I use "neocon" because it's a modern moniker, and for the most part, people recognize it. In reality, I didn't spend so much time searching that term as I did with "Hoover" and various other additions. Start with the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and then look into peoples' comments about it and the espoused philosophies, and you find essentially the same things as "neocon" will tell you.
Some time read "Calculating God" by Robert J Sawyer. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/081 2580354/103-2322954-5444657?v=glance) There's a lot of interesting philosophy in the book, though it is a bit high-school level.
But there's a fascinating approach in the book, in that pursuit of science has led the aliens to belief in god as a matter of fact, not just faith. Of course that doesn't necessarily square well with the concept of religion, however. I guess I must agree with you, that religion, as usually implemented by people, just doesn't square well with science. Ironically, one of the times religion and science were in best harmony was during the early Islamic days, when science was considered a good way to learn about God's Creation.
But there are those who insist that the Earth was created "with age" 6000 years ago, and that fossils, etc, are a diversionary trap for the unfaithful. The same arguments can be made about this work, or anything done with molecular fingerprinting. (or any other technique, for that matter.)
Wearing the right blinders, it will be obvious that your road is the only correct one, and that all else is distractions. There are those who will make the same assertion against scientists, claiming that there are "science blinders" that restrict their vision. While I won't disagree that there are scientists who wear blinders, I would argue that the basic premise of science is to remove the blinders. The facts will guide you, and a scientist is always supposed to be ready to modify or discard a theory if disproven by facts.
I spent a little time with google and "neocon" (and a few other terms, some independent of "neocon") this weekend, and came to an interesting conclusion: Neocon philosophy is *never* wrong. Any mistakes happen because the philosophy was not put into practice vigorously enough. In other words, they compromised too much, and if they'd been sufficiently uncompromising they would have succeeded. Rather a disturbing world view, IMHO. Of course, this is the result of an hour or so on the Web, and my view can be modified by facts.
Actually, my wife will be working her first election, tomorrow. She's VITALLY interested in the process, and cares that it work correctly. Her father worked the elections, years ago. (In this light, the question we asked ourselves yesterday was, "Why did it take her this long to sign up to work an election?") For that matter, my mother used to work the elections, too. As far as I can tell, most of the election workers are locals, ordinary people, hired for the day, and share that motivation with my wife.
Aside from the part of your post denigrating the poll workers, I have to agree with you. Fortunately in our precinct, we have optical readers and use 'fill in the circle' ballots. I didn't realize how lucky we were until the Diebold fiasco started brewing in the past year or two.
ISTR learning in school that Antarctica IS a continent, and does have land above sea level, even if it is all covered by ice and snow. Someone else posted a reference to a claim map. http://www.aad.gov.au/asset/information/atlas/Terr itories.GIF I think you'll find that the grey areas are true land and the white are ice shelf.
Here comes some back-of-the-envelope conjecture...There was also mention of high-altitude in an article quotation. Given an average ocean depth of less than a mile, (It's only the trenches that get really deep.) and the fact that 90% of an iceberg is underwater, you can only get about 500 ft above sea level on a floating iceberg - not high at all. Now maybe you could start piling ice on the ocean floor, because it doesn't have to float, and start building more altitude. But they also spoke of minor altitude adjustment problems. I leave near sea level - about 120 ft, and several times I've visited 5,000 to 7,000 ft with no significan adjustment problems, so I'll guess we're talking 10,000 ft or over. I don't know enough about massive ice to know if it could sustain itself to 2 miles of depth *and* stay together as a thing that looks and acts like a land-mass. Glaciers flow, after all. Plus the Arctic, while not as cold, seems to have settled out to an ice thickness that allows submarines to break through and surface at the North Pole.
If we *really* want to think sinister, let's say it's a secret plot by Microsoft to further undermine RedHat, by having Dell strengthen one of RedHat's primary competitors.
Remove tinfoil hats...
Or, as someone else said, Novell is a corporation of the size/type Dell would be more interested in dealing with, the SuSE connection would help them in Europe, and on servers at least, they ignore Linux at their own peril.
The real problem is the way the House is being run, and what may happen in the Senate. Some/much House legislation is being done in Republican caucuses, instead of the normal committees. It is then put to the floor for a rush (no time for staffers to read, thoroughly) vote, frequently with ammendments disallowed. (Actually, I should try to check my facts on this. None of my sources have been authenticated, though there have been multiple sources. Some hints of this have been in mainstream national news.) The House also isn't a slim majority, as you would like, it's a rather strong majority. The same previously mentioned (uncofirmed) sources say that the majority is strong enough that the leadership engages in 'rotational arm-twisting' to make sure legislation passes, yet let the moderates vote against, just often enough to satisfy consituents and get reelected.
