the "death panels" term referred to when it was started by Palin. She was referring to the end-of-life counseling that was to be covered by Medicare. Betsy McCaughey took this idea of allowing patients to be covered for time spent discussing their wishes for end of life treatment and living wills with their doctors and turned it into some kind of government push for euthanization. It was completely baseless and had no evidence whatsoever to back it up. Palin was referring to this analysis when she first used the term "death panels". So the term is not about rationing, but about the coercion of old and sick folks to consent to euthanization.
I certainly don't understand the issue of "protection of marriage". How does 2 men or 2 women being married make the slightest bit of difference to your own marriage?
I understand why many have difficulty understanding this position. Relativism (no absolute right and wrongs in life -- only what is right and wrong for *me*) and utilitarianism (looking merely at consequences and ignoring moral principles) dominate current western ideologies. But I believe law should be "rooted in God's unchangeable character and derived from biblical principles of morality." If God's revealed law contradicts someones desired behavior, then I believe the former should dictate law -- not the latter.
So you're arguing for the establishment of religion by the government. Just what the world needs, another theocracy. It's all fun and games until someone with a different view than you comes along and decides that your particular interpretation of Christianity is wrong.
People came to this country from all over to escape religious persecution and to be free to believe as they wish without the government imposing beliefs on them. Most of them were Christians who knew very well the dangers of theocratic states. Europe had seen a seemingly endless string of religious wars over the last few hundred years. Wars between different religions, and many between different sects of Christianity. They sought to prevent the government from imposing religious beliefs on people here.
If you want to be free to worship as you choose and live as you wish, why would you be so determined to prevent others from being free to do the same, simply because they don't share your particular brand of Christianity or they adhere to some other religion or none at all?
What if, for example, a brand of Christianity becomes dominant and decides that blood transfusions should be illegal because they violate their interpretation of scripture? Would you find that acceptable? If that happens to be your brand, I can pick another example, but hopefully you get the point. There are no absolutes, only interpretations. If there were absolutes, there wouldn't be 1000 different varieties of Christianity with various interpretations of scripture and even what should be considered scripture, all claiming to be the truth.
That being said, as a Christian, I support laws that may very well impose on others (without sacrificing freedom of religion -- again, followers should *freely* choose to believe) such as anti-abortion, protection of marriage, and other biblically-rooted legislation.
While I can understand the conflict in the case of abortion, I certainly don't understand the issue of "protection of marriage".
How does 2 men or 2 women being married make the slightest bit of difference to your own marriage? I don't see it affecting mine. I personally think that if the government is to be involved at all in marriage, it should be in the form of civil union. The paperwork side of things only. Aside from that, it's really up to the couple what rituals and terms they want to incorporate into their union. Why is it any business of yours or mine who gets married and what rituals and terms they use?
I think I'll just agree to drop the citation issue since we'd end up arguing just that until somebody falls over dead most likely.
This is the problem I have -- it seems many argue that it's OK to call Christians "religious nuts" since they exhibit behavior that they do not approve of. While these same people, in most cases, preach "tolerance" in every other instance (other races, homosexuality, gender equality... pick your issue), and even call Christians intolerant because they live with integrity to their believe system (yes, the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. [carm.org] Yes, the Bible says the man is the head of the household [carm.org].).
Not just behavior that I don't approve of, it's behavior that seeks to impose their beliefs on me, and even to teach them to kids as science. Hell yeah, I oppose that. I'm well aware of what the bible says, and as far as I'm concerned, Christians need not participate in homosexual behavior if they believe it to be a sin, and they can run their households however they want. Just quit trying to impose that crap on the rest of us.
But this is hypocritical in my opinion -- if I as a Christian *didn't* live according to the Bible, I expect many of these "same people" (now it's getting vague as to whom I'm referring to -- oh well) would condemn me similarly as they do *because* I believe what the Bible says. So why do these (who??) tolerance preachers have no tolerance themselves?
Please live how you like. Just don't try to force the rest of us to live as you choose to.
...[criticizing creationism] is still a discussion about evolutionary theories, it only digresses towards pointing out the wrong ones.
