I read the "shenanigans" as referring to the article he linked and you quoted, not TFA. As I said before, I don't think either adminstration was responisble for the "shenanigans" in TFA.
I clearly read it as TFA, so we were referring to different things. Since I also think that neither administration is responsible for the Genetech "shenanigans," it seems that we agree here.
The Bush Administration was responsible for the shenanigans in the linked article [about the Lackawana Six],
Again, I would dispute that the Bush administration committed any shenanigans in connection with the Lackawana Six. These guys broke the law, and the FBI got warrants and arrested them. Possibly considering using the Army to arrest terrorists doesn't count as shenanigans in my book, especially when THEY DECIDED NOT TO and handled it as a by the book civilian law enforcement operation.
And just because something didn't actually happen doesn't mean it wasn't valid to fear it before the events unfolded. Would you also have been "retarded" to not bet on Jimmie Johnson back before the race started? Of course not, you didn't know who would win, at it was likely someone else could win. Similarly lawpoop clearly stated it was a fear he had at the time and not that it actually happened in his first paragraph.
Orders of magnitude. No, it wouldn't have been retarded to bet against Jimmie Johnson before the race started. But he's presumably a pretty good driver. Now, I'm a decent driver myself. I drive a half hour to my office every morning and a half hour back in the evening. Never been in an accident. Never come close.
Betting on ME to win the race would be retarded. Just because I have a few small accomplishments in the field of driving doesn't mean I'm a Jimmie Johnson-level NASCAR driver. Just because Bush had a few small achievements in the field of pissing you/lawpoop off doesn't make him a Palpatine-level dictator.
Out of curiosity, what do you think of the "The world will end in 2012" crowd? Because in December 2008, the probabilities were about the same.
I neither made the original comparisons to the Lackawana Six nor to the Genetech "shenanigans." I was replying to a post by a commenter named lawpoop. (Shenanigans was lawpoop's word, not mine.) You'll see it because it's moderated as +5 Informative for some reason. (In fact, I know you read it, because you refer to him as the third poster above and defend what he said.) The first time I brought up Genetech, I said that it happened during the PERIOD OF TIME known as the Obama administration, and that Obama had nothing to do with it. However, blaming Bush for the Genetech shenanigans, as Lawpoop tried to do, was also unfair. That is all I meant to point out.
As far as whether Bush would declare himself Emperor, I'm going to draw a car analogy. Bear with me here.
I will bet every cent to my name that Jimmie Johnson will win the 2009 Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500. Would you take that bet? If so, you're a moron, because the race already happened. (If you're not a NASCAR fan and didn't click the link, it goes to the race results, which show Mr. Stewart as the winner.)
Similarly, we already know whether Bush declared himself Emperor and prevented Obama from taking office. (He didn't.) Minor infringements on civil liberties of American citizens pale in comparison to completely overthrowing the electoral system on which this country relies. Lawpoop accused Bush of trying to do just that, and I called him "paranoid to the point of retardation." Unless you can show me evidence that Bush tried to do that (and not make crap up about civil liberties), my point stands.
You are incorrect. Most American bases now are no longer built directly by the military,
You said "run by" the first time. The military asks KBR, for example, to build a base, and pays them for it. KBR then hands the keys to the military, and the military runs the base.
I'm not going through specific programs because I apparently misunderstood your point. I thought it was "One man's useless spending is another man's livelihood," which is why I used hyperbole (one of "douchebag" or "fat cats" to describe union bosses was clearly unnecessary.) You used "conservative" programs that could be cut to underscore that point, in a way that looks like hyperbole. I then agreed with you, but using "liberal" programs to cut to underscore the same point. I was equally hyperbolic. If we don't actually agree with each others, my apologies.
I hear that a lot but I never see people being very precise about what they mean by it.
What do you mean by it? Personally I'm not jazzed about hundreds of billions of dollars going to drop bombs on foreign countries and pay war profiteers to run military bases, but other than that, most of the big-ticket expenditures are phenomenally useful things...
Because someone's going to miss your point, I should point out that spending hundreds of billions of dollars on those lazy assholes on welfare and those do-nothing douchebag fatcats running the unions aren't particularly useful things to be doing with our tax dollars. To the person who is missing his point, this is being argued all over this topic. One man's useless cuts are another man's livelyhood.
By the way, it's your own damn fault that people will misinterpret you (and believe me, they will.) I'm not sure what you mean by "pay war profiteers to run military bases." If you're calling the military profiteers, well, FUCK YOU. If you're calling defense contractors war profiteers, they don't run military bases, and fuck you to a far lesser extent.
If I go to California to buy something, I have to pay California's taxes and not my own. If I pay someone to go to California to buy something for me, I'd have to pay California's taxes and no my own. But for some bizarre reason, when I pay FedEx to ship it to me, suddenly I do not have to pay California's tax but I have to pay my state's use tax.
The use tax applies to brick and mortar purchases just as much as it does to Internet purchases (i.e. as much as you're willing to admit to your state's version of the IRS.) If your out of state purchase is something that the state keeps track of through other means (you register your car, right?), they'll charge you the use tax even if you didn't buy your car online.
I'd start with the military. The US spends more on it's defence budget than the rest of the world does on military budgets COMBINED.
We also defend a substantial part of the world. If NATO or our other allies had to worry about getting invaded (because US troops and technology weren't there,) we wouldn't have the highest defense budget in the world. (By the way. China spends an estimated 3/4 of our defense budget. Them, plus 190 other countries, adds up to more than our budget. We spend a lot, but not more than the rest of the world combined.)
I'm going to go out of order for the rest of your post. You say:
There are plenty of things that could be cut off without affecting social services one bit.
But right before it, you say:
Then we can go to work on corporate welfare; all sort of breaks and bailouts that are costing taxpayers trillions.
The same bailouts that, according to the people with the buckets, have saved millions of jobs? Now, I don't think we drove a hard enough bargain with the bailouts and should have gotten more concessions from the unions, but all those people losing their jobs and benefits would increase the need for social services massively.
