This isn't really about cuts though, if the Tea Partiers actually gave a shit about deficits(here's a hint, they don't), then they would be chopping programs like Social Security and the DoD.
The Republican plan includes cuts for the DoD this year. The Republican plan for NEXT year, which was released on Tuesday, includes massive changes to make Medicaid cheaper. (Medicaid is "like" Social Security in that it's a huge entitlement program.) Their argument for not putting their changes to Medicaid in this year is because we're already 7 months into this year (because the Democrats didn't want to be debating why the budget deficit is so big in an election year, so they simply never passed a budget.) Republican-proposed changes to big entitlement programs ARE coming, and to suggest otherwise makes you uninformed.
Senate Republicans wouldn't allow the Democrats to pass a budget in October 2010? The Democrats had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate at the time. They could have rammed whatever they wanted through the Senate, the House, and gotten the President to sign it.
But what [Democrats] did not do was shut the government down.
They are about to. Keep in mind that the Republican-led House HAS passed a budget resolution, and the Democrats aren't coming back with a counterproposal that includes ANY cuts, which, in fact, is the negotiation point. This government shut down, if it happens, is happening SOLELY because the Democrats think they can call the Republicans heartless when they force the shut down.
Anyone who thinks this is no big deal wasn't paying attention the last time the Republicans pulled this stunt.
This is for FY 2011, and should have been passed by October of 2010. Astute calendar watchers will notice that this is more than a month before Republican won in the 2010 elections, and three months before the new winners took office.
Sorry, bro, but the Democrats should have passed this budget almost a year ago.
The survey was done on a points scale. There was a max score of 100. Some proportion of those points was based on "people cured per capita," and others were based on "social interest type goals." A country that cured 100% of its diseases on a non-socialist system would not get a perfect score. IIRC, the proportion was 60% people cured, and 40% human interest goals (of which being socialist was only one.) I don't have the survey in front of me or I'd give a link. I can't swear to the proportions, but that was the methodology.
And sorry, I didn't see that you were the OP. Since we agree that you can add stupid criteria bto this kind of study to make anyone best at anything, do you have links to a source for your numbers?
Do these "statistics" come with a source, by chance. I know the #37 on Healthcare quality is from a study that, instead of comparing number of people cured of illness per capita or something, came from a study that gave massive bonuses on the ranking to contries with socialized healthcare. Remove this bonus, and the US is number 1 again.
My brother played and beat JC2, after knowing the problems that I had with JC1. He said it didn't fix of the problems I listed. (No auto aim and it taking forever to get somewhere useful. He didn't try it with a gamepad.) Do you disagree?
I also prefer GTA 3 to 4 for the same reason as you. I didn't play the epansions, but I did play Red Dead Redemption, which seems to fix the problem of not taking itself too seriously.
The US is the only country in North America with the word America in it's name. Thus, it becomes clear as to which people 'Americans' refers.
You really just aren't all that bright, are you?
What other countries in North or South America have the word "America" in their name? (As noted elsewhere in the topic, the United States of America and the United Mexican States are both groups of "United States" in North America.)
This sounds different but similar to Apple's review process. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The XBLA Review Process predates the Apple App Store. Other than that (and the fact that MS will tell you EXACTLY how not to fail) it is the same thing.
You're thinking of J#, which was a Microsoft produced, slightly incompatible version of Java. The court struck that down, so Microsoft made their own runtime based language, which became C#.
My assesment is based on the people who he supports. He feels a thrill going up his leg when Obama speaks. Is Obama not a liberal, at least by the standards of American politicians?
I have no idea what you mean by Beltway Narrative syndrome. Can you explain a little more?
Sure, they have liberal commentators on in the evening... but they also have Chris Matthews...
Chris Matthews? He ran for the House in a Democratic Primary, he was a speechwriter for Carter, and he was a top aide to Tip O'Neill. He said in 2008 that he has "made a commitment to covering politics in a liberal way, starting in 1987." He "felt a thrill going up his leg" when Obama speaks. He also said, "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency [the Obama administration] work." He said this as a journalist theoretically covering the administration from the outside. This guy is as liberal as they come. Don't let his hate-on for the Clintons obscure that.