Except that it's not a mere digression when it's so many respondents first (and only) thing to contribute; it's just hate and smug dismissal of someone not even in the conversation masquerading as a contribution.
Smug dismissal, sure. Hate? I don't think so. Do I hate the guy doing something dumb in a YouTube video? No, but I may ridicule him and laugh at him. Hate is reserved for those who lie and try to do things like getting I.D. taught in schools or pass laws to impose their religious beliefs on others.
Such posts get modded up because people with mod points agree, whether on topic or not.
Which is of course an abuse of moderation; note there is no "+1, I Agree" option.
There's a +1 funny and +1 underrated. These seem more than sufficient to mod up such posts. That and it's just good clean fun to laugh at people doing ridiculous things. About half the entertainment media in existence seems to confirm that.
There are "10000000's of peices [sic] of evidence" that God exists
[citation neeeded]
While I understand that many do not believe that God exists, that hardly excuses treating those who do without respect.
It's not the belief in God that engenders this disrespect, it's the attempts to get these beliefs taught in schools as science or made into law in order to impose religoius beliefs, or at least behavior, on others. I have quite a few relgious friends, but I don't consdier them to be religious nuts because they don't do these things and they understand that religion is a personal issue and not one that should be pushed or imposed on others.
This is a very different kind of 'acquisition' as the genes for making chlorophyll acquired from the algae are not transferred to its offspring..
According to this article, the genes are transferred, but the offspring, like the parents, can't produce their own chloroplasts, so have to eat enough algae to acquire the necessary chloroplasts before they can survive like that.
I love science journalism because I'm not a scientist, and the science papers I've tried to read are more about impressing the potential buyers of the new product / impressing peers / getting college funding, etc, and so try to use plenty of 'big words'.
Not a very fair assumption about scientific papers. It's not that they're trying to impress, it's that they have to be precise in their wording and use "big words" that have very specific scientific meanings. That you don't know these words is understandable if you don't have any science background or education, but it's not a reason to attribute their usage to a desire to sound impressive or important. It's just the precise language of science. It's always disheartening to read this sort of thing from someone because it feeds into the current view of many in the U.S. of science as elitism. If science wasn't so valuable to industry, I shudder to think of what might be done to degrade it further in this country.
The only thing, that Republicans can be blamed for is not fighting the Democrats hard enough on this issue. Creating the problem in the first place, and resisting the (too-weak) attempts to solve it earlier is all the fault of Democrats [ldsmag.com]. Enjoy.
I've actually seen that article before. It's a ridiculous over-simplification of things that just happens to be incredibly convenient for those who want to deflect blame. It doesn't even begin to address all the issues that led up to the economic disaster. It tries to pin all the blame on a single cause. I'm sure that it's comforting on some level to be able to think that the economy is simple enough to explain in such elementary terms, but it just ain't so. Go stick your head back in your partisan kool-aid bowl dude. You're hopeless.
No, it would still allow moderates (like you and me) to vote, but would discourage people who willfully don't follow the issues. If you don't know the issues, then stay home.
That just leads to people who follow the issues and know all about how Obama wants to round up conservatives and put them in secret FEMA prisons so that he can pass a health care bill to let doctors euthanize grandma!
You have to get some sort of agreement on what constitutes an informed voter. The politicians won't agree on that, so it'll never happen.
I agree completely people shouldn't vote blindly but should know the issues. That's why personally I'm for mandatory voting. It's the only system that provides an incentive for all parties to make sure the populace is as informed as possible.
Since mandatory voting isn't going to happen anytime soon, and I don't think it would necessarily have the effect that you believe it will, the best thing to do would be to stop telling people to just go vote and start telling people to get informed about the issues and candidates so that they'll care enough to vote.
Unfortunately that sounds (and is) a lot harder than simply showing up to vote, so it probably won't happen either. It would also mean you should provide them with some resources to help them get informed. That's a political minefield in itself. Republicans will claim that anything short of something like Limbaugh or Hannity is just liberal propaganda, while Democrats will do the same for their side. I don't see it being possible to try to present an unbiased resource. Politicians aren't interested in truth or facts. They're interested in appearances, spin and money. They'll oppose any resource that doesn't just present their party propaganda. Their campaign fund-raising depends on it.