Then we need to look at redundancies in government. For example why do we have so many layers? Federal, State, County, and Town governments? Give me a break. And why so many local school governing bodies? Don't tell me about local control.. that's how we get Creationism in our schools.
Local control is also how you got evolution into your schools. Not to mention civil rights, women's lib, or tolerance of homosexuals. Hell, half the states banned slavery on a local level before the Civil War. If that's too modern for you, Maryland was founded as a place where Catholics could go and there would be freedom from religious persecution. Ditto Pennsylvania, but for the Quakers instead.
Also, if you disband local government, who will distribute the social services? Not only that, but who will perform the other functions of government that we need in this society? Who will police our streets, put out our fires, or drive us to the hospital? Who will plow our roads or collect our garbage? Hell, who will pave the roads in the first place?
And jails? The US incarcerates a higher percentage of it's population than any other nation. Ridiculous.
That's only true if you don't count ridiculous dictatorships (like China) and you count people "under the supervision of the justice system" (i.e. parolees) as incarcerated. People on parole aren't really incarcerated in any meaningful sense. They're watched more closely so they don't commit crimes, but if you or I did those things, it would be illegal too. In any case, if you threw open the doors to the prison, all those people would need jobs and, not being able to get them, would need social services. If you're only letting out drug offenders (I'm taking a wild guess here) you'll still need more social services. Either drug rehab or homelessness care (shelters, food, coats in the winter) would be necessary, and would necessarily be a massive increase.
Even if we pretend that social services are the only important thing that government does, your plan would hurt the people who rely on those social services, requiring increases in spending. By the way, 48% of the country disagreed you on the proper role of social services as of this time last year, and it's higher now. But I've already proven the GP's point. He asked what to cut rhetorically, because one side's cuts sound stupid to the other side. Every. Single. Time. If we're going to make across the board cuts, let's do that. If we're not, let's not. But in either case, let's make stupid suggestions that amount to "Fuck those dirty conservatives" or "Those rotten hippie liberals can burn in Hell" and feel cheated when a compromise is reached.
You're right that only congress can allow martial law, but the president can declare it(as Lincoln did) and it would then require action by congress to stop it. This would require at least some Republican support in congress(as the bailout bill did) so it was not an empty threat by President Bush.
Except that we're not talking about real martial law, we're talking about a parliamentary procedure that would shut out opposition to a bill. The majority party would have to be the one to do this, and, if necessary, could use it to override the President. Now, Bush did support TARP; this is only relevant in the context of "Bush would have enacted martial law to remain in office and prevent Obama from taking over: Is anyone who agrees with that statement paraniod to the point of retardation?" The first person I was arguing with clearly was. The fact that we're neither discussing actual martial law nor something Bush actually had the power to do seems relevant.
I think the terrorism military tribunals are more relevant to the abridgment of right of due process than the Lackawanna Six. Again why would any other options be considered? Especially when the accused are U.S. citizens.
If you want to talk about due process, we can do that some other time. I was calling anyone who thinks Bush "would declare martial law to prevent Obama from taking office" paranoid to the point of retardation. As a counterpoint, someone brought up the Lackawana Six. However, the Lackawana Six committed a crime, and the FBI got warrants and arrested them. AT NO POINT WAS MARTIAL LAW IN ANY WAY ENACTED. AT NO POINT DID MARTIAL LAW EVEN COME CLOSE TO BEING ENACTED.
As far as why another option would be considered, keep in mind that to this day we don't know what their exact plan was. I can see a conversation along the lines of "John [Ashcroft], do you think these guys will be dangerous enough by tomorrow to merit using the Army? No, Mr. President, I don't. OK, well, it's 4:00 right now and the courthouse closes in an hour. Go get that warrant, and I want to see these guys in orange jumpsuits first thing in the morning."
The "during the Obama administration shenanigans" referred to by the original poster and then by myself is the story we're allegedly talking about. ("Shenanigans" is his word.) Apparently, the Genetech corporation has been writing press releases for members of congress to use during the national healthcare debate, which is taking place during the Obama administration. There's links to articles about it at the top of the page. There's no evidence Obama himself or his administration is tied to any of this. I called it "shenanigans that happened during the Obama administration" because BUSH certainly didn't have anything to do with it.
This is happening in Congress which is separate from the Obama Administration. It happened evenly on both sides of the aisle, and according to Genetech has been happening for years, including in the "Bush Administration", if you're going to insist the Congress is a part of the Executive administration.
I bolded part of my original quote this time. The guy I was arguing with called this "shenanigans" that happened during the Bush administration. It didn't happen during the Bush administration. It happened during the period of time known as the Obama administration, and therefore, Bush could not have had anything to do with it. Obama didn't either, but until I said that the first time, (and I said Obama had nothing to do with it the first time, check the bold parts,) we weren't talking about Obama.
Seriously, Bush wasn't a perfect president. If you want to bash him, there's plenty of stuff to bash him for. But if you persist in making shit up, (such as "he will enact martial law and prevent Obama from taking office") you make yourself look paranoid in that case, and stupid in all cases.
Regardless of how good or bad the TARP program is, or ever was, any parliamentary procedure that the House took to get it passed with a smaller majority than would otherwise be required (such as this martial law thing) would be something done the majority party, in this case the Democrats. In a criticism of Bush for coming to the brink of "declaring martial law," it should be pointed out that it would have had to have been the Democrats who "declared martial law."
The option Bush chose for the arrest of the Lackawana Six was to have the FBI get warrants and arrest them. Since they "knew who did it," they got warrants, and then arrested them.
The "during the Obama administration shenanigans" referred to by the original poster and then by myself is the story we're allegedly talking about. ("Shenanigans" is his word.) Apparently, the Genetech corporation has been writing press releases for members of congress to use during the national healthcare debate, which is taking place during the Obama administration. There's links to articles about it at the top of the page. There's no evidence Obama himself or his administration is tied to any of this. I called it "shenanigans that happened during the Obama administration" because BUSH certainly didn't have anything to do with it.