Tense is everything, dude. Franks WAS trying to impeach Obama. He isn't anymore, and he's not in a high enough position that his actions should really be attributable to Republicans generally. Similarly, Schumer WAS trying to have the Fairness Doctrine reinstated; the difference is that he's the third ranking Democrat in the Senate, so he can be assumed to be speaking for party leadership (because, you know, he IS party leadership.)
Now that we've got the difference between the past and the present down, hopefully you'll agree with me that the following quote is inaccurate:
No, you have not heard that [Democrats tried to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine]. You made that up.
You may have heard Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh complaining that people are saying that, but nobody is saying that.
Schumer said it, and he's far from nobody. This is the problem with the Internet. When you say something into a camera, people can call you on it a year or so later. For that matter, Schumer was openly supporting a legislative change that he presumably feels his constituents want. Why would he try to hid that? Or alternately, is he trying to hide it?
Those links, like all links since the redesign, are screwing up on my computer. God, I hate New Slashdot. Maybe, in the spirit of civility, that's something we can agree on?
The relevant quotes, for anyone else following the discussion (and prevented from seeing the link from by New Slashdot), are from Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House (a Republican) said:
"I believe the House Republicans next week should pass a resolution instructing the president to enforce the law* and to obey his own constitutional oath, and they should say if he fails to do so that they will zero out [defund] the office of attorney general and take other steps as necessary until the president agrees to do his job... His job is to enforce the rule of law and for us to start replacing the rule of law with the rule of Obama is a very dangerous precedent."
Were Gingrich Speaker, that would probably be evidence that House Republicans are going to try to impeach Obama. At some point, the actions of the party's leadership have to be attributable to the party, right? Gingrich isn't part of the party leadership, though.
Then Trent Franks, R-AZ, was asked if he agreed with the Gingrich quote and said, "If it could gain the collective support, absolutely." Franks isn't on the leadership of the House Judiciary committee, and later said that he was "not planning on any steps to begin impeachment proceedings." He claims the question was distorted, but I don't exactly buy that. He probably wanted to see if there was support for the step. Since there wasn't, he's not going to do it. Same as when Schumer tried to see if the American people would bite on the Fairness Doctrine. The major difference is that Franks is just some guy, whereas Schumer is the third highest ranking Democrat in the Senate. At some point, the actions of a party's leadership have to be attributable to the party, right?
It might, just maybe, be relevant to note that both Gingrich and Franks were talking about the Defense of Marriage Act, which Obama says the Justice Department will no longer enforce because it's unconstitutional. The problem is the Supreme Court has ruled EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE, that DOMA IS constitutional. His actions are unconstitutional; the President's duties include that "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." (Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution) Whether this merits his removal from office is another matter entirely. The action that Obama should be taking if he wants to get rid of the law is to try to have the law repealed. Perhaps by going on television and asking Congress to do so.
Let me ask you, jmac_the_man, would it be accurate to say that "The Republicans tried to impeach President Obama"? Now, there have been Republican members of congress mentioning impeachment, saying they're "looking into" impeachment hearings, being in favor of impeachment hearings, and even one especially loony member from Minnesota actually calling for impeachment. But would it be accurate to say "The Republicans tried to impeach Obama"?
I listen to a lot of right wing talk radio, so I'd like to think that I would have heard about an effort to impeach President Obama. I have no idea what you're talking about. If we're talking about theoretical quotes, it would depend who said them. If it was the Speaker of the House, Majority Leader, or Majority Whip (or the equivalent minority positions,) it would probably be accurate to say that House Republicans were calling for his impeachment. If it was a high ranking member of the Judiciary Committee who said it, it would probably be accurate to say that. If it was just some random Congressman who said it, it probably wouldn't.
If you have links to actual quotes from actual Republicans calling for Obama's impeachment, I'd love to hear them, actually. Please hook me up with the link.