So, pressured by crazy Lefties on the streets on one side to give mortgages to people, who can't afford them, and allowed to do that by the "respectable" Lefties in government, the banks complied...
Banks would not take any more risk than they had to unless they had good reason. Now try explaining why over 80% of sub-prime mortgage loans were made by private companies who aren't covered by the CRA. Surely they wouldn't want to intentionally put themselves in the kind of horrible predicament that you're claiming that the CRA put some banks in, right? Oh, except that once the government decided to start removing any oversight and accountability everywhere they could, short-term profits and crazy risks with no real downside started to look really good to everyone. How many executives had to return their "bonuses" after all this?
We give mortgages to everyone and his dog and then pass the risk off to others in exchange for a short-term profit. Those people repackage and do it again, etc. These are obviously not bad investments. I mean, they have AAA ratings, right? And of course they're insured, so there's no downside, right? Well, except that the insurance is even more bullshit than the AAA ratings that were purchased for these securities.
Basically the bubble was built on a pile of bullshit that was lobbied for by the financial industry and granted by the Congress. Where's the accountability for the fraudulent ratings? Where's the accountability for selling insurance you have no hope in hell of ever being able to cover? Where's the accountability for the people who enabled all of this? There isn't any because they know they can just yell and scream and point fingers at each other and nobody will be able to figure out who's responsible.
The simple answer is that they are all to blame. Some more than others, but all of them should be held accountable. They won't be. The guys that made billions from selling bullshit will get to keep it. The people who got fucked over by shady mortgage lenders will remain fucked. The taxpayers that had to pay to bail out all these banks and other companies will remain thoroughly fucked. The Congress will continue to be run by people who are bought and paid for by the industries with the money to call the shots. Look at what we've seen so far. Lots of sound and fury and yet no significant change in how Wall Street and the banks do business. Sickening.
When a partisan states, that "we are all to blame", he is admitting, that the bulk of the responsibility is on his side... I'll accept that.
How does, correctly, applying blame to all who deserve it make one a partisan? Are you saying Republicans are blameless in this mess? You're saying that they didn't compound the problems by removing regulations that would have helped mitigate the impact that falling housing prices would have? Are you saying that they didn't put profits ahead of everything and specifically remove regulations, thereby allowing these companies to take on insane amounts of risk, without any way to cover themselves in the very likely case that those investments failed? Are we supposed to take you seriously?
I love how you talk about the poor widdle banks who were just helpless victims in all this. They just don't have any voice in the government, right? Nobody ever listens to them or gives them what they want, right? They certainly weren't making ridiculous profits for years and lobbying for the ability to take even more crazy risks, right? Right?
I think it's obvious who the true partisan is here. The executive and the entire Congress is responsible along with the leadership of the companies involved. Both parties contributed to this mess, and neither took the actions necessary to even partially prevent it. In fact they took actions to make it even worse. Point the finger at the other side if you like, but you just look like a fool who refuses to accept that his side can do any wrong.
This is quite transparently a proclamation of how sick much of the world was of the Bush administration, and simultaneously an endorsement of Obama's plans. I mean the guy hasn't even been in office for a year yet. He hasn't been able to get anything peace-prize-worthy done. Not that the prize has actually meant anything for quite a long time now anyway.
Honestly, if I were him, I'd be pretty pissed about this. He really doesn't need this kind of controversy right now. They've essentially used him to make a political statement, and it's just going to cause problems at a time when he's got more than enough to deal with. It'll get the conservatives all bristly and the libs all full of themselves, and then it becomes even harder to get anything done. All for a prize that I'm sure he knows is bullshit, and will be completely hollow for him.
I assume they at least have aides skimming it for stuff to scream at the other side about, but who knows what all is in there
If the average person has trouble reading and understanding the whole bill then there's something wrong with the bill, if someone getting paid to voted on bills can't read the whole thing then it's too long or they need to get another job. And aids are no substitute for knowing what a bill says. I will not sign anything I have not read the whole of and I expect nothing less from those who are supposed to represent me.
