Which US citizens were being held under the Iraqi Force resolution?
Not every action taken by the Federal government while engaged in a military action are a direct result of that action. The Patriot Act, for example, which I don't want to debate the merits of in this thread, granted the ability for the Feds to 'suspend' (for lack of a better word) certain constitutional rights but had no direct relation to the Iraq war.
If you mean the wire tapping, even the FISA courts have found that they were within the Presidents inherent powers and as such, legal and they had no authority to limit them (google the phrase: "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power.")
The Presidential powers to defend the country from threat do not only come into being during a time of war. While a declaration may grant him special authority that he wouldn't otherwise of had, even on those lazy Sundays in those off years when everything is peaceful, he still has certain abilities inherent in his job.
And I'm sure there have been many people detained accidentily, but focusing on single cases while ignoring the bigger picture doesn't help. There have been many recorded instance of people being arrested, prosecuted and found guilty only later to be proven innocent of the crime. Do we then use those instances as a basis to do away with the entire criminal justice system? Of course not. You determine what went wrong, and if possible, put in safeguards to prevent that same thing from happening again.
If people are improperly held, and despite what you seem to be implying, very few if any, detainees at GITMO are American citizens, then the way to fix the problem is NOT to release everyone (many of which are in deed guilty of taking direct action against the US) but to do a better job of filtering out those who are innocent through better intelligence gathering or raising the bar as to what constitutes an offence worthy of detention.
No one wants to see a person wrongly held for a crime or action they didn't commit but the question is, since no system is perfect, under the conditions that are in place, what is an acceptable percentage of error.
For example, if you know one person is an apartment building of 20 people just stole a candy bar from a corner store it would be ludicrous to arrest all 20 and then try and sort them out. The stakes vs the probability of error make the excercise not worth it. But if that same set of circumstances occured but the item was a cannister of VX nerve gas, you wouldn't think twice about grabbing all 20 and then sorting out the innocent people.
So while I believe that the detaining of 'enemy combatant' plays a very important role in the general 'war on terrorism', I also believe than there is definite room for improvement as to how the military determines who is and is not an enemy. For example, I agree that the use of a bounty system, while it may occasionally net a big fish, is probably lowering the standards too far and to continue with my example, akin to saying "we know the cannister is somewhere on Manhatten Island, so round 'em up". The 'prize' may be extremely valueble, but the error rate would be astronomical.
1)the false premise that the President made a unilateral decision to invade Iraq, against the wishes of the US Congress but the 'Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq' was passed by both the House and the Senate in 2002.
and
2)that the United States can take no military action without a formal declaration of war. That argument is ridiculous on it's face, as it would require a formal declaration of war any time that NATO or the UN or any of the many countries America has some mutual defense pact with, were in need of military assistance.
No matter how you try to spin it, this was not a case of the President's 'circumvention of Congress', this was a clear cut case of a President following the accepted method to take military action against a perceived threat to the United States. People may not like the result but the fact of the matter is Congress gave him their blessing and as you said, "If it looks like a duck...". Any changes of heart by various members of Congress afterward does not change the fact that they authorized these actions.
And from my understanding, the originalists interpretation of the constitution is to not read into it additional powers and protections that are not clearly stated (the right to privacy, 'seperation' of Church and State, etc..). According to the originalist view of the Constitution any rights or powers not directly assigned to or protected by the Federal government by the Constitution are the domain of the individual States, a view I happen to hold.
Either way, I wouldn't see this as a violation of that interpretation as the President did indeed request Congress's approval before taking action, how they chose to give it is left up to them. By adding a stipulation that a formal declaration of war be made every time a military action is taken it is you that is creating a new requirement under the Constitution where none previously existed, in clear opposition of the originalist philosophy.
While it is true that legally the Constitution give congress the sole power to 'declare war', it does not actually do much to limit the President's ability to instigate 'military actions'.