The Senate has been *mostly* above the fray, except that the fillibuster has been the only tool the Democrats could use to hold back the confirmation of the 10 farthest-right (out of about 200) nominees, because the fillibuster takes a 2/3 majority to break. But based on the "nuke" article in Slashdot a while back, that 2/3 majority is a matter of Senate operating rules, and could be changed on a simple majority vote. Then the slates could be open to anyone on a simple (currently) 51/49 or 51/50 (VP) vote. The checks and balances may not work as well as we'd like.
I voted for McCain in the 2000 primary, too. There was an article on fark about "electoral vote shedding" that could make McCain the winner in 2004. Wishful thinking...
Use google with terms: medical malpractice statistics
The first hit cites 5% of doctors responsible for 54% of malpractice payouts. Not exactly my numbers, but certainly in the same ballpark, and reasonable, considering I'd remembered some other source.
The same 5/54 number comes from Public Citizen, ( http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID =7232 ) and here's the key quote: "The fact is, only a small percentage of doctors account for most of the money paid out in malpractice cases. From 1990 to 2002, just 5 percent of doctors were involved in 54 percent of the payouts -- including jury awards and out-of-court settlements -- according to the National Practitioner Data Bank of the Department of Health and Human Services. (The data bank allows hospitals and medical boards to see the records of individual doctors but, thanks to pressure from the American Medical Association, Congress forbids it to release information to doctors or the public.)"
Elsewhere in this thread, I've cited airline pilots, as a profession that requires high standards and keeps their "bottom of the distribution" effectively policed. I wonder if it could be transplanted.
As I said, fallout is messy. Plus digging a hole would make it easier to install diving boards and waterslides.
Now who's being silly?
Nice thing about the free market is that there are
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Agreed.
My point way up the thread was that the free market needs some nurturing and care.
Those who believe central control can work better are naive. But... Those who believe the free market can sustain in the long term, especially free of some pretty horrible (some of them generation-scale) gyrations, are equally naive.
We are so poor at charting a course through the middle ground. I began searching last night with "neocon hoover" for more information. I found that in the current neocon thinking, if Hoover did anything wrong, it was in not keeping his hands far enough off of the economy. In other words, in their view the Great Depression was so bad because Hoover wasn't far enough to the right, not too far at all.
I've spent enough time in Corporate America (over 25 years) to know that Government has no monopoly on stupidity. Business has its share, too.
Last I knew, Israel was pulling out of Gaza, not the West Bank. Last I knew, for the West Bank, they were semi-pulling out, and building a big wall that also happened to have all of it's right-of-way on the Palestinian side. (or something like that, anyway, it sounds like the Wall has been disposessing Palestinians.) After that, I understand the Palestinians also want Right Of Return... To Israeli territory, as residents, not as their own nation. Then, even if that's settled, there's the status of Jerusalem. Neither side will be willing to give that up.
Neither side is blameless. Both sides are wronged.
Perhaps the correct solution is to move all of the people out, and dig a hole to extend the Mediterranean Sea. Less fallout.
Prior to Roe v Wade, the states were sorting things out, from what I've heard. Then Roe v Wade came along. Some would call that "liberal legislation from the bench," others would call it "clarification of rights." That depends on your point of view. If Bush is elected, and a Liberal or Swing justice steps down, expect him to appoint the most conservative justice he can get past the Senate. With the "nuke option" this could be firmly in the Rhenquist/Thomas/Scalia camp. Next opportunity, Roe v Wade would fall, anyone's guess exactly how hard. Some would call that "conservative legislation from the bench." It will no doubt be in the form of upholding an anti-abortion law, in which case you can say it's not really legislating from the bench, but the same arguments can and would be used in striking down an abortion access law elsewhere. Then THAT would be legislating from the bench.
"Advent of corporation" and "today" are two vastly different things. Perhaps I'll choose to differ with Adam Smith, because I believe the free market requires some minimal level of external upkeep, or else it will self-destruct, as Marx predicted. Keeping that external upkeep minimal, and out of control of other corporations is the hard part.
I guess I was thinking of broadcast media, not print. I wish I knew even a few other languages, but that's my weak spot.
Most of my news comes from NPR and the BBC. Typical US news seems to be more focused on sensation. Election coverage has been especially bad, covering the horse race but really giving us very little useful information to use in voting.