Unfortunately most people don't seem to care about little things like whether their congresscritters actually read the legislation they vote on. They're too busy demonizing the other side to notice. After all, their side is always doing what's right and the other side is trying to destroy America!
Reading I see where the bill is 1017 pages long. That's a bad sign right there. Never mind regular citizens, how many congressmen are going to read the whole thing? Not one of them read the entire PATRIOT Act before voting for it, I seriously doubt any will here.
Of course they don't. I assume they at least have aides skimming it for stuff to scream at the other side about, but who knows what all is in there. Most of it has been done through adding amendments though I think, so those have to be read and voted in or out in committee, so at least some people have been reading some of it. Anything controversial from either side would probably get brought to the party leadership's attention. What would concern me is the stuff that both sides have decided not to talk about because they're both getting something out of it. I'd like to know whether there's anything in there that is going to create new waste and inefficiency, or end up as just plain old handouts.
The LAPD whistle-blower story is interesting and very disturbing. Can't seem to find any follow-up stories on it though. The other one sounds like the lawyer made the mistake of bringing the suit under the wrong statute, using a state law pertaining to state employees rather than the municipal law of the city, which presumably would cover her. Can't find a follow-up on that one either.
"My take away from this is that it's just a press stunt to introduce new harsher behavior from the FBI agents, maybe backed by a new piece of legislation."
Well, as I understand it, within the new Medical Care Reform legislation they're trying to pass, there are provisions to let the govt. have full access to your banking accounts (without warrant, etc).
Perhaps if your are correct, this is another angle to try to get that element pushed forward: "The US govt NEEDS to monitor all checking/savings accounts, to monitor for phishing schemes, terrorist money laundering...and something about protecting children I'm sure.
Let's just
clear some things up for you. The specific one you're thinking of is about 7 or 8 claims down on the page, but you might as well read them all so that you at least have some basis for what to believe when you hear all the disinformation being spread around, from both sides.
On the other hand, while it started out controversial, DLC in general is very accepted these days, and it seems arbitrary to react differently to it simply because it's released on launch day. Should they have simply let the DLC lie on a HDD somewhere for a few weeks?
It may be accepted by some, but PC gamers, especially those that have been around long enough to have played Bioware's earlier RPGs, are definitely not accustomed to paying extra for small bits of content like this. Recall the scrap over the Oblivion DLC a while back. I can only hope that the DLC we get from Bioware is far better than what Bethesda tried to foist on gamers.
Ok, you're right about that. It's not the ruling that's screwed up, it's the law and the FCC. The result is the ridiculous situation that doesn't offer these people any protection. I'm wondering now if other states have this kind of issue too. If so, then it probably needs to be on the FCC to adopt the rule so that this crap can't be allowed to happen anywhere.
Probably someone working for the company had the job of going through all the albums they had published, listing each song in it with sites such as MySpace, and submitting canned takedown notices if they saw anyone posting the song.
In that case, 'Evidence of ownership' isn't in their job description.
The process could just be flawwed in that they assume ownership of anything they have sold.
Or they made a mistake in failing to verify and flag that particular song as "not owned by us"
This tells me there needs to be some real penalties for submitting false takedown notices. If they're not going to take the time to ensure that they even know what the hell they own and don't own, then they shouldn't be taking down anything. This is just fucking with some poor guy that wants to put his own damn music online and Warner apparently can't be bothered to give a shit.
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I don't see how you can separate this from rationing. Is it not plainly obvious that as they get older and sicker the incentive to euthanize them would become greater? Would not a system where euthanasia is never an option lead to fewer euthanizations due to greed, corruption, etc?
As it was described by McCaughey and Palin, it was an attempt to have doctors try to talk patients into euthanasia. There's no evidence for that.
Additionally, nothing in the health care bill makes any change to the laws regarding the legality of euthanasia. So really, the only difference that would be made is that patients are covered for the costs of discussing these issues with their doctors, and the rationing decisions made today by for-profit insurance companies would be made by not-for-profit government employees. I'm not seeing the reason for the uproar about this.