Now to the task at hand. Schumer is Vice Chairman of the Democratic Caucus. That makes him the third highest ranking Democrat in the Senate. He's not just "some Senator." He's a pretty important one. Things he says tend to be the things Democrats are planning on doing. They wanted to do this, but failed because not enough people agreed with them. But not because they didn't try.
video of Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, publicly calling to institute [the Fairness Doctrine]
In the US, laws are enacted by voting, not by public discussion... And there have been no efforts to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.
Step one in that process is convincing members of the legislative branch (such as Senator Schumer) that such a law is necessary and/or in their constituents' interest. Clearly Schumer has already been convinced of this. What's more, by publicly calling for it, Schumer was clearly trying to convince others of the need for a new Fairness Doctrine. Those others are a mixture of his colleagues and his colleagues' constituents, who, he hopes, will contact their representatives (his colleagues) and influence them directly. Since not enough people contacted their representatives to support Schumer (and the others who were calling for this) and there was a big backlash of people calling and telling their representatives to OPPOSE the Fairness Doctrine, the issue didn't advance to the stage where a bill to enable it was produced. There was an effort, it was just so unpopular that it was killed relatively quickly.
My disconnect from reality is a feature, not a bug.
WGA is a feature and not a bug, too. Just like WGA helps Microsoft at the expense of users, PopeRatzo helps the crazy dishonest wing of the Democrat Party at the expense of everyone else. Schumer was openly supporting a proposed change to the law on national television. Uncharacteristically for him, he was being honest. Do you have sources to indicate that he was lying or something?
Open public records act info are public records too. I hope if the guy in the article is using his status at a university employee to advance a partisan political agenda, he's exposed and punished. Is that any different?
It would be if the Democrats had tried to "reinstitute" the so-called "Fairness Doctrine".
You have any evidence that they "tried" to do this when they were in power?
I'd like to incorporate this thread by reference. It includes, among other things, video of Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, publicly calling to institute the Fairness Doctrine. It also includes PopeRatzo acting like an idiot disconnected from reality.
Everyone here is focusing on the "we shouldn't have DRM" hypocrisy,while ignoring the "we shouldn't have bad PC ports of console games" hypocrisy. This tells me that nobody here has ever played Just Cause for PC.
Just Cause is a GTA style sandbox game. You're a CIA agent in a tropical paradise ruled by an evil Communist dictator who has to be overthrown because he's evil and Communist. You go around fomenting revolution. You play the "good drug dealers" off against the "bad drug dealers." You play the civilian police off against the army. You assassinate members of the Evil Communist Dictator's government. Pretty much, you go around wreaking GTA style havoc.
Oh, and advertising materials said that the island was something like "100 times bigger than GTA III." So in order to get from your successful mission with the Good Cartel to your CIA contact who will tell you to go assassinate the Evil Dictator's son, you need to steal a vehicle. The best way to do this is with your grappling hook, which can hook on to vehicles, and then you can reel yourself into the cockpit/driver's seat and commandeer the vehicle. Seems like a pretty cool feature, right? The hook in this game is literally a hook.
Here's the kicker. Like I said, I played it on PC. GTA style sandbox games universally play better with a gamepad than with a keyboard and mouse, so I have a USB one. It's not like Just Cause, or any game in this genre, is a twitch shooter. There's too many things to do that aren't move or shoot. Splitting up the various controls that are easily confused makes sense. (The classic example is tilting a helicopter left or right versus using the helicopter's rudder. GTA III era games map tilting the helicopter to the joystick used for movement, and the rudder to the left or right shoulder buttons.) Just Cause does NOT accept a gamepad as an input for some reason. It also doesn't let you remap your controls to a set of settings that makes more sense to you. Those are two basic features that every PC port should have added to it, and the lack of them means they probably cut corners somewhere else too.
Secondly, because GTA style sandbox games are not twitch shooters, most games in this genre have a lock on feature, even on PC. They took the lock on feature out of Just Cause PC (it's in the console versions) for some reason. This makes it impossible to steal a faster vehicle than the slow helicopter that spawns at your base, which makes it impossible to get from mission to mission, which makes the game not fun because all the areas outside missions are boring and not part of the gameplay. Remember how the island is 100 times bigger than GTA 3? Well, 99% of that space is useless.