There's so many things wrong with your post that I don't know where to begin. The 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by allies of Afghanistan and NOT Iraq. With respect to the people who actually attacked us (Al Quaeda) and their allies who were defending them (the Taliban), what should the United States have done?
I gave an answer. It was to not invade Iraq. There were references in your post regarding Iraq, and so I wanted to be clear that, as a president, I wouldn't have lied in order to kill my countrymen for a personal vendetta. Is that not clear? What part did you miss?
As for my response, I would have more intelligence as president then than I have now,
I hope so, because that part of the post must have taken a massive amount of intelligence to post. I asked about Afghanistan, you tell me about Iraq. Even in THIS post you don't mention Afghanistan.
I'd have caught Osama for one.
To do that, you'd have to invade Afghanistan. Just like Bush. But is the Afghan war a good thing? I DON'T KNOW, BUT IRAQ SURE ISN'T.
For another, I'd have kicked the UN in the ass to wage the war on terrorism... Let the UN do its job and enforce international laws and be the target for the terrorists.
According to Wikipedia, 47 countries other than the US and Afghanistan were are involved in Operation Enduring Freedom. Also, what city does the UN General Assembly meet in? Has it been attacked by terrorists recently?
Why? Because the US is a target for massively stupid decisions (a good many by Reagan, for his meddling in the Middle East).
So you're for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but against the American one? Got it.
Invading multiple countries... is not the way to get in the good graces of those that think us imperialist swine...
So you'd invade between 0 and 1 countries. Just Afghanistan (where you'd catch bin Laden) then? OK.
I'd have probably gone after the Saudis that actually staged the attack, rather than given them more free money.
Wait, Afghanistan plus Saudi Arabia is TWO countries. As in multiple. That's no way to get in the good graces of those that think us imperialist swine.
But again, that depends on the intelligence that isn't available to me now
Right. No intelligence. Finally something that makes sense.
The fact is that you have no solutions and no answers other than BAWWWW BUSH ADMINISTRATION. Luckily, our real political leadership knows that there is now way to endear ourselves to "those who think us imperialist swine" and we have to kill the people who are trying to do us harm. While avoiding killing civilians. As required by the Geneva Convention, which, for the record, is what you and I are allegedly talking about.
Up to now I've been asking you questions, because I was seriously interested in your opinion and thought maybe we could have a healthy debate. But since you haven't described clearly what you would do, and only seem to want to talk about Iraq, which I already know what you think about it, I'm starting to doubt that, I'm done arguing with you, but since your sig makes it look like you're from Alaska, I'd be remiss not to thank you for Sarah Palin.
You wouldn't believe how many educated people I talked to were certain that president Bush would call martial law and cancel the election before Obama could be voted in (thus becoming emperor). You may have been one of them.
I guess you can call me "one of them". Although, I never thought it was a certainty, just a possibility.
During the congressional debates on the bank bailout bill,
Representative Brad Sherman related that members of congress were told that martial law would be declared if the bailout bill was not passed. The damage-control story after Rep. Sherman's revelation was that "martial law" was a metaphorical phrase amongst congresspeople meaning that the House leadership would ram through legislation in spite of the concerns of the larger body. Problem is, the phrase has never been used to mean that.
During the congressional debates on the bank bailout bill, did President Bush have any effect on the house leadership? For the record, that would be Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
I'd say "wanted to" is a strong word. A fair story (i.e. not the Huffington Post) that I read at the time makes it sound like the President said something like "OK, so we know this guy did it and could be dangerous. Get me all the options, and I'll pick one." When presented with the option, he looked at using the military and said "This one looks like it would violate posse comitatus, so let's use the FBI."
So yeah, it seemed like a real possibility, and after the fact, we find out that they were up to shenanigans like this. I don't think the people who suspected this were so paranoid.
Except that the "shenanigans like this" happened under the Obama administration. And had nothing to do with marshal law. And Bush didn't declare marshal law because, well, because, well, that's not how we do things in places that aren't asshole dictatorships, and thinking that he would is more than a little paranoid.
There's so many things wrong with your post that I don't know where to begin. The 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by allies of Afghanistan and NOT Iraq. With respect to the people who actually attacked us (Al Quaeda) and their allies who were defending them (the Taliban), what should the United States have done?
When I said "how would President AK Marc have responded," I was referring to what the national response should be. If we're going to have nations, there has to be a national response to getting attacked, even if that's "Pretend nothing happened." You disagreeing with the concept of having a President at all, though interesting, doesn't help me understand what you're thinking. Now I'm curious how you think executive power should be wielded too.
Clinton told the court that he didn't have sex with Lewinski. He did. The judge's orders were "Tell me whether you had sex with Lewinski. By the way, lying is a high crime or misdemeanor." I'd argue that he didn't follow the judge's order.
I agree with you that Carter was the worst President of our lifetimes (unless you were alive for James "I'm pissed that the American people didn't re-elect me so I'm not going to do anything as the South leaves the Union" Buchanan.) However, I'd have to say the best man to be President during that span was Reagan. (Shocking, I know.) He's got the whole self-made, built himself from nothing vibe without any of that nasty antisemitism you've got to deal with with Carter.
Well, in Iraq, at one point, there was an organized Iraqi military opposed to the United States. The Geneva Convention applied to them. Since the overthrow of Saddam's regime, that's no longer the case. Now, there a number of warring parties. The US and Iraqi led Coalition are the only ones who are protected by the Geneva Conventions. They are required to wear uniforms, not massacre civilians, etc. Other parties in the conflict (i.e. Al Quaeda in Iraq, Sunni insurgent groups, Iran, etc.) aren't aligned with each other, necessarily, but they're mainly considered warring against the Coalition as opposed to against each other. Geneva Convention protections don't apply to these other parties because they don't follow Geneva Convention rules about wearing uniforms, not massacring civilians, etc.