If you take the issue of 'death panels' with an open mind, for example, you will find that there is some substance to the fear that underlies it. In a given system with limited resources, someone has to decide who lives and who dies. In a capitalist system this decision is based on who can pay for the treatments and who cannot. In some other system it would be dealt with in some other way, but with limits on the resources it will have to be dealt with.
Of course this is true that there is always rationing going on. Right now your coverage gets decided by insurance company bean counters and lawyers with profit in mind. In a government-run system it would be a bureaucrat with financial solvency in mind (assuming the system is required to pay for itself like it was proposed).
However, that's not what the "death panels" term referred to when it was started by Palin. She was referring to the end-of-life counseling that was to be covered by Medicare. Betsy McCaughey took this idea of allowing patients to be covered for time spent discussing their wishes for end of life treatment and living wills with their doctors and turned it into some kind of government push for euthanization. It was completely baseless and had no evidence whatsoever to back it up. Palin was referring to this analysis when she first used the term "death panels". So the term is not about rationing, but about the coercion of old and sick folks to consent to euthanization.
I certainly don't understand the issue of "protection of marriage". How does 2 men or 2 women being married make the slightest bit of difference to your own marriage?
I understand why many have difficulty understanding this position. Relativism (no absolute right and wrongs in life -- only what is right and wrong for *me*) and utilitarianism (looking merely at consequences and ignoring moral principles) dominate current western ideologies. But I believe law should be "rooted in God's unchangeable character and derived from biblical principles of morality." If God's revealed law contradicts someones desired behavior, then I believe the former should dictate law -- not the latter.
So you're arguing for the establishment of religion by the government. Just what the world needs, another theocracy. It's all fun and games until someone with a different view than you comes along and decides that your particular interpretation of Christianity is wrong.
People came to this country from all over to escape religious persecution and to be free to believe as they wish without the government imposing beliefs on them. Most of them were Christians who knew very well the dangers of theocratic states. Europe had seen a seemingly endless string of religious wars over the last few hundred years. Wars between different religions, and many between different sects of Christianity. They sought to prevent the government from imposing religious beliefs on people here.
If you want to be free to worship as you choose and live as you wish, why would you be so determined to prevent others from being free to do the same, simply because they don't share your particular brand of Christianity or they adhere to some other religion or none at all?
What if, for example, a brand of Christianity becomes dominant and decides that blood transfusions should be illegal because they violate their interpretation of scripture? Would you find that acceptable? If that happens to be your brand, I can pick another example, but hopefully you get the point. There are no absolutes, only interpretations. If there were absolutes, there wouldn't be 1000 different varieties of Christianity with various interpretations of scripture and even what should be considered scripture, all claiming to be the truth.
That being said, as a Christian, I support laws that may very well impose on others (without sacrificing freedom of religion -- again, followers should *freely* choose to believe) such as anti-abortion, protection of marriage, and other biblically-rooted legislation.
While I can understand the conflict in the case of abortion, I certainly don't understand the issue of "protection of marriage". How does 2 men or 2 women being married make the slightest bit of difference to your own marriage? I don't see it affecting mine. I personally think that if the government is to be involved at all in marriage, it should be in the form of civil union. The paperwork side of things only. Aside from that, it's really up to the couple what rituals and terms they want to incorporate into their union. Why is it any business of yours or mine who gets married and what rituals and terms they use?
This is the problem I have -- it seems many argue that it's OK to call Christians "religious nuts" since they exhibit behavior that they do not approve of. While these same people, in most cases, preach "tolerance" in every other instance (other races, homosexuality, gender equality... pick your issue), and even call Christians intolerant because they live with integrity to their believe system (yes, the Bible says homosexuality is a sin. [carm.org] Yes, the Bible says the man is the head of the household [carm.org].).
Not just behavior that I don't approve of, it's behavior that seeks to impose their beliefs on me, and even to teach them to kids as science. Hell yeah, I oppose that. I'm well aware of what the bible says, and as far as I'm concerned, Christians need not participate in homosexual behavior if they believe it to be a sin, and they can run their households however they want. Just quit trying to impose that crap on the rest of us.