After consulting with congress and gaining their concent, which was the case of the Iraq war, the President is well within his legal rights to take military action to defend US interests without a formal declaration of war. There's even a lot of debate as to whether or not Congressional concent is even a legal hinderence to the President to act at all.
The actual declaration is a formality that is often seen as unnecessary and time consuming. In most cases, the procedure is for congress to issue a resolution supporting the President's use of force without formally declaring war. Ever hear of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?
You may want to calm down and do a little reading before declaring something unconstitutional. And stop with the excessive shouting, despite what you may think, it does nothing to help your case.
Except Yee was never detained at GITMO. He was arrested in Florida and then held at the naval base in Charleston, South Carolina.
His case does look like an over zealous move by Maj. Gen. G. Miller, but since it appears no case was actually presented, just a lot of charges, and this was an internal military and not civil action, which has it's own set rules, it's hard to use that as an example even if he was detained in Cuba.
But that's all moot anyways because he wasn't, but thanks for playing anyway.
There is a pretty simple explaination for that, as someone accidentily pointed out earlier (in a Chrisitan Science Monitor article about some Chinese which actually ran counter to their point), once detainees reach American soil they are given certain rights which no one in the government wants, namely the right to apply for asylum.
As long as they are on American controlled territory outside of the US, their treatment may be dictated by US law, but once their confinement is over they can be returned to their country of origin without much legal wrangling. If they were being held somewhere within the 50 states, then they would have to be deported, which depending on which country they are legally a citizen of, could give them grounds for aplying for sanctuary, which based on their specific case details, the US government may be legally required to offer them.
The fact that the US is currently holding upwards of 8 cleared detainees at GITMO simply because they would face persecution from their homelands should they be retured there, show that this concern is very real. While they feel for these people and will not send them back home to face punishment for their political or religous beliefs, they also don't want to give them US citizenship.
What you're complaining about is essentially the role of GITMO; evaluate questionable personnel captured on the battfield (admittedly sometimes by mistake) and determine if they pose a threat to the US either domesticaly or abroad. Once they have been cleared, which in no way is a sign of innocence, just a belief that they are no longer a threat, they are shipped back to their country of origin. Many of those release have been tried and found guilty in the courts of their home country based on the actions that lead to their being sent to GITMO in the first place and at least 12 released detainees have been recaptured or killed while taking part in further actions against the US.
As for the Chinese, the very article you cite does more to prove the case for the kindness of the US that disprove it. The US does not want to send them back to China because they may face persecution for their political or religous beliefs. They also do not want to give them asylum within the US because that would lead to a precedent that no one wants to see set so until such time as they can find a safe place to send these 'prisoners' they will hold them at GITMO. This has happened several times before as prisoners have outright refused to board awaiting planes because the felt safer at GITMO than at home.
Chances are these Chinese, now cleared, are being treated quite well, with stories more akin to these kids than of the images you seem to have stuck in your head.
But you seem to be all for the US sending them back to China where the meaning of the word 'torture' still resembles the one in the dictionary as opposed to the type of 'torture' their may receive in US hands, like 3 squares a day, prayer rugs, all the Korans they can handle, and most likely access to the sports facilities.
Is this the same Amnesty international report that was written based almost entirely on the unsubstantiated accounts of released prisoners; many of which are currently serving sentences in their home countries.
The same Amnesty International that, even with a direct invitation to visit GITMO refused because they wouldn't be given unfettered access to all the prisoners but instead would only be permitted the same level of access as a visiting US Senator.
I don't know about you, but even if I couldn't get all the info, I would at least like to see the subject of my 'report' before condemning it; unless, of course, you already know what you are going to write and wouldn't want any facts to get in your way.
I'm guessing they left out the part about the younger prisoners that were held at GITMO who have said they missed it and while they didn't like being away from their families, much preferred their time at GITMO to their current living conditions back home. Something to do with the free education, good food, snorkeling on the pristine Cuban beaches, daily football, basketball and volleyball games with the guards.