The game should have interested me. I love GTA. I love Red Dawn. This game is pretty much those two concepts mixed together. By all rights, I should have loved Just Cause. But because of the poor PC port of the first one, I had no interest in the second one. A lot of people will keep buying games despite DRM. It won't kill PC gaming. But EVERYONE has a breaking point in terms of crappy ports, and THAT is what will move everyone to consoles.
Slashdot Mirror
This isn't really about cuts though, if the Tea Partiers actually gave a shit about deficits(here's a hint, they don't), then they would be chopping programs like Social Security and the DoD.
The Republican plan includes cuts for the DoD this year. The Republican plan for NEXT year, which was released on Tuesday, includes massive changes to make Medicaid cheaper. (Medicaid is "like" Social Security in that it's a huge entitlement program.) Their argument for not putting their changes to Medicaid in this year is because we're already 7 months into this year (because the Democrats didn't want to be debating why the budget deficit is so big in an election year, so they simply never passed a budget.) Republican-proposed changes to big entitlement programs ARE coming, and to suggest otherwise makes you uninformed.
Senate Republicans wouldn't allow the Democrats to pass a budget in October 2010? The Democrats had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate at the time. They could have rammed whatever they wanted through the Senate, the House, and gotten the President to sign it.
But what [Democrats] did not do was shut the government down.
They are about to. Keep in mind that the Republican-led House HAS passed a budget resolution, and the Democrats aren't coming back with a counterproposal that includes ANY cuts, which, in fact, is the negotiation point. This government shut down, if it happens, is happening SOLELY because the Democrats think they can call the Republicans heartless when they force the shut down.
Anyone who thinks this is no big deal wasn't paying attention the last time the Republicans pulled this stunt.
This is for FY 2011, and should have been passed by October of 2010. Astute calendar watchers will notice that this is more than a month before Republican won in the 2010 elections, and three months before the new winners took office.
Sorry, bro, but the Democrats should have passed this budget almost a year ago.
FY 2012 starts in October, and the House budget committee proposed a budget this past Tuesday.
The survey was done on a points scale. There was a max score of 100. Some proportion of those points was based on "people cured per capita," and others were based on "social interest type goals." A country that cured 100% of its diseases on a non-socialist system would not get a perfect score. IIRC, the proportion was 60% people cured, and 40% human interest goals (of which being socialist was only one.) I don't have the survey in front of me or I'd give a link. I can't swear to the proportions, but that was the methodology.
And sorry, I didn't see that you were the OP. Since we agree that you can add stupid criteria bto this kind of study to make anyone best at anything, do you have links to a source for your numbers?
Incedntally, that's EXACTLY my point.
Do these "statistics" come with a source, by chance. I know the #37 on Healthcare quality is from a study that, instead of comparing number of people cured of illness per capita or something, came from a study that gave massive bonuses on the ranking to contries with socialized healthcare. Remove this bonus, and the US is number 1 again.
I've never had a problem with my Droid 2, which I got shortly after launch.
I also prefer GTA 3 to 4 for the same reason as you. I didn't play the epansions, but I did play Red Dead Redemption, which seems to fix the problem of not taking itself too seriously.
You really just aren't all that bright, are you?
What other countries in North or South America have the word "America" in their name? (As noted elsewhere in the topic, the United States of America and the United Mexican States are both groups of "United States" in North America.)
This sounds different but similar to Apple's review process. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
The XBLA Review Process predates the Apple App Store. Other than that (and the fact that MS will tell you EXACTLY how not to fail) it is the same thing.
You're thinking of J#, which was a Microsoft produced, slightly incompatible version of Java. The court struck that down, so Microsoft made their own runtime based language, which became C#.
I have no idea what you mean by Beltway Narrative syndrome. Can you explain a little more?
Sure, they have liberal commentators on in the evening... but they also have Chris Matthews...