But this is hypocritical in my opinion -- if I as a Christian *didn't* live according to the Bible, I expect many of these "same people" (now it's getting vague as to whom I'm referring to -- oh well) would condemn me similarly as they do *because* I believe what the Bible says. So why do these (who??) tolerance preachers have no tolerance themselves?
Please live how you like. Just don't try to force the rest of us to live as you choose to.
...[criticizing creationism] is still a discussion about evolutionary theories, it only digresses towards pointing out the wrong ones.
Except that it's not a mere digression when it's so many respondents first (and only) thing to contribute; it's just hate and smug dismissal of someone not even in the conversation masquerading as a contribution.
Smug dismissal, sure. Hate? I don't think so. Do I hate the guy doing something dumb in a YouTube video? No, but I may ridicule him and laugh at him. Hate is reserved for those who lie and try to do things like getting I.D. taught in schools or pass laws to impose their religious beliefs on others.
Such posts get modded up because people with mod points agree, whether on topic or not.
Which is of course an abuse of moderation; note there is no "+1, I Agree" option.
There's a +1 funny and +1 underrated. These seem more than sufficient to mod up such posts. That and it's just good clean fun to laugh at people doing ridiculous things. About half the entertainment media in existence seems to confirm that.
There are "10000000's of peices [sic] of evidence" that God exists
[citation neeeded]
While I understand that many do not believe that God exists, that hardly excuses treating those who do without respect.
It's not the belief in God that engenders this disrespect, it's the attempts to get these beliefs taught in schools as science or made into law in order to impose religoius beliefs, or at least behavior, on others. I have quite a few relgious friends, but I don't consdier them to be religious nuts because they don't do these things and they understand that religion is a personal issue and not one that should be pushed or imposed on others.
This is a very different kind of 'acquisition' as the genes for making chlorophyll acquired from the algae are not transferred to its offspring..
According to this article, the genes are transferred, but the offspring, like the parents, can't produce their own chloroplasts, so have to eat enough algae to acquire the necessary chloroplasts before they can survive like that.
I love science journalism because I'm not a scientist, and the science papers I've tried to read are more about impressing the potential buyers of the new product / impressing peers / getting college funding, etc, and so try to use plenty of 'big words'.
Not a very fair assumption about scientific papers. It's not that they're trying to impress, it's that they have to be precise in their wording and use "big words" that have very specific scientific meanings. That you don't know these words is understandable if you don't have any science background or education, but it's not a reason to attribute their usage to a desire to sound impressive or important. It's just the precise language of science. It's always disheartening to read this sort of thing from someone because it feeds into the current view of many in the U.S. of science as elitism. If science wasn't so valuable to industry, I shudder to think of what might be done to degrade it further in this country.
Luckily there's a lot less of the number 1s than there are number 2s. The problem is finding them.
Actually, the problem is finding and killing them without creating more of them as a result.
The only thing, that Republicans can be blamed for is not fighting the Democrats hard enough on this issue. Creating the problem in the first place, and resisting the (too-weak) attempts to solve it earlier is all the fault of Democrats [ldsmag.com]. Enjoy.
I've actually seen that article before. It's a ridiculous over-simplification of things that just happens to be incredibly convenient for those who want to deflect blame. It doesn't even begin to address all the issues that led up to the economic disaster. It tries to pin all the blame on a single cause. I'm sure that it's comforting on some level to be able to think that the economy is simple enough to explain in such elementary terms, but it just ain't so. Go stick your head back in your partisan kool-aid bowl dude. You're hopeless.
No, it would still allow moderates (like you and me) to vote, but would discourage people who willfully don't follow the issues. If you don't know the issues, then stay home.
That just leads to people who follow the issues and know all about how Obama wants to round up conservatives and put them in secret FEMA prisons so that he can pass a health care bill to let doctors euthanize grandma!
You have to get some sort of agreement on what constitutes an informed voter. The politicians won't agree on that, so it'll never happen.
I agree completely people shouldn't vote blindly but should know the issues. That's why personally I'm for mandatory voting. It's the only system that provides an incentive for all parties to make sure the populace is as informed as possible.
Since mandatory voting isn't going to happen anytime soon, and I don't think it would necessarily have the effect that you believe it will, the best thing to do would be to stop telling people to just go vote and start telling people to get informed about the issues and candidates so that they'll care enough to vote.