And while I'm sure not everyone is treated to this level of kindness (it is a prison after all) the type of things Amnesty International now considers torture for the purposes of their reports on US detention centers has pretty much made the word meaningless.
If you want to see reports of inhumane treatement of detainees just look up some stories about the treatment of prisoners in pretty much any French jail.
At least that's something we both agree on, the American election process is in a shambles and doesn't do that good a job of protecting the people from outside interference from either political party. I guess that's just the price you pay to have the seperation of powers between the State and Federal levels. So instead of one big fight to set the rules, you have 50, with each party, and maybe even occasionally the electorate themselves, winning some and losing some.
Up here, the seperation is a bit murkier, with the Feds having a much greater impact on how the provinces run. While that works well for nation wide interests, like elections, it can be a major hinderence for more localized issues.
I guess it's just kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing.
The DNC's own report found no evidence of orchestrated voter suppression in Ohio although a similar independant report did find fraud on the part of at least 4 Democratic friendly organizations, ACORN, America Coming Together, the AFL-CIO and the NAACP National Voter Fund, in which they submitted several thousand false registrations, including registrations for such characters as Mary Poppins and Dick Tracey. Once again, faulty math didn't help either as several districts reported more registered voters than residence of voting age. The NAACP specifically, paid several people $2/card and at least one person crack cocaine to 'collect' voter registration cards. And they all managed to register at few dead men (or as Democrats call them, their base) and submitted several dozen of cards in the same handwriting.
Now, try and figure out WHY the Republicans wanted the ability to challenge voter registrations. To make things even worse, even though they attempted to notify voters of challenges to their registrations prior to the election, a Cincinnati judge prevented that, which made election day challenges in certain areas all the more likely.
But as for the poll workers being faultless, failing to aid handicapped voters, failing to properly instruct voters as to the proper way to use the machines, running out of pencils, opening late (the last two also occured in Republican districts) all fall clearly under the responsabilities of the poll workers and are totally independant of the State. These were some of the major reported reasons for long lines and delays. Oh, and the record turn out in many areas reporting such long lines may have had something to do with it too.
And why am I, a lowly Canadian interested in what happens in our largest trading partner who happens to be about 45 minutes away from my apartment, just curious I guess. I'm also dumbfounded at the American Election system. In Canada, the federal government makes the rules that all polling stations, across the country, have to follow. Any problems can be reported to Elections Canada, and are dealt with in a non partisan way. The US system where every state makes up their own rules, and in some states each district can make up their own rules, leads inevitably to a lack of uniformity and causes these type of election problems. Here, you walk in, show a registraion card and/or drivers license, go to you particular booth, and place an 'X'. If we were to directly vote for PM, that would require 2 X's. Either way, no biggie and takes about 2-5 minutes from the time you enter to the time you leave. I do like the fixed date concept though.
It probably doesn't help that in some places every Tom Dick and Harry can place an initiative on the ballot and add another page or two to the required reading, and create even more difference between ballots from state to state. I know it would require a constitutional change, but the only way to clean up the mess that is the American voting system, is to create a Federal standard for Federal elections. State elections, well there you can do whatever floats your boat.
You're really reaching now aren't you going with the whole "It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is." defense. Truly a classic, but it didn't work then and it doesn't work now. The meaning is quite clear.
Either way, any abiguity in those statements still doesn't explain how your counter argument was that I claimed that "state legislatures are controlled by democrats." As you can't seem to understand the meaning of the word 'may' I understand your difficulty in understanding the use of quotation marks. Just to help you out, in general, quotation marks are used to distinguish a quote from the rest of the posts text. When including a statement in quotation marks in your post it is assumed that the quoted line comes from either a previous post, or from some common expression or widely know statement. As your quote doesn't appear anywhere in the preceding posts, I have to assume you meant to use them as an example of one of the latter cases. I'm sorry, but being Canadian I'm not familiar with any widely known expression that includes "state legislatures are controlled by democrats.".