As far as Afghanistan goes, there were two main groups, the Taliban and Al Quaeda. The Taliban was hiding Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Quaeda, after that group committed the September 11th terrorist attacks. bin Laden may not be up there with Cobra Commander, but he definitely existed and led a group that committed a fairly large terrorist attack. His group and its allies are paying for that now.(Since Al Quaeda doesn't wear uniforms or refrain from attacking civilians, they don't get Geneva Convention protections either, which is really what we're allegedly talking about in this thread.)
Out of curiosity, how would President AK Marc have responded to the September 11th attacks?
Well, the War on Terrorism is a real war being fought by the United States military in two countries right now. The Geneva Conventions apply in the foreign locales in which it is being fought. (Of course, according to the Geneva Convention, to qualify for most Geneva Convention protections, you have to be either a civilian or a uniformed soldier of a warring power.) The War on Terrorism is being supported by civilian law enforcement in the United States. US cops are going after spies and saboteurs (nowadays more commonly known as terrorists) who, under the Geneva Conventions, do not qualify for protection under the Geneva Conventions.
This is EXACTLY the way the War on Nazi Germany and Axis Japan was fought, for the record. (Well, except that we're not rounding up every Muslim because they "might be disloyal.")
That's exactly the point. Vietnam War = Bad. Therefore, Some Other War = Bad. Therefore, War on Drugs = Bad. So let's start calling it the War on Drugs. That's the logic.
The phrase "War on Drugs" originated with critics of Federal drug policy who wanted to compare it to Vietnam. It's not a war, and we should be calling it that.
I've never heard of the "War on Gang Violence," although I've heard of police efforts against gang violence. (For the record, I'd argue that eliminating gang-related violence is EXACTLY why we should have police.) Can you reference it being called that?
I know where they are. But since we're discussing which country should be called America, it's important to clarify that I don't mean a country that the poster I replied to couldn't claim was an American country. (i.e. If France's official name was the United States of France, me citing it as an example here would be stupid.) If there were a South American country with "United States" in their name, that would make my point stronger. It still stands, though. Since there are at least two countries with "United" and "States" in their name, it makes more sense to refer to them by the other word in their name. Calling the northern one America and the southern one Mexico makes perfect sense.
Protip: There are two countries in either North or South America with "United States" in their name, the United States of America and the United Mexican States. There's only one with America in its name.
If EVERYTHING is in the slides, there are some major issues with the class. First off, including all the details in the slides means you either need long slides (that the professor will have to rush through), or each slide will be much busier, including more details than before.
Sorry, but that's not what I said. I should be able to take the slides for a class and every topic I can expect to see on the next exam should be there. It shouldn't be there in sufficient detail to actually study from, but I should be able to make an exhaustive list of every single question that could be asked. (To find the answers I will most probably need to consult the textbook, see the professor during their office hours, etc.)
Also, when teaching, effective professors will base how much time is spent on slides by the classes reaction etc. In addition, there are readings that are expected, and may not be fully covered in class.
I've had effective teachers teach off Powerpoints. Believe me, we're not talking about the effective professors here. If a professor's students have trouble with the material in one of those readings, but never talks about them (thus never seeing their student's reaction) how will the professor know that the topic merits more time? A simple slide titled "Chapter 13: NAME OF CHAPTER" with the text "Questions?" followed by approximately 10 minutes of discussion about last night's reading will be sufficent in most cases, unless last night's material was hard enough that the professor needs to spend more time on it. By doing this, the professor can find out if more time needs to be spent on it.
If that is too difficult for you to handle, you probably shouldn't be in college in the first place. The goal of college is for you to learn, and to learn for yourself. Not to illustrate that if spoonfed knowledge for 4 years that you can remember enough of it to pass the tests.
Nice ad homenim attack, but my GPA was just fine in school. If a professor can't take the time to change the prepackaged slides enough so that it suits the material he will be testing on, he has no business teaching. When I was in school, I was paying him to teach me, and so that should have been his goal.
In addition, at least in engineering there are many example problems that would just be too difficult or awkward to do in powerpoint. Part of watching someone solve a problem, is watching the steps they go through to solve it. Sure this might be doable in powerpoint, but it would be a waste of a professor's time to spend a couple hours making the example in powerpoint when he could write it down on paper in 5 minutes. Plus many professors like to ask their students for input when solving example problems. At least in computer engineering there are often multiple solutions that are good, so having a powerpoint reduces you to a script that you can't violate. A good professor should be able to show examples that are targeted for the students, which often can only be done on the spot.
If it's not in the class notes, it shouldn't be on the test. And if you wrote it down on a piece of paper in class, you can scan it and distribute it the same way you distribute the Powerpoint. Most of my early level CS classes had professors work out some code in class, but then post the worked code online next to the Powerpoint. My Calculus professors had worked problems with the Powerpoint. I'm willing to bet that whatever kind of engineering you went to school for could figure out a way to do this with whatever worked problems you have.
One last thing, part of why professors say "not everything will be covered in the slides" is because they want to make sure that after a test they don't have 10s of students coming up to them whining about how "this wasn't covered fully in the slides", or more likely "show me where we covered XYZ in the slides". Students can be whiny
This could have some potentially interesting consequences in physical searches as well. What if the police execute a search warrant for documents and rather than physically taking the papers to the police station, they instead set up a few high-speed duplex scanners and just scanned in the documents on the premesis? If that's all they do, they're not "depriving you of property" so there's no reason to leave a receipt.
Aren't there already situations where the police photograph evidence collected during a search, rather than actually seize it? Do they have to leave a receipt for that?
OK, so a "minor in posession OF ALCOHOL" is the kind of thing that should be a misdemeanor. If it's a felony, that's a problem, but that has nothing to do with three strikes laws. According to Wikipedia, the penalty for "Minor in Possession" in California "carries a punishment of $250 and a mandatory revocation of driving privileges for one year" if there's no aggravating factors (drunk driving, drunk and disorderly, etc.) Minor in Possession is not a felony on its own.