Unfortunately that sounds (and is) a lot harder than simply showing up to vote, so it probably won't happen either. It would also mean you should provide them with some resources to help them get informed. That's a political minefield in itself. Republicans will claim that anything short of something like Limbaugh or Hannity is just liberal propaganda, while Democrats will do the same for their side. I don't see it being possible to try to present an unbiased resource. Politicians aren't interested in truth or facts. They're interested in appearances, spin and money. They'll oppose any resource that doesn't just present their party propaganda. Their campaign fund-raising depends on it.
So, pressured by crazy Lefties on the streets on one side to give mortgages to people, who can't afford them, and allowed to do that by the "respectable" Lefties in government, the banks complied...
Banks would not take any more risk than they had to unless they had good reason. Now try explaining why over 80% of sub-prime mortgage loans were made by private companies who aren't covered by the CRA. Surely they wouldn't want to intentionally put themselves in the kind of horrible predicament that you're claiming that the CRA put some banks in, right? Oh, except that once the government decided to start removing any oversight and accountability everywhere they could, short-term profits and crazy risks with no real downside started to look really good to everyone. How many executives had to return their "bonuses" after all this?
We give mortgages to everyone and his dog and then pass the risk off to others in exchange for a short-term profit. Those people repackage and do it again, etc. These are obviously not bad investments. I mean, they have AAA ratings, right? And of course they're insured, so there's no downside, right? Well, except that the insurance is even more bullshit than the AAA ratings that were purchased for these securities.
Basically the bubble was built on a pile of bullshit that was lobbied for by the financial industry and granted by the Congress. Where's the accountability for the fraudulent ratings? Where's the accountability for selling insurance you have no hope in hell of ever being able to cover? Where's the accountability for the people who enabled all of this? There isn't any because they know they can just yell and scream and point fingers at each other and nobody will be able to figure out who's responsible.
The simple answer is that they are all to blame. Some more than others, but all of them should be held accountable. They won't be. The guys that made billions from selling bullshit will get to keep it. The people who got fucked over by shady mortgage lenders will remain fucked. The taxpayers that had to pay to bail out all these banks and other companies will remain thoroughly fucked. The Congress will continue to be run by people who are bought and paid for by the industries with the money to call the shots. Look at what we've seen so far. Lots of sound and fury and yet no significant change in how Wall Street and the banks do business. Sickening.
When a partisan states, that "we are all to blame", he is admitting, that the bulk of the responsibility is on his side... I'll accept that.
How does, correctly, applying blame to all who deserve it make one a partisan? Are you saying Republicans are blameless in this mess? You're saying that they didn't compound the problems by removing regulations that would have helped mitigate the impact that falling housing prices would have? Are you saying that they didn't put profits ahead of everything and specifically remove regulations, thereby allowing these companies to take on insane amounts of risk, without any way to cover themselves in the very likely case that those investments failed? Are we supposed to take you seriously?
I love how you talk about the poor widdle banks who were just helpless victims in all this. They just don't have any voice in the government, right? Nobody ever listens to them or gives them what they want, right? They certainly weren't making ridiculous profits for years and lobbying for the ability to take even more crazy risks, right? Right?
I think it's obvious who the true partisan is here. The executive and the entire Congress is responsible along with the leadership of the companies involved. Both parties contributed to this mess, and neither took the actions necessary to even partially prevent it. In fact they took actions to make it even worse. Point the finger at the other side if you like, but you just look like a fool who refuses to accept that his side can do any wrong.
This is quite transparently a proclamation of how sick much of the world was of the Bush administration, and simultaneously an endorsement of Obama's plans. I mean the guy hasn't even been in office for a year yet. He hasn't been able to get anything peace-prize-worthy done. Not that the prize has actually meant anything for quite a long time now anyway.
Honestly, if I were him, I'd be pretty pissed about this. He really doesn't need this kind of controversy right now. They've essentially used him to make a political statement, and it's just going to cause problems at a time when he's got more than enough to deal with. It'll get the conservatives all bristly and the libs all full of themselves, and then it becomes even harder to get anything done. All for a prize that I'm sure he knows is bullshit, and will be completely hollow for him.