I guess I'm just lucky that you came along during an odd convergence of a slow work week with an equally slow blog week. Honestly, if Rotten Tomotoes had been working properly, this post would have ended after the word 'clear'. Well 5 minutes down, only another 4 hours 18 minutes to go.
I've already stated that while I believe Republicans will try to tip the scales in their favor, they are more willing to work within the rule of law to do so (i.e Redistricting). My assertion is that when it comes to illegal actions in order to win elections the Democrats have time and time again shown that they are far and away the most active, although their inability to do math is really hurting their ability to cover their tracks (i.e more votes than voters is not a good thing). If you don't accept my examples from the past election then just look up anything on the Nixon/Kennedy election (for example, a Texas poll with only 4900 voters had results with 6200 votes, 75% for Kennedy, and a second with only 86 votes recorded, somehow ended up 147 for Kennedy and 24 for Nixon).
And just to clarify, if you read any of my comments, I stated the state legislatures were controlled by the Republicans, backing up the original comments claims, but added the fact that troubled polls were generally controlled by the Democrats, as it is usually the party with the largest representative base in the area that runs the polling stations (a very stupid system IMHO). So my argument is that the reason the Democratic areas had polling problems was not in fact interference from State legislators as was the original claim (as they generally have little control over individual polling statiions) but incompetance on the part of the local Democratic teams running the polling stations.
BTW, it's not a good idea to call someone "functionally retarded" while displaying for all to see your inability to read simple statements, or are these too tough to understand?
"Republicans may control the various State governments" "Republicans may indeed control the State legislatures"
Ok if you need a map I'll try and draw it for you.
From Original post:
"As for who was more partisan, consider the relentless smear campaigns carried out against Bush opponents.."
"The Republicans were simply more partisan, beating on the system without regard for the spirit and principle of the rules to get the result they wanted."
"Who is more partisan? Republicans. One of the great failures of the Democratic party in the last 5 years has been to underestimate the ruthlessness and lack of principle on the part of the Republicans."
"Consider the (more subtle) shenanigans in the 2004 election, particularly in Ohio,..."
Now, my response was to point out that while indeed Republicans are indeed partisan, Democrats are no shrinking violets in the area of political partisanship. I questioned his lack of principles assertion, that in my opinion implied a certain superiority on the part of the Dems, by pointing out both cases where Democrats had crossed the line and where a Republican had, pointing out that while the Dems who commit such acts are routinely glorified, the Republicans are both rebuked by the opposition as well as their own party members.
In my second reply I then questioned his assertions that the 'shenanigans' in 2004 were due to Republican interference by pointing out the simple fact that while Republicans may indeed control the State legislatures, it is the local riding associations, the majority of the ones in question being run by Democrats, that were in charge of the actual operations of the polls, thereby negating his argument.
I'm not in the mood to do a line by line breakdown, as you seem to require, so feel free to move on to your next attempt to discredit my posts, I'm sure I've misspelled more than a few words (a word of warning though, I'm Canadian so any 'ou''s in the place of 'o's are not necessarily spelling mistakes this side of the border). That'll teach me.
Seriously, it feels like I'm debating with my old Economics Prof. In his class 2+3+4 did not equal 9 unless it first equaled 5+4. Everything had to be spelt out the longest way possible. Dr. Asadula, it that you?
And honestly, if you cannot figure out the tone of the original post after reading his closing paragraph, then I would strongly suggest taking a remedial English course. He's really not leaving much to the imagination.
You may want to brush up on your reading comprehension. While not referencing every point, I was more expanding on his overall tone, namely that Dems are victims of the evil Repubs. That are directly responding to his last paragraph.
Of course if you want me to get more directly involved with his core arguments that Repubs try to disenfranchise voters while Dems only care about the purity of the system I could point out that the majority of cases of election fraud have been commited by either Democratic party members or sypathizers. Unless of course you truly believe that the dead legally vote in Washington and rental truck tires are inherently prone to popping on election days. Add that to the fact that while the Republicans may control the various State governments, the majority of districts where the types of problems with lines, too few machines, etc.. that he mentioned occur are in areas where the Democrats control the voting process and you might come away with the idea that the reason they try and cheat is that the Dems can't win even when they control the process.