In most states, all three strikes have to be felonies. (In fact, some states only count violent felonies.) I'm not sure where your anecdote about someone whose third strike was for Minor in Possession comes from, but it sounds to me like there were aggravating factors. (Also, if they had two felonies before the age of 21, they probably shouldn't have been on the street for w while anyway.)
The second guy in your example probably didn't commit any felonies. (On the off chance that there was enough money in the purse to count as grand larceny, that would be a felony.) I don;t know any ladies who keep that much money in their purse. (cue "typical Slashdotter" joke)
The first guy (the two time felon) is hopefully going to keep his nose clean.
This is Slashdot, so I clearly didn't actually read the article. Complaining about the average being in the middle, IN A FIELD WHERE THE CORRECT METHOD TO FIND THE AVERAGE IS THE MEDIAN, is stupid. My complaint was more about jamie than about airplane pilots. I'm glad that an editor on this site can cite Michael Moore in a conversation, then complain someone you're debating against has a selection bias. That really improves the quality of this site.
Slashdot Mirror
I read the "shenanigans" as referring to the article he linked and you quoted, not TFA. As I said before, I don't think either adminstration was responisble for the "shenanigans" in TFA.
I clearly read it as TFA, so we were referring to different things. Since I also think that neither administration is responsible for the Genetech "shenanigans," it seems that we agree here.
The Bush Administration was responsible for the shenanigans in the linked article [about the Lackawana Six],
Again, I would dispute that the Bush administration committed any shenanigans in connection with the Lackawana Six. These guys broke the law, and the FBI got warrants and arrested them. Possibly considering using the Army to arrest terrorists doesn't count as shenanigans in my book, especially when THEY DECIDED NOT TO and handled it as a by the book civilian law enforcement operation.
And just because something didn't actually happen doesn't mean it wasn't valid to fear it before the events unfolded. Would you also have been "retarded" to not bet on Jimmie Johnson back before the race started? Of course not, you didn't know who would win, at it was likely someone else could win. Similarly lawpoop clearly stated it was a fear he had at the time and not that it actually happened in his first paragraph.
Orders of magnitude. No, it wouldn't have been retarded to bet against Jimmie Johnson before the race started. But he's presumably a pretty good driver. Now, I'm a decent driver myself. I drive a half hour to my office every morning and a half hour back in the evening. Never been in an accident. Never come close.
Betting on ME to win the race would be retarded. Just because I have a few small accomplishments in the field of driving doesn't mean I'm a Jimmie Johnson-level NASCAR driver. Just because Bush had a few small achievements in the field of pissing you/lawpoop off doesn't make him a Palpatine-level dictator.
Out of curiosity, what do you think of the "The world will end in 2012" crowd? Because in December 2008, the probabilities were about the same.
As far as whether Bush would declare himself Emperor, I'm going to draw a car analogy. Bear with me here.
I will bet every cent to my name that Jimmie Johnson will win the 2009 Checker O'Reilly Auto Parts 500. Would you take that bet? If so, you're a moron, because the race already happened. (If you're not a NASCAR fan and didn't click the link, it goes to the race results, which show Mr. Stewart as the winner.)
Similarly, we already know whether Bush declared himself Emperor and prevented Obama from taking office. (He didn't.) Minor infringements on civil liberties of American citizens pale in comparison to completely overthrowing the electoral system on which this country relies. Lawpoop accused Bush of trying to do just that, and I called him "paranoid to the point of retardation." Unless you can show me evidence that Bush tried to do that (and not make crap up about civil liberties), my point stands.
You are incorrect. Most American bases now are no longer built directly by the military,
You said "run by" the first time. The military asks KBR, for example, to build a base, and pays them for it. KBR then hands the keys to the military, and the military runs the base.
I'm not going through specific programs because I apparently misunderstood your point. I thought it was "One man's useless spending is another man's livelihood," which is why I used hyperbole (one of "douchebag" or "fat cats" to describe union bosses was clearly unnecessary.) You used "conservative" programs that could be cut to underscore that point, in a way that looks like hyperbole. I then agreed with you, but using "liberal" programs to cut to underscore the same point. I was equally hyperbolic. If we don't actually agree with each others, my apologies.
I hear that a lot but I never see people being very precise about what they mean by it.
What do you mean by it? Personally I'm not jazzed about hundreds of billions of dollars going to drop bombs on foreign countries and pay war profiteers to run military bases, but other than that, most of the big-ticket expenditures are phenomenally useful things...
Because someone's going to miss your point, I should point out that spending hundreds of billions of dollars on those lazy assholes on welfare and those do-nothing douchebag fatcats running the unions aren't particularly useful things to be doing with our tax dollars. To the person who is missing his point, this is being argued all over this topic. One man's useless cuts are another man's livelyhood.
By the way, it's your own damn fault that people will misinterpret you (and believe me, they will.) I'm not sure what you mean by "pay war profiteers to run military bases." If you're calling the military profiteers, well, FUCK YOU. If you're calling defense contractors war profiteers, they don't run military bases, and fuck you to a far lesser extent.
If I go to California to buy something, I have to pay California's taxes and not my own. If I pay someone to go to California to buy something for me, I'd have to pay California's taxes and no my own. But for some bizarre reason, when I pay FedEx to ship it to me, suddenly I do not have to pay California's tax but I have to pay my state's use tax.
The use tax applies to brick and mortar purchases just as much as it does to Internet purchases (i.e. as much as you're willing to admit to your state's version of the IRS.) If your out of state purchase is something that the state keeps track of through other means (you register your car, right?), they'll charge you the use tax even if you didn't buy your car online.
I'd start with the military. The US spends more on it's defence budget than the rest of the world does on military budgets COMBINED.