Thanks a lot assholes.
I assume they at least have aides skimming it for stuff to scream at the other side about, but who knows what all is in there
If the average person has trouble reading and understanding the whole bill then there's something wrong with the bill, if someone getting paid to voted on bills can't read the whole thing then it's too long or they need to get another job. And aids are no substitute for knowing what a bill says. I will not sign anything I have not read the whole of and I expect nothing less from those who are supposed to represent me.
Unfortunately most people don't seem to care about little things like whether their congresscritters actually read the legislation they vote on. They're too busy demonizing the other side to notice. After all, their side is always doing what's right and the other side is trying to destroy America!
Let's just clear some things up for you.
Reading I see where the bill is 1017 pages long. That's a bad sign right there. Never mind regular citizens, how many congressmen are going to read the whole thing? Not one of them read the entire PATRIOT Act before voting for it, I seriously doubt any will here.
Of course they don't. I assume they at least have aides skimming it for stuff to scream at the other side about, but who knows what all is in there. Most of it has been done through adding amendments though I think, so those have to be read and voted in or out in committee, so at least some people have been reading some of it. Anything controversial from either side would probably get brought to the party leadership's attention. What would concern me is the stuff that both sides have decided not to talk about because they're both getting something out of it. I'd like to know whether there's anything in there that is going to create new waste and inefficiency, or end up as just plain old handouts.
Why does having a high gamer score make it more valuable? Other than that it's annoying to lose it if you invested all that time into it.
How would you like it if someone stole your penis, huh?
The LAPD whistle-blower story is interesting and very disturbing. Can't seem to find any follow-up stories on it though. The other one sounds like the lawyer made the mistake of bringing the suit under the wrong statute, using a state law pertaining to state employees rather than the municipal law of the city, which presumably would cover her. Can't find a follow-up on that one either.
"My take away from this is that it's just a press stunt to introduce new harsher behavior from the FBI agents, maybe backed by a new piece of legislation."
Well, as I understand it, within the new Medical Care Reform legislation they're trying to pass, there are provisions to let the govt. have full access to your banking accounts (without warrant, etc).
Perhaps if your are correct, this is another angle to try to get that element pushed forward: "The US govt NEEDS to monitor all checking/savings accounts, to monitor for phishing schemes, terrorist money laundering...and something about protecting children I'm sure.
Let's just clear some things up for you. The specific one you're thinking of is about 7 or 8 claims down on the page, but you might as well read them all so that you at least have some basis for what to believe when you hear all the disinformation being spread around, from both sides.
On the other hand, while it started out controversial, DLC in general is very accepted these days, and it seems arbitrary to react differently to it simply because it's released on launch day. Should they have simply let the DLC lie on a HDD somewhere for a few weeks?
It may be accepted by some, but PC gamers, especially those that have been around long enough to have played Bioware's earlier RPGs, are definitely not accustomed to paying extra for small bits of content like this. Recall the scrap over the Oblivion DLC a while back. I can only hope that the DLC we get from Bioware is far better than what Bethesda tried to foist on gamers.
Ok, you're right about that. It's not the ruling that's screwed up, it's the law and the FCC. The result is the ridiculous situation that doesn't offer these people any protection. I'm wondering now if other states have this kind of issue too. If so, then it probably needs to be on the FCC to adopt the rule so that this crap can't be allowed to happen anywhere.
By thinking you own it.
Probably someone working for the company had the job of going through all the albums they had published, listing each song in it with sites such as MySpace, and submitting canned takedown notices if they saw anyone posting the song.
In that case, 'Evidence of ownership' isn't in their job description.
The process could just be flawwed in that they assume ownership of anything they have sold.
Or they made a mistake in failing to verify and flag that particular song as "not owned by us"
This tells me there needs to be some real penalties for submitting false takedown notices. If they're not going to take the time to ensure that they even know what the hell they own and don't own, then they shouldn't be taking down anything. This is just fucking with some poor guy that wants to put his own damn music online and Warner apparently can't be bothered to give a shit.