I look to other things like the Conglomerate media running NPR out of Lousiana, by parking more powerful stations in legal, but interfering positions and frequencies. I look at Coke and Pepsi all but driving smaller players out of the market, and extrapolate that to where news is headed. I look at the people in the midwest who didn't hear a tornado alert, because the local station was playing Clear Channel, and there was no local news when it was most needed. I still look at the hounding Clinton got, and the relatively free ride Bush has gotten, both in the broadcast media, and think we're missing some diversity, here.
Sorry, my bad. I was inferring your position. (I'm not particularly pro-Kerry, I'm anti-Bush. You can see my positions elsewhere on this thread, I try to answer.)
My opinion on terrorism goes like this... Pretend terrorists are a hornet's nest. (particularly poisonous, even lethally poisonous hornets) Bush is out there yelling, "I'll protect you!" and in one hand he sprays a can of insecticide at the hornets flying around. With the other hand, he's got a stick and is poking at the nest stirring the hornets up.
Last time I had a hornet's nest, (this past Summer) I got up early, put a net over the bush the nest was in, and then began spraying the nest, directly. Some hornets got out of the nest quickly, but then got caught in the net. I had several more seconds of good, effective spraying before they started finding their way toward the edge of the net, and I figured it would be safer to get away.
The nest was killed off.
Lesson: The current adminstration has said, "We don't do subtle," and that certainly describes their actions.
Sometimes subtle is called for.
One other point... Bush has been calling for international assistance, but in the past he has so offended the people he's now asking for help, that none has been forthcoming. He would have to eat excessive amounts of humble pie, more than *any* President should have to, in order to get help. The bar would be lower for Kerry, or any significant regime change, to get international assistance.
No, I didn't. It seemed an unnecessary complication, at the time. Since you brought it up...
You forget confirmation by the Senate. Kerry won't be able to put in a left-wing wingnut, because the Senate won't let him. So far the large minority of Democrats in the Senate has kept the farthest right justices out of the system, too. The wild-card here is the "Nuke Option" as reported in Slashdot, a while back.
Then we have to take up the very term, "legislate from the bench." Strange how when the justices agree with you, they're being "strict constructionists" or "preserving the intent of the framers of the Constitution," but when they disagree with you, they're "legislating from the bench." IMHO, "conservative justices" are "legislating from the bench" as much as "liberal justices" are. They're just legislating in different directions.
It cuts both ways.
I have a different view. We have 3 Conservatives, 3 Liberals, and 3 Swing voters. IMHO, the only real interest and insight comes from the latter 3. I can read why a Liberal or Conservative made a given decision and learn something, but the real insight comes from the Swing justices.
Again, a Bush Presidency with our Congress will likely produce more Conservative justices, and they will "legislate from the bench," just as surely as more Liberal justices would. It'd just be different legislation.
A Kerry Presidency with our Congress is more likely to produce Swing justices, because Kerry won't nominate a hardline Conservative, and the Senate won't confirm a Liberal.
Someone else said the Republican party is more "salvagable" then the Democrats, and if only they'd get rid of the neocons...
My response... Ain't gonna happen, at least not until the neocons start losing elections for the Republicans, and make it HURT.
So I still say, the combination of a President Kerry and a Republican Congress is more conservative than Bush with that same Congress. I'll also add that if you want to reform the Republican party, and get the neocons (and their religious throat-shoving) out, start at the Top. In this respect, a vote for Kerry is better for the traditional Republican party.
I was raised Republican. I am currently Independent, with Contrarian leanings. My brother holds that the current Republican party has deserted the Republican virtues we were raised with.
I'm not sure how this is a pro-Bush point. Leaving aside the merit of the justification for the Iraq war, though the initial execution of the war was well done, the rest of the job (after Mission Accomplished) has certainly been a debacle. I'd not give Bush a good grade on this, as Commander in Chief.
As for how Kerry could do better or worse, first off normally the War Powers Act limits what the President can do with the troops before going to Congress. Normally, that is. Congress surrendered that right to the President, for Iraq. In an earlier draft the "for Iraq" was missing, giving the President cart blanche with the troops. I don't see a Republican-controlled Congress giving Kerry that same capability, with or without that limit. Nor has Kerry said he would do a bug-out on Iraq, so I don't see that as a problem. Nor has he made aggressive statements, with the possible exception of additional troops to Afghanistan to pursue Taliban/Al Quaeda, and with that I agree.