We also defend a substantial part of the world. If NATO or our other allies had to worry about getting invaded (because US troops and technology weren't there,) we wouldn't have the highest defense budget in the world. (By the way. China spends an estimated 3/4 of our defense budget. Them, plus 190 other countries, adds up to more than our budget. We spend a lot, but not more than the rest of the world combined.)
I'm going to go out of order for the rest of your post. You say:
There are plenty of things that could be cut off without affecting social services one bit.
But right before it, you say:
Then we can go to work on corporate welfare; all sort of breaks and bailouts that are costing taxpayers trillions.
The same bailouts that, according to the people with the buckets, have saved millions of jobs? Now, I don't think we drove a hard enough bargain with the bailouts and should have gotten more concessions from the unions, but all those people losing their jobs and benefits would increase the need for social services massively.
Then we need to look at redundancies in government. For example why do we have so many layers? Federal, State, County, and Town governments? Give me a break. And why so many local school governing bodies? Don't tell me about local control.. that's how we get Creationism in our schools.
Local control is also how you got evolution into your schools. Not to mention civil rights, women's lib, or tolerance of homosexuals. Hell, half the states banned slavery on a local level before the Civil War. If that's too modern for you, Maryland was founded as a place where Catholics could go and there would be freedom from religious persecution. Ditto Pennsylvania, but for the Quakers instead.
Also, if you disband local government, who will distribute the social services? Not only that, but who will perform the other functions of government that we need in this society? Who will police our streets, put out our fires, or drive us to the hospital? Who will plow our roads or collect our garbage? Hell, who will pave the roads in the first place?
And jails? The US incarcerates a higher percentage of it's population than any other nation. Ridiculous.
That's only true if you don't count ridiculous dictatorships (like China) and you count people "under the supervision of the justice system" (i.e. parolees) as incarcerated. People on parole aren't really incarcerated in any meaningful sense. They're watched more closely so they don't commit crimes, but if you or I did those things, it would be illegal too. In any case, if you threw open the doors to the prison, all those people would need jobs and, not being able to get them, would need social services. If you're only letting out drug offenders (I'm taking a wild guess here) you'll still need more social services. Either drug rehab or homelessness care (shelters, food, coats in the winter) would be necessary, and would necessarily be a massive increase.
Even if we pretend that social services are the only important thing that government does, your plan would hurt the people who rely on those social services, requiring increases in spending. By the way, 48% of the country disagreed you on the proper role of social services as of this time last year, and it's higher now. But I've already proven the GP's point. He asked what to cut rhetorically, because one side's cuts sound stupid to the other side. Every. Single. Time. If we're going to make across the board cuts, let's do that. If we're not, let's not. But in either case, let's make stupid suggestions that amount to "Fuck those dirty conservatives" or "Those rotten hippie liberals can burn in Hell" and feel cheated when a compromise is reached.
You're right that only congress can allow martial law, but the president can declare it(as Lincoln did) and it would then require action by congress to stop it. This would require at least some Republican support in congress(as the bailout bill did) so it was not an empty threat by President Bush.
Except that we're not talking about real martial law, we're talking about a parliamentary procedure that would shut out opposition to a bill. The majority party would have to be the one to do this, and, if necessary, could use it to override the President. Now, Bush did support TARP; this is only relevant in the context of "Bush would have enacted martial law to remain in office and prevent Obama from taking over: Is anyone who agrees with that statement paraniod to the point of retardation?" The first person I was arguing with clearly was. The fact that we're neither discussing actual martial law nor something Bush actually had the power to do seems relevant.
I think the terrorism military tribunals are more relevant to the abridgment of right of due process than the Lackawanna Six. Again why would any other options be considered? Especially when the accused are U.S. citizens.
If you want to talk about due process, we can do that some other time. I was calling anyone who thinks Bush "would declare martial law to prevent Obama from taking office" paranoid to the point of retardation. As a counterpoint, someone brought up the Lackawana Six. However, the Lackawana Six committed a crime, and the FBI got warrants and arrested them. AT NO POINT WAS MARTIAL LAW IN ANY WAY ENACTED. AT NO POINT DID MARTIAL LAW EVEN COME CLOSE TO BEING ENACTED.
As far as why another option would be considered, keep in mind that to this day we don't know what their exact plan was. I can see a conversation along the lines of "John [Ashcroft], do you think these guys will be dangerous enough by tomorrow to merit using the Army? No, Mr. President, I don't. OK, well, it's 4:00 right now and the courthouse closes in an hour. Go get that warrant, and I want to see these guys in orange jumpsuits first thing in the morning."
The "during the Obama administration shenanigans" referred to by the original poster and then by myself is the story we're allegedly talking about. ("Shenanigans" is his word.) Apparently, the Genetech corporation has been writing press releases for members of congress to use during the national healthcare debate, which is taking place during the Obama administration. There's links to articles about it at the top of the page. There's no evidence Obama himself or his administration is tied to any of this. I called it "shenanigans that happened during the Obama administration" because BUSH certainly didn't have anything to do with it.
This is happening in Congress which is separate from the Obama Administration. It happened evenly on both sides of the aisle, and according to Genetech has been happening for years, including in the "Bush Administration", if you're going to insist the Congress is a part of the Executive administration.
I bolded part of my original quote this time. The guy I was arguing with called this "shenanigans" that happened during the Bush administration. It didn't happen during the Bush administration. It happened during the period of time known as the Obama administration, and therefore, Bush could not have had anything to do with it. Obama didn't either, but until I said that the first time, (and I said Obama had nothing to do with it the first time, check the bold parts,) we weren't talking about Obama.
Seriously, Bush wasn't a perfect president. If you want to bash him, there's plenty of stuff to bash him for. But if you persist in making shit up, (such as "he will enact martial law and prevent Obama from taking office") you make yourself look paranoid in that case, and stupid in all cases.
The option Bush chose for the arrest of the Lackawana Six was to have the FBI get warrants and arrest them. Since they "knew who did it," they got warrants, and then arrested them.