Is there are question as to why it is almost uniformly Democrats who oppose any form of validation added to the voting process, such as picture ID. My point is that they could care less about the process, they're just sorry they lost. And don't think I'm saying the Repubs care any more about fairness, they just happen to use more legal means to tip things in their favor (i.e. redistricting).
Wow, have you been missing a lot of in the last few years. You've not only drunk the Democratic Kool-aid, I'm pretty sure you're head is still in the barrel.
Who is the most partisan? Sure Republicans attack Dems as Dems attack Republicans, whenever people have a chance to gain power their will always be people who want to oppose them. The big difference is that on the Republican side, most of the attacks are from independent people who may or may not even be official party members and not the actual elected officials, while on the Dems side, even though you have those same types of outside groups (although they spend exponentially more than their Republican counterparts) the elected party officials routinely use the slightest difference of opinion, or even cases where there is no difference, to attack Bush, or the Republicans at large. Just look at Polosi, Dean, Hillary (but only on odd days, on evens she's a 'centrist'), Kennedy, Kerry etc.. Look at the launch of the renewed draft legislation, by democrats, to try and scare young people away from the right. Look at how they handled two Supreme court judicial appointments, or did you happen to miss Kennedy's odd tirade against Sam Alito, a judge who every legal expert in the country, Democrat, Republican or other, said was an outstanding nominee.
Senior Democrat officials are so partisan they are actually proud of their obstructionist methods even in cases like Social Security where they were invited to offer alternatives but instead choose to attack Bush and Co.
While the Republicans have their Rick Santorums (who if I remember correctly actually formally apologized for his asinine comments) the Dems have, well with the exception of a few truly centrist members, pretty much their entire party. And while Santorum was ripped apart by his own party for making stupid Nazi references, Democrats are routinely praised and honoured for saying much worse.
Talking about lack of principles? When was the last national funeral you've seen the Republicans try and turn into a campaign stop? When Bill Clinton is the most restrained Democrat in the room, you know your parties losing it. When was the last time you heard a Republican official or party member publicly call members of the opposing party 'Uncle Toms' and 'House N@##$%^' or 'Oreo' without the slightest rebuke from those in authority. Who was the last Republican former President or VP who travelled around the globe to insult their country and its current administration.
If you think that the Republicans are the bullies picking on the poor helpless Democrats that you should seriously wake up and smell the coffee. Both parties routinely attack each other but from what I can see, while the Republicans are at least still trying to put a nice face on it, the Democrats have officially given up any semblance of civility and are storming ahead full force to try and impress what they see as their base. The problem is this plays too much to the far left and leaves those center left people, who may actually have a few Republican friends, no one to vote for. Of course then, because your message is so far removed from the mainstream that it fails to resonate with the vast majority, you complain that the other side isn't playing fair.
This is Slashdot, there is no room for that type of talk here.
Don't try to inject your logic and unbiased review of the article into this discussion. Can't you see we're in full on Bush bashing mode here.
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Seriously, the guys an idiot for forging credentials he did not have. It's been done before, it will be done again and by people on both sides of the political divide. It's the type of thing you end up with when you give the responsibility to appoint hundreds or even thousands of positions to one person.
If they actually used the types of strict background checks they should, the number of these types of cases would decrease (even then they would never totally dissappear) but the backlog for appointments would be in the decades. About the only solution is to minimize the numbers of appointed positions and try to let the different agencies run their own process to fill these types of jobs. While some jobs require Presidential appointments (ambassadorships and judges come to mind), the vast majority are simply a way for whichever administration's in power to spread their political influence.
Of course you forget to mention that all former predictions were based on overflowing the levees and not the levees actually breaking, which would have resulted in widespread flooding but not of the type we saw in Katrina. I.E. a 'one shot' flood and not one that was sustained by constantly flowing waters even after the storm had passed.