I'll just say two things: 1: The Republicans aren't likely to lose the neocons until the neocons start costing them enough elections to HURT. There'll be no salvage until then. 2: Regardless of any plans, the *combination* of Kerry plus Congress will be more conservative than Bush plus Congress. Congress will act as a loony-filter on Kerry's plans, and Kerry will act as a loony-filter on the neocons in Congress.
I didn't like Bush back in 2000, but at the time it felt to me that he had been "annointed" to run for the Republicans. At the time, I didn't know who had annointed him, and that fact plus the mere annointment itself were enough to turn me away.
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Out of curiousity... How did his family find out what had happened, and how was it finally determined that he should be freed?
You betray your Libertarian principles with this statement.
Forget for the moment how much you may dislike Kerry, even pretend that he is the WORST person in the entire world. For the purposes of this election, he is STILL a more Libertarian choice than Bush.
Bush, with the current Congress, is *effective*. They are pushing an agenda, including their view of religion, and are effective at doing so. If Kerry were to win, he would have to work with a hostile House, if not Senate, too. There isn't much he can do that can directly cross what Congress wants to let him do. In particular, with this Congress there'll be no much-feared single-insurer health care (regardless of merit, which I won't pretend to fully understand, and I don't believe anyone in the US can, without truly understanding how things work in other countries, and most of us do a poor job of that) or any of the other more controversial plans.
So you have two choices... Another Bush presidency with a Republican Congress, effectively pushing an Agenda... (do you know the whole agenda, and how much of it do you agree with?) A Kerry presidency with a Republican Congress, effectively gridlocked, doing only what MUST be done.
Seems to me that the latter is more Libertarian.
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This isn't limited to overseas, the alleged "dirty bomber" was picked up on US soil and detained under terrorism practices, too.
This could happen to YOU. Imagine a problem of faulty intelligence, or if there is a terrorist who takes on a code-name that happens to match yours. (That would NEVER happen, could it, Senator Kennedy?) Some time in the night YOU get picked up, on the sly. Your family doesn't know where you are, you don't get to phone a lawyer, your interrogators don't believe what YOU say. There's no due process of law.
Part of the reason for due process is to minimize the damage of *mistakes* like this.
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Another aspect of this...
Go back to the Clinton administration, for a moment... For practically his whole time, the news was FULL of a small number of scandals - Whitewater, travelgate, and a few sexual dalliances. (None of those liasons even rose near the level of Kennedy's... or Ike's.) But Monica was stuck in the news... in the news... in the news...
Now to the last 4 years... Private interests invited to make (pardon me, "consult") national energy policy, with no public visibility... Failing to pay attention to intelligence leading to 9/11... (failing to be imaginative, when the 'i's and 't's were in place, just waiting for dots and crosses) Selecting/cherrypicking intelligence to justify a preemptive war... Avoiding an accurate estimate of the true bill up-front, preferring a cheaper price tag, in order to make the war an easier "sell"... (a common business failing, in my personal experience) Committing troops, lives, and national prestige to that lowball estimate, with all of the disasters that have followed, as a result... *widespread lawlessness and looting, immediately afterward... *insurgence magnet, especially with an unsecured border... *loss of dual-use explosive materials... (actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Saddam dispersed this material, after US forced UN inspectors out, and as invasion became imminent, but who knows, because nobody was looking) *growing widespread lawlessness, kidnapping, etc, ever since... Abu Graib - the seeds of this are in a government that keeps secrets - it goes all the way down... Guantanamo Bay revelations... Oh, and it's been scarcely reported that the current administration has underfunded the efforts to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, leaving an opening for terrorists to obtain the stuff...
(The missteps themselves remind me of upper-level management painting in broad brush-strokes, expecting the minions to fill in the details, and do everything right... Except that the details aren't getting taken care of, and the top isn't checking back to see if things were done, properly.)
All of this hits the papers, and drops out of site in less than a week, at least in the US. The news is getting reported, but for all the Conservatives cry about "the liberal media," IMHO the media itself has given the Bush administration even more teflon than Reagan had, by this "report and drop" coverage.
Recently I was derided for expressing some opinions, and presenting some "facts." I came back stating my sources, that I got most of my news from NPR and the BBC, and I wasn't going to change to a slanted source like Fox News.
I was told that BBC and NPR are both left-wing arms of the government, and that Fox News is a more centrist and unbiased source. I was also told that I had bought into "the conspiracy" by using the term "neocon" in my post.
Slashdot Mirror
and will they still want us to use all caps?
Wonder what it'll be made of...