The "during the Obama administration shenanigans" referred to by the original poster and then by myself is the story we're allegedly talking about. ("Shenanigans" is his word.) Apparently, the Genetech corporation has been writing press releases for members of congress to use during the national healthcare debate, which is taking place during the Obama administration. There's links to articles about it at the top of the page. There's no evidence Obama himself or his administration is tied to any of this. I called it "shenanigans that happened during the Obama administration" because BUSH certainly didn't have anything to do with it.
There's so many things wrong with your post that I don't know where to begin. The 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by allies of Afghanistan and NOT Iraq. With respect to the people who actually attacked us (Al Quaeda) and their allies who were defending them (the Taliban), what should the United States have done? I gave an answer. It was to not invade Iraq. There were references in your post regarding Iraq, and so I wanted to be clear that, as a president, I wouldn't have lied in order to kill my countrymen for a personal vendetta. Is that not clear? What part did you miss? As for my response, I would have more intelligence as president then than I have now,
I hope so, because that part of the post must have taken a massive amount of intelligence to post. I asked about Afghanistan, you tell me about Iraq. Even in THIS post you don't mention Afghanistan.
I'd have caught Osama for one.
To do that, you'd have to invade Afghanistan. Just like Bush. But is the Afghan war a good thing? I DON'T KNOW, BUT IRAQ SURE ISN'T.
For another, I'd have kicked the UN in the ass to wage the war on terrorism... Let the UN do its job and enforce international laws and be the target for the terrorists.
According to Wikipedia, 47 countries other than the US and Afghanistan were are involved in Operation Enduring Freedom. Also, what city does the UN General Assembly meet in? Has it been attacked by terrorists recently?
Why? Because the US is a target for massively stupid decisions (a good many by Reagan, for his meddling in the Middle East).
So you're for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but against the American one? Got it.
Invading multiple countries... is not the way to get in the good graces of those that think us imperialist swine...
So you'd invade between 0 and 1 countries. Just Afghanistan (where you'd catch bin Laden) then? OK.
I'd have probably gone after the Saudis that actually staged the attack, rather than given them more free money.
Wait, Afghanistan plus Saudi Arabia is TWO countries. As in multiple. That's no way to get in the good graces of those that think us imperialist swine.
But again, that depends on the intelligence that isn't available to me now
Right. No intelligence. Finally something that makes sense.
The fact is that you have no solutions and no answers other than BAWWWW BUSH ADMINISTRATION. Luckily, our real political leadership knows that there is now way to endear ourselves to "those who think us imperialist swine" and we have to kill the people who are trying to do us harm. While avoiding killing civilians. As required by the Geneva Convention, which, for the record, is what you and I are allegedly talking about.
Up to now I've been asking you questions, because I was seriously interested in your opinion and thought maybe we could have a healthy debate. But since you haven't described clearly what you would do, and only seem to want to talk about Iraq, which I already know what you think about it, I'm starting to doubt that, I'm done arguing with you, but since your sig makes it look like you're from Alaska, I'd be remiss not to thank you for Sarah Palin.
You wouldn't believe how many educated people I talked to were certain that president Bush would call martial law and cancel the election before Obama could be voted in (thus becoming emperor). You may have been one of them.
I guess you can call me "one of them". Although, I never thought it was a certainty, just a possibility. During the congressional debates on the bank bailout bill, Representative Brad Sherman related that members of congress were told that martial law would be declared if the bailout bill was not passed. The damage-control story after Rep. Sherman's revelation was that "martial law" was a metaphorical phrase amongst congresspeople meaning that the House leadership would ram through legislation in spite of the concerns of the larger body. Problem is, the phrase has never been used to mean that.
During the congressional debates on the bank bailout bill, did President Bush have any effect on the house leadership? For the record, that would be Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC).
After Bush got out of office, we find out that the Bush administration wanted to use the military to arrest terror suspects inside of the United States.
I'd say "wanted to" is a strong word. A fair story (i.e. not the Huffington Post) that I read at the time makes it sound like the President said something like "OK, so we know this guy did it and could be dangerous. Get me all the options, and I'll pick one." When presented with the option, he looked at using the military and said "This one looks like it would violate posse comitatus, so let's use the FBI."
So yeah, it seemed like a real possibility, and after the fact, we find out that they were up to shenanigans like this. I don't think the people who suspected this were so paranoid.
Except that the "shenanigans like this" happened under the Obama administration. And had nothing to do with marshal law. And Bush didn't declare marshal law because, well, because, well, that's not how we do things in places that aren't asshole dictatorships, and thinking that he would is more than a little paranoid.
When I said "how would President AK Marc have responded," I was referring to what the national response should be. If we're going to have nations, there has to be a national response to getting attacked, even if that's "Pretend nothing happened." You disagreeing with the concept of having a President at all, though interesting, doesn't help me understand what you're thinking. Now I'm curious how you think executive power should be wielded too.
Clinton told the court that he didn't have sex with Lewinski. He did. The judge's orders were "Tell me whether you had sex with Lewinski. By the way, lying is a high crime or misdemeanor." I'd argue that he didn't follow the judge's order.
I agree with you that Carter was the worst President of our lifetimes (unless you were alive for James "I'm pissed that the American people didn't re-elect me so I'm not going to do anything as the South leaves the Union" Buchanan.) However, I'd have to say the best man to be President during that span was Reagan. (Shocking, I know.) He's got the whole self-made, built himself from nothing vibe without any of that nasty antisemitism you've got to deal with with Carter.
As far as Afghanistan goes, there were two main groups, the Taliban and Al Quaeda. The Taliban was hiding Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Quaeda, after that group committed the September 11th terrorist attacks. bin Laden may not be up there with Cobra Commander, but he definitely existed and led a group that committed a fairly large terrorist attack. His group and its allies are paying for that now.(Since Al Quaeda doesn't wear uniforms or refrain from attacking civilians, they don't get Geneva Convention protections either, which is really what we're allegedly talking about in this thread.)