Chris Matthews? He ran for the House in a Democratic Primary, he was a speechwriter for Carter, and he was a top aide to Tip O'Neill. He said in 2008 that he has "made a commitment to covering politics in a liberal way, starting in 1987." He "felt a thrill going up his leg" when Obama speaks. He also said, "I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency [the Obama administration] work." He said this as a journalist theoretically covering the administration from the outside. This guy is as liberal as they come. Don't let his hate-on for the Clintons obscure that.
Now that we've got the difference between the past and the present down, hopefully you'll agree with me that the following quote is inaccurate:
No, you have not heard that [Democrats tried to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine]. You made that up.
You may have heard Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh complaining that people are saying that, but nobody is saying that.
Schumer said it, and he's far from nobody. This is the problem with the Internet. When you say something into a camera, people can call you on it a year or so later. For that matter, Schumer was openly supporting a legislative change that he presumably feels his constituents want. Why would he try to hid that? Or alternately, is he trying to hide it?
BREAKING NEWS: Justin Long isn't really a Mac. Also, Jon Hodgeman isn't really a PC.
The relevant quotes, for anyone else following the discussion (and prevented from seeing the link from by New Slashdot), are from Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House (a Republican) said:
"I believe the House Republicans next week should pass a resolution instructing the president to enforce the law* and to obey his own constitutional oath, and they should say if he fails to do so that they will zero out [defund] the office of attorney general and take other steps as necessary until the president agrees to do his job... His job is to enforce the rule of law and for us to start replacing the rule of law with the rule of Obama is a very dangerous precedent."
Were Gingrich Speaker, that would probably be evidence that House Republicans are going to try to impeach Obama. At some point, the actions of the party's leadership have to be attributable to the party, right? Gingrich isn't part of the party leadership, though.
Then Trent Franks, R-AZ, was asked if he agreed with the Gingrich quote and said, "If it could gain the collective support, absolutely." Franks isn't on the leadership of the House Judiciary committee, and later said that he was "not planning on any steps to begin impeachment proceedings." He claims the question was distorted, but I don't exactly buy that. He probably wanted to see if there was support for the step. Since there wasn't, he's not going to do it. Same as when Schumer tried to see if the American people would bite on the Fairness Doctrine. The major difference is that Franks is just some guy, whereas Schumer is the third highest ranking Democrat in the Senate. At some point, the actions of a party's leadership have to be attributable to the party, right?
It might, just maybe, be relevant to note that both Gingrich and Franks were talking about the Defense of Marriage Act, which Obama says the Justice Department will no longer enforce because it's unconstitutional. The problem is the Supreme Court has ruled EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE, that DOMA IS constitutional. His actions are unconstitutional; the President's duties include that "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." (Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution) Whether this merits his removal from office is another matter entirely. The action that Obama should be taking if he wants to get rid of the law is to try to have the law repealed. Perhaps by going on television and asking Congress to do so.
Let me ask you, jmac_the_man, would it be accurate to say that "The Republicans tried to impeach President Obama"? Now, there have been Republican members of congress mentioning impeachment, saying they're "looking into" impeachment hearings, being in favor of impeachment hearings, and even one especially loony member from Minnesota actually calling for impeachment. But would it be accurate to say "The Republicans tried to impeach Obama"?
I listen to a lot of right wing talk radio, so I'd like to think that I would have heard about an effort to impeach President Obama. I have no idea what you're talking about. If we're talking about theoretical quotes, it would depend who said them. If it was the Speaker of the House, Majority Leader, or Majority Whip (or the equivalent minority positions,) it would probably be accurate to say that House Republicans were calling for his impeachment. If it was a high ranking member of the Judiciary Committee who said it, it would probably be accurate to say that. If it was just some random Congressman who said it, it probably wouldn't.
If you have links to actual quotes from actual Republicans calling for Obama's impeachment, I'd love to hear them, actually. Please hook me up with the link.
Now to the task at hand. Schumer is Vice Chairman of the Democratic Caucus. That makes him the third highest ranking Democrat in the Senate. He's not just "some Senator." He's a pretty important one. Things he says tend to be the things Democrats are planning on doing. They wanted to do this, but failed because not enough people agreed with them. But not because they didn't try.
In the US, laws are enacted by voting, not by public discussion... And there have been no efforts to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.