I use "neocon" because it's a modern moniker, and for the most part, people recognize it. In reality, I didn't spend so much time searching that term as I did with "Hoover" and various other additions. Start with the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and then look into peoples' comments about it and the espoused philosophies, and you find essentially the same things as "neocon" will tell you.
Some time read "Calculating God" by Robert J Sawyer. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/081 2580354/103-2322954-5444657?v=glance) There's a lot of interesting philosophy in the book, though it is a bit high-school level.
But there's a fascinating approach in the book, in that pursuit of science has led the aliens to belief in god as a matter of fact, not just faith. Of course that doesn't necessarily square well with the concept of religion, however. I guess I must agree with you, that religion, as usually implemented by people, just doesn't square well with science. Ironically, one of the times religion and science were in best harmony was during the early Islamic days, when science was considered a good way to learn about God's Creation.
But there are those who insist that the Earth was created "with age" 6000 years ago, and that fossils, etc, are a diversionary trap for the unfaithful. The same arguments can be made about this work, or anything done with molecular fingerprinting. (or any other technique, for that matter.)
Wearing the right blinders, it will be obvious that your road is the only correct one, and that all else is distractions. There are those who will make the same assertion against scientists, claiming that there are "science blinders" that restrict their vision. While I won't disagree that there are scientists who wear blinders, I would argue that the basic premise of science is to remove the blinders. The facts will guide you, and a scientist is always supposed to be ready to modify or discard a theory if disproven by facts.
I spent a little time with google and "neocon" (and a few other terms, some independent of "neocon") this weekend, and came to an interesting conclusion: Neocon philosophy is *never* wrong. Any mistakes happen because the philosophy was not put into practice vigorously enough. In other words, they compromised too much, and if they'd been sufficiently uncompromising they would have succeeded. Rather a disturbing world view, IMHO. Of course, this is the result of an hour or so on the Web, and my view can be modified by facts.
Actually, my wife will be working her first election, tomorrow. She's VITALLY interested in the process, and cares that it work correctly. Her father worked the elections, years ago. (In this light, the question we asked ourselves yesterday was, "Why did it take her this long to sign up to work an election?") For that matter, my mother used to work the elections, too. As far as I can tell, most of the election workers are locals, ordinary people, hired for the day, and share that motivation with my wife.
Aside from the part of your post denigrating the poll workers, I have to agree with you. Fortunately in our precinct, we have optical readers and use 'fill in the circle' ballots. I didn't realize how lucky we were until the Diebold fiasco started brewing in the past year or two.
...will be a hate-crime-based one against Slashdot, for the usual reasons.
ISTR learning in school that Antarctica IS a continent, and does have land above sea level, even if it is all covered by ice and snow. Someone else posted a reference to a claim map. http://www.aad.gov.au/asset/information/atlas/Terr itories.GIF
I think you'll find that the grey areas are true land and the white are ice shelf.
Here comes some back-of-the-envelope conjecture...There was also mention of high-altitude in an article quotation. Given an average ocean depth of less than a mile, (It's only the trenches that get really deep.) and the fact that 90% of an iceberg is underwater, you can only get about 500 ft above sea level on a floating iceberg - not high at all. Now maybe you could start piling ice on the ocean floor, because it doesn't have to float, and start building more altitude. But they also spoke of minor altitude adjustment problems. I leave near sea level - about 120 ft, and several times I've visited 5,000 to 7,000 ft with no significan adjustment problems, so I'll guess we're talking 10,000 ft or over. I don't know enough about massive ice to know if it could sustain itself to 2 miles of depth *and* stay together as a thing that looks and acts like a land-mass. Glaciers flow, after all. Plus the Arctic, while not as cold, seems to have settled out to an ice thickness that allows submarines to break through and surface at the North Pole.
Don your tinfoil hats...
If we *really* want to think sinister, let's say it's a secret plot by Microsoft to further undermine RedHat, by having Dell strengthen one of RedHat's primary competitors.
Remove tinfoil hats...
Or, as someone else said, Novell is a corporation of the size/type Dell would be more interested in dealing with, the SuSE connection would help them in Europe, and on servers at least, they ignore Linux at their own peril.
The real problem is the way the House is being run, and what may happen in the Senate. Some/much House legislation is being done in Republican caucuses, instead of the normal committees. It is then put to the floor for a rush (no time for staffers to read, thoroughly) vote, frequently with ammendments disallowed. (Actually, I should try to check my facts on this. None of my sources have been authenticated, though there have been multiple sources. Some hints of this have been in mainstream national news.) The House also isn't a slim majority, as you would like, it's a rather strong majority. The same previously mentioned (uncofirmed) sources say that the majority is strong enough that the leadership engages in 'rotational arm-twisting' to make sure legislation passes, yet let the moderates vote against, just often enough to satisfy consituents and get reelected.