Out of curiosity, how would President AK Marc have responded to the September 11th attacks?
This is EXACTLY the way the War on Nazi Germany and Axis Japan was fought, for the record. (Well, except that we're not rounding up every Muslim because they "might be disloyal.")
That's exactly the point. Vietnam War = Bad. Therefore, Some Other War = Bad. Therefore, War on Drugs = Bad. So let's start calling it the War on Drugs. That's the logic.
I've never heard of the "War on Gang Violence," although I've heard of police efforts against gang violence. (For the record, I'd argue that eliminating gang-related violence is EXACTLY why we should have police.) Can you reference it being called that?
I know where they are. But since we're discussing which country should be called America, it's important to clarify that I don't mean a country that the poster I replied to couldn't claim was an American country. (i.e. If France's official name was the United States of France, me citing it as an example here would be stupid.) If there were a South American country with "United States" in their name, that would make my point stronger. It still stands, though. Since there are at least two countries with "United" and "States" in their name, it makes more sense to refer to them by the other word in their name. Calling the northern one America and the southern one Mexico makes perfect sense.
Protip: There are two countries in either North or South America with "United States" in their name, the United States of America and the United Mexican States. There's only one with America in its name.
If EVERYTHING is in the slides, there are some major issues with the class. First off, including all the details in the slides means you either need long slides (that the professor will have to rush through), or each slide will be much busier, including more details than before.
Sorry, but that's not what I said. I should be able to take the slides for a class and every topic I can expect to see on the next exam should be there. It shouldn't be there in sufficient detail to actually study from, but I should be able to make an exhaustive list of every single question that could be asked. (To find the answers I will most probably need to consult the textbook, see the professor during their office hours, etc.)
Also, when teaching, effective professors will base how much time is spent on slides by the classes reaction etc. In addition, there are readings that are expected, and may not be fully covered in class.
I've had effective teachers teach off Powerpoints. Believe me, we're not talking about the effective professors here. If a professor's students have trouble with the material in one of those readings, but never talks about them (thus never seeing their student's reaction) how will the professor know that the topic merits more time? A simple slide titled "Chapter 13: NAME OF CHAPTER" with the text "Questions?" followed by approximately 10 minutes of discussion about last night's reading will be sufficent in most cases, unless last night's material was hard enough that the professor needs to spend more time on it. By doing this, the professor can find out if more time needs to be spent on it.
If that is too difficult for you to handle, you probably shouldn't be in college in the first place. The goal of college is for you to learn, and to learn for yourself. Not to illustrate that if spoonfed knowledge for 4 years that you can remember enough of it to pass the tests.
Nice ad homenim attack, but my GPA was just fine in school. If a professor can't take the time to change the prepackaged slides enough so that it suits the material he will be testing on, he has no business teaching. When I was in school, I was paying him to teach me, and so that should have been his goal.
In addition, at least in engineering there are many example problems that would just be too difficult or awkward to do in powerpoint. Part of watching someone solve a problem, is watching the steps they go through to solve it. Sure this might be doable in powerpoint, but it would be a waste of a professor's time to spend a couple hours making the example in powerpoint when he could write it down on paper in 5 minutes. Plus many professors like to ask their students for input when solving example problems. At least in computer engineering there are often multiple solutions that are good, so having a powerpoint reduces you to a script that you can't violate. A good professor should be able to show examples that are targeted for the students, which often can only be done on the spot.
If it's not in the class notes, it shouldn't be on the test. And if you wrote it down on a piece of paper in class, you can scan it and distribute it the same way you distribute the Powerpoint. Most of my early level CS classes had professors work out some code in class, but then post the worked code online next to the Powerpoint. My Calculus professors had worked problems with the Powerpoint. I'm willing to bet that whatever kind of engineering you went to school for could figure out a way to do this with whatever worked problems you have.
One last thing, part of why professors say "not everything will be covered in the slides" is because they want to make sure that after a test they don't have 10s of students coming up to them whining about how "this wasn't covered fully in the slides", or more likely "show me where we covered XYZ in the slides". Students can be whiny
I hate it when professors say "Not everything is in the slides." If it's that important for students to know it, it should be in the slides.
If you think the birth certificate people are bad now, just wait for what they'll do to a Torvalds presidency.
This could have some potentially interesting consequences in physical searches as well. What if the police execute a search warrant for documents and rather than physically taking the papers to the police station, they instead set up a few high-speed duplex scanners and just scanned in the documents on the premesis? If that's all they do, they're not "depriving you of property" so there's no reason to leave a receipt.
Aren't there already situations where the police photograph evidence collected during a search, rather than actually seize it? Do they have to leave a receipt for that?
This happened like a month ago. The only reason it didn't produce any pro-government art is because they got caught.
OK, so a "minor in posession OF ALCOHOL" is the kind of thing that should be a misdemeanor. If it's a felony, that's a problem, but that has nothing to do with three strikes laws. According to Wikipedia, the penalty for "Minor in Possession" in California "carries a punishment of $250 and a mandatory revocation of driving privileges for one year" if there's no aggravating factors (drunk driving, drunk and disorderly, etc.) Minor in Possession is not a felony on its own.
In most states, all three strikes have to be felonies. (In fact, some states only count violent felonies.) I'm not sure where your anecdote about someone whose third strike was for Minor in Possession comes from, but it sounds to me like there were aggravating factors. (Also, if they had two felonies before the age of 21, they probably shouldn't have been on the street for w while anyway.)
The first guy (the two time felon) is hopefully going to keep his nose clean.
This is Slashdot, so I clearly didn't actually read the article. Complaining about the average being in the middle, IN A FIELD WHERE THE CORRECT METHOD TO FIND THE AVERAGE IS THE MEDIAN, is stupid. My complaint was more about jamie than about airplane pilots. I'm glad that an editor on this site can cite Michael Moore in a conversation, then complain someone you're debating against has a selection bias. That really improves the quality of this site.