Step one in that process is convincing members of the legislative branch (such as Senator Schumer) that such a law is necessary and/or in their constituents' interest. Clearly Schumer has already been convinced of this. What's more, by publicly calling for it, Schumer was clearly trying to convince others of the need for a new Fairness Doctrine. Those others are a mixture of his colleagues and his colleagues' constituents, who, he hopes, will contact their representatives (his colleagues) and influence them directly. Since not enough people contacted their representatives to support Schumer (and the others who were calling for this) and there was a big backlash of people calling and telling their representatives to OPPOSE the Fairness Doctrine, the issue didn't advance to the stage where a bill to enable it was produced. There was an effort, it was just so unpopular that it was killed relatively quickly.
My disconnect from reality is a feature, not a bug.
WGA is a feature and not a bug, too. Just like WGA helps Microsoft at the expense of users, PopeRatzo helps the crazy dishonest wing of the Democrat Party at the expense of everyone else. Schumer was openly supporting a proposed change to the law on national television. Uncharacteristically for him, he was being honest. Do you have sources to indicate that he was lying or something?
Open public records act info are public records too. I hope if the guy in the article is using his status at a university employee to advance a partisan political agenda, he's exposed and punished. Is that any different?
For additional backup to this point, here's a video of Chuck Schumer calling for the Fairness Doctrine.
It would be if the Democrats had tried to "reinstitute" the so-called "Fairness Doctrine".
You have any evidence that they "tried" to do this when they were in power?
I'd like to incorporate this thread by reference. It includes, among other things, video of Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, publicly calling to institute the Fairness Doctrine. It also includes PopeRatzo acting like an idiot disconnected from reality.
Just Cause is a GTA style sandbox game. You're a CIA agent in a tropical paradise ruled by an evil Communist dictator who has to be overthrown because he's evil and Communist. You go around fomenting revolution. You play the "good drug dealers" off against the "bad drug dealers." You play the civilian police off against the army. You assassinate members of the Evil Communist Dictator's government. Pretty much, you go around wreaking GTA style havoc.
Oh, and advertising materials said that the island was something like "100 times bigger than GTA III." So in order to get from your successful mission with the Good Cartel to your CIA contact who will tell you to go assassinate the Evil Dictator's son, you need to steal a vehicle. The best way to do this is with your grappling hook, which can hook on to vehicles, and then you can reel yourself into the cockpit/driver's seat and commandeer the vehicle. Seems like a pretty cool feature, right? The hook in this game is literally a hook.
Here's the kicker. Like I said, I played it on PC. GTA style sandbox games universally play better with a gamepad than with a keyboard and mouse, so I have a USB one. It's not like Just Cause, or any game in this genre, is a twitch shooter. There's too many things to do that aren't move or shoot. Splitting up the various controls that are easily confused makes sense. (The classic example is tilting a helicopter left or right versus using the helicopter's rudder. GTA III era games map tilting the helicopter to the joystick used for movement, and the rudder to the left or right shoulder buttons.) Just Cause does NOT accept a gamepad as an input for some reason. It also doesn't let you remap your controls to a set of settings that makes more sense to you. Those are two basic features that every PC port should have added to it, and the lack of them means they probably cut corners somewhere else too.
Secondly, because GTA style sandbox games are not twitch shooters, most games in this genre have a lock on feature, even on PC. They took the lock on feature out of Just Cause PC (it's in the console versions) for some reason. This makes it impossible to steal a faster vehicle than the slow helicopter that spawns at your base, which makes it impossible to get from mission to mission, which makes the game not fun because all the areas outside missions are boring and not part of the gameplay. Remember how the island is 100 times bigger than GTA 3? Well, 99% of that space is useless.
The game should have interested me. I love GTA. I love Red Dawn. This game is pretty much those two concepts mixed together. By all rights, I should have loved Just Cause. But because of the poor PC port of the first one, I had no interest in the second one. A lot of people will keep buying games despite DRM. It won't kill PC gaming. But EVERYONE has a breaking point in terms of crappy ports, and THAT is what will move everyone to consoles.