The Senate has been *mostly* above the fray, except that the fillibuster has been the only tool the Democrats could use to hold back the confirmation of the 10 farthest-right (out of about 200) nominees, because the fillibuster takes a 2/3 majority to break. But based on the "nuke" article in Slashdot a while back, that 2/3 majority is a matter of Senate operating rules, and could be changed on a simple majority vote. Then the slates could be open to anyone on a simple (currently) 51/49 or 51/50 (VP) vote. The checks and balances may not work as well as we'd like.
I voted for McCain in the 2000 primary, too. There was an article on fark about "electoral vote shedding" that could make McCain the winner in 2004. Wishful thinking...
Use google with terms: medical malpractice statistics
D =7232 ) and here's the key quote: "The fact is, only a small percentage of doctors account for most of the money paid out in malpractice cases. From 1990 to 2002, just 5 percent of doctors were involved in 54 percent of the payouts -- including jury awards and out-of-court settlements -- according to the National Practitioner Data Bank of the Department of Health and Human Services. (The data bank allows hospitals and medical boards to see the records of individual doctors but, thanks to pressure from the American Medical Association, Congress forbids it to release information to doctors or the public.)"
The first hit cites 5% of doctors responsible for 54% of malpractice payouts. Not exactly my numbers, but certainly in the same ballpark, and reasonable, considering I'd remembered some other source.
The same 5/54 number comes from Public Citizen, ( http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?I
Elsewhere in this thread, I've cited airline pilots, as a profession that requires high standards and keeps their "bottom of the distribution" effectively policed. I wonder if it could be transplanted.
As I said, fallout is messy. Plus digging a hole would make it easier to install diving boards and waterslides.
Now who's being silly?
Agreed.
My point way up the thread was that the free market needs some nurturing and care.
Those who believe central control can work better are naive.
But...
Those who believe the free market can sustain in the long term, especially free of some pretty horrible (some of them generation-scale) gyrations, are equally naive.
We are so poor at charting a course through the middle ground. I began searching last night with "neocon hoover" for more information. I found that in the current neocon thinking, if Hoover did anything wrong, it was in not keeping his hands far enough off of the economy. In other words, in their view the Great Depression was so bad because Hoover wasn't far enough to the right, not too far at all.
I've spent enough time in Corporate America (over 25 years) to know that Government has no monopoly on stupidity. Business has its share, too.
Last I knew, Israel was pulling out of Gaza, not the West Bank.
Last I knew, for the West Bank, they were semi-pulling out, and building a big wall that also happened to have all of it's right-of-way on the Palestinian side. (or something like that, anyway, it sounds like the Wall has been disposessing Palestinians.)
After that, I understand the Palestinians also want Right Of Return... To Israeli territory, as residents, not as their own nation.
Then, even if that's settled, there's the status of Jerusalem. Neither side will be willing to give that up.
Neither side is blameless.
Both sides are wronged.
Perhaps the correct solution is to move all of the people out, and dig a hole to extend the Mediterranean Sea. Less fallout.
To hit the third rail, start with abortion.
Prior to Roe v Wade, the states were sorting things out, from what I've heard.
Then Roe v Wade came along. Some would call that "liberal legislation from the bench," others would call it "clarification of rights." That depends on your point of view.
If Bush is elected, and a Liberal or Swing justice steps down, expect him to appoint the most conservative justice he can get past the Senate. With the "nuke option" this could be firmly in the Rhenquist/Thomas/Scalia camp. Next opportunity, Roe v Wade would fall, anyone's guess exactly how hard. Some would call that "conservative legislation from the bench." It will no doubt be in the form of upholding an anti-abortion law, in which case you can say it's not really legislating from the bench, but the same arguments can and would be used in striking down an abortion access law elsewhere. Then THAT would be legislating from the bench.
It depends on your point of view.
NO! NO! There is no valid view, but MINE!!
"Advent of corporation" and "today" are two vastly different things. Perhaps I'll choose to differ with Adam Smith, because I believe the free market requires some minimal level of external upkeep, or else it will self-destruct, as Marx predicted. Keeping that external upkeep minimal, and out of control of other corporations is the hard part.
I guess I was thinking of broadcast media, not print. I wish I knew even a few other languages, but that's my weak spot.
Most of my news comes from NPR and the BBC. Typical US news seems to be more focused on sensation. Election coverage has been especially bad, covering the horse race but really giving us very little useful information to use in voting.
I look to other things like the Conglomerate media running NPR out of Lousiana, by parking more powerful stations in legal, but interfering positions and frequencies.
I look at Coke and Pepsi all but driving smaller players out of the market, and extrapolate that to where news is headed.
I look at the people in the midwest who didn't hear a tornado alert, because the local station was playing Clear Channel, and there was no local news when it was most needed.
I still look at the hounding Clinton got, and the relatively free ride Bush has gotten, both in the broadcast media, and think we're missing some diversity, here.
Sorry, my bad. I was inferring your position. (I'm not particularly pro-Kerry, I'm anti-Bush. You can see my positions elsewhere on this thread, I try to answer.)
My opinion on terrorism goes like this...
Pretend terrorists are a hornet's nest. (particularly poisonous, even lethally poisonous hornets)
Bush is out there yelling, "I'll protect you!" and in one hand he sprays a can of insecticide at the hornets flying around. With the other hand, he's got a stick and is poking at the nest stirring the hornets up.
Last time I had a hornet's nest, (this past Summer) I got up early, put a net over the bush the nest was in, and then began spraying the nest, directly. Some hornets got out of the nest quickly, but then got caught in the net. I had several more seconds of good, effective spraying before they started finding their way toward the edge of the net, and I figured it would be safer to get away.
The nest was killed off.
Lesson:
The current adminstration has said, "We don't do subtle," and that certainly describes their actions.
Sometimes subtle is called for.
One other point...
Bush has been calling for international assistance, but in the past he has so offended the people he's now asking for help, that none has been forthcoming. He would have to eat excessive amounts of humble pie, more than *any* President should have to, in order to get help.
The bar would be lower for Kerry, or any significant regime change, to get international assistance.
No, I didn't. It seemed an unnecessary complication, at the time. Since you brought it up...
You forget confirmation by the Senate. Kerry won't be able to put in a left-wing wingnut, because the Senate won't let him. So far the large minority of Democrats in the Senate has kept the farthest right justices out of the system, too. The wild-card here is the "Nuke Option" as reported in Slashdot, a while back.
Then we have to take up the very term, "legislate from the bench." Strange how when the justices agree with you, they're being "strict constructionists" or "preserving the intent of the framers of the Constitution," but when they disagree with you, they're "legislating from the bench." IMHO, "conservative justices" are "legislating from the bench" as much as "liberal justices" are. They're just legislating in different directions.
It cuts both ways.
I have a different view. We have 3 Conservatives, 3 Liberals, and 3 Swing voters. IMHO, the only real interest and insight comes from the latter 3. I can read why a Liberal or Conservative made a given decision and learn something, but the real insight comes from the Swing justices.
Again, a Bush Presidency with our Congress will likely produce more Conservative justices, and they will "legislate from the bench," just as surely as more Liberal justices would. It'd just be different legislation.
A Kerry Presidency with our Congress is more likely to produce Swing justices, because Kerry won't nominate a hardline Conservative, and the Senate won't confirm a Liberal.
Someone else said the Republican party is more "salvagable" then the Democrats, and if only they'd get rid of the neocons...
My response... Ain't gonna happen, at least not until the neocons start losing elections for the Republicans, and make it HURT.
So I still say, the combination of a President Kerry and a Republican Congress is more conservative than Bush with that same Congress.
I'll also add that if you want to reform the Republican party, and get the neocons (and their religious throat-shoving) out, start at the Top. In this respect, a vote for Kerry is better for the traditional Republican party.
I was raised Republican. I am currently Independent, with Contrarian leanings. My brother holds that the current Republican party has deserted the Republican virtues we were raised with.
I'm not sure how this is a pro-Bush point. Leaving aside the merit of the justification for the Iraq war, though the initial execution of the war was well done, the rest of the job (after Mission Accomplished) has certainly been a debacle. I'd not give Bush a good grade on this, as Commander in Chief.
As for how Kerry could do better or worse, first off normally the War Powers Act limits what the President can do with the troops before going to Congress. Normally, that is. Congress surrendered that right to the President, for Iraq. In an earlier draft the "for Iraq" was missing, giving the President cart blanche with the troops. I don't see a Republican-controlled Congress giving Kerry that same capability, with or without that limit. Nor has Kerry said he would do a bug-out on Iraq, so I don't see that as a problem. Nor has he made aggressive statements, with the possible exception of additional troops to Afghanistan to pursue Taliban/Al Quaeda, and with that I agree.
I don't argue with what you say.
I'll just say two things:
1: The Republicans aren't likely to lose the neocons until the neocons start costing them enough elections to HURT. There'll be no salvage until then.
2: Regardless of any plans, the *combination* of Kerry plus Congress will be more conservative than Bush plus Congress. Congress will act as a loony-filter on Kerry's plans, and Kerry will act as a loony-filter on the neocons in Congress.
I didn't like Bush back in 2000, but at the time it felt to me that he had been "annointed" to run for the Republicans. At the time, I didn't know who had annointed him, and that fact plus the mere annointment itself were enough to turn me away.
Out of curiousity... How did his family find out what had happened, and how was it finally determined that he should be freed?
You betray your Libertarian principles with this statement.
Forget for the moment how much you may dislike Kerry, even pretend that he is the WORST person in the entire world. For the purposes of this election, he is STILL a more Libertarian choice than Bush.
Bush, with the current Congress, is *effective*. They are pushing an agenda, including their view of religion, and are effective at doing so. If Kerry were to win, he would have to work with a hostile House, if not Senate, too. There isn't much he can do that can directly cross what Congress wants to let him do. In particular, with this Congress there'll be no much-feared single-insurer health care (regardless of merit, which I won't pretend to fully understand, and I don't believe anyone in the US can, without truly understanding how things work in other countries, and most of us do a poor job of that) or any of the other more controversial plans.
So you have two choices...
Another Bush presidency with a Republican Congress, effectively pushing an Agenda... (do you know the whole agenda, and how much of it do you agree with?)
A Kerry presidency with a Republican Congress, effectively gridlocked, doing only what MUST be done.
Seems to me that the latter is more Libertarian.
This isn't limited to overseas, the alleged "dirty bomber" was picked up on US soil and detained under terrorism practices, too.
This could happen to YOU. Imagine a problem of faulty intelligence, or if there is a terrorist who takes on a code-name that happens to match yours. (That would NEVER happen, could it, Senator Kennedy?) Some time in the night YOU get picked up, on the sly. Your family doesn't know where you are, you don't get to phone a lawyer, your interrogators don't believe what YOU say. There's no due process of law.
Part of the reason for due process is to minimize the damage of *mistakes* like this.
Another aspect of this...
Go back to the Clinton administration, for a moment...
For practically his whole time, the news was FULL of a small number of scandals - Whitewater, travelgate, and a few sexual dalliances. (None of those liasons even rose near the level of Kennedy's... or Ike's.)
But Monica was stuck in the news...
in the news...
in the news...
Now to the last 4 years...
Private interests invited to make (pardon me, "consult") national energy policy, with no public visibility...
Failing to pay attention to intelligence leading to 9/11... (failing to be imaginative, when the 'i's and 't's were in place, just waiting for dots and crosses)
Selecting/cherrypicking intelligence to justify a preemptive war...
Avoiding an accurate estimate of the true bill up-front, preferring a cheaper price tag, in order to make the war an easier "sell"... (a common business failing, in my personal experience)
Committing troops, lives, and national prestige to that lowball estimate, with all of the disasters that have followed, as a result...
*widespread lawlessness and looting, immediately afterward...
*insurgence magnet, especially with an unsecured border...
*loss of dual-use explosive materials... (actually, I wouldn't be surprised if Saddam dispersed this material, after US forced UN inspectors out, and as invasion became imminent, but who knows, because nobody was looking)
*growing widespread lawlessness, kidnapping, etc, ever since...
Abu Graib - the seeds of this are in a government that keeps secrets - it goes all the way down...
Guantanamo Bay revelations...
Oh, and it's been scarcely reported that the current administration has underfunded the efforts to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union, leaving an opening for terrorists to obtain the stuff...
(The missteps themselves remind me of upper-level management painting in broad brush-strokes, expecting the minions to fill in the details, and do everything right... Except that the details aren't getting taken care of, and the top isn't checking back to see if things were done, properly.)
All of this hits the papers, and drops out of site in less than a week, at least in the US. The news is getting reported, but for all the Conservatives cry about "the liberal media," IMHO the media itself has given the Bush administration even more teflon than Reagan had, by this "report and drop" coverage.
Recently I was derided for expressing some opinions, and presenting some "facts." I came back stating my sources, that I got most of my news from NPR and the BBC, and I wasn't going to change to a slanted source like Fox News.
I was told that BBC and NPR are both left-wing arms of the government, and that Fox News is a more centrist and unbiased source. I was also told that I had bought into "the conspiracy" by using the term "neocon" in my post.