But the again, why involve the facts when they get in the way of such a good partisan attack.
And also a good sign that the author of said quote is in that lower half of which he speaks. I figured especially on Slashdot, this type of things wouldn't be repeated all the time.
An average is a soft number, an descriptive value that can be used for any number of reasons, but not to break a group into two equal portions as it is susceptible to outliers and other aberrations, has 'Old School' taught us nothing?!?
Just do the math yourself, and just to insert some more needless politics into the debate, lets say you have a room with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats. Each of the Repubs has an IQ of 110 while the 2 Dems have IQ of 95 and 115 (feel free to swap party affiliations if it makes you feel better).
So how many are above the average IQ of 109?
So to be more accurate....
50% of Americans are below the median intelligence, not the average. But then again, it just doesn't have the same ring to it, so, I guess, carry on.
(Truth be told, I don't really care. I'm just bored at work and didn't feel like jumping into the whole International vs. Domestic or FISA vs. Presidential Powers topics.)
Creating a budget surplus by not paying your expenses is not very sound fiscal management and that is essentially what has been happening in Canada for the past 12 years. In that time the enourmous amounts of debt have been transfered to the provinces through reduced transfer payments and the cuts in national programs such as military spending have dropped to an abysmal level all so someone can use their managerial accounting skills to point to a positive number on the balance sheet.
Our own emergency response team, DART, supposedly one of the better funded and equiped military groups, can't even be deployed until weeks after a disaster strikes, and even then sometimes not at all, all because of funding problems and the fact that the Canadian military doesn't have adequate transport for what equipement we do have.
We created the idea of Peacekeepers and we can't meet the minimal levels required to meet our UN obligations on that front. All the while, our service men and women fly aircraft and ride in vehicles, with the exception of some of our jeeps, that were designed and built, sometimes decades before they were even born. Our federal leaders have repeatedly refused to even ride on the very helicopters they order the troops to use, instead opting to use British or American transport. In at least one case refusing to board a helicopter that had been specifically sent to pick them up, and instead making a special request to a foreign government to give them a ride to a Canadian ship which was not even equipped to properly handle the other helo.
So please, don't try to use a positive balance sheet to try and make things look rosey for the future. All the feds have done for the past 12 years (and for some things much longer) is pass the buck and delay paying for essential services. It's like not changing the oil in your car. You may save $50 once or twice a year, but at some point the engine is going to seize and that $100-$200 you managed to save won't quite cover the $30,000 for a new car.
As for funding, recent reports comparing each provinces wait times versus money spent on health care have shown that in all but one case (and I can't remember which one but I think it may have been Alberta), increases in funding have not in any way impacted wait times or service levels.
But that's all besides the point. I have already stated that I don't believe we should copy the American health care system but believe we should move closer to the systems the major European nations use; a public system with private options. That type of system has the benefits of improving health care service availability as well as reducing per capita cost.
For example, if Ontario allowed private MRI clinics but put restrictions in place to require OHIP (the Ontario medical plan) only billing during the hours of, say, 8am to 6pm, but then allowed private billing after those hours, with the added condition that during those public hours the machine would have to be operating on par with a publicly operated machine (so no slacking off during the 'cheap' hours), private MRI clinics would be popping up wherever current logjams exist and would greatly reduce, if not eliminate the current delays. So if John or Jane Doe requires a test, they can schedule one at a clinic of their choosing with no worries about payment, but if Mr. of Mrs. Moneybags want a test done because they have the sniffles, they can go to the same clinic, after 6:00 and pay whatever fee the market will bear. The public at large is provided better access to services while the clinics themselves can make a healthy profit, pardon the pun. Everybody wins.
A similar system could be expanded to include Doctors, especially those who are experts in their fields. This would allow the doctors to make money off their hard work, while at the same time keeping them availble to the public system. Right now, while doctors can still do ok for themselves in Canada, if they actually become good at what they do, it is mostly just out of the goodness of their hearts that they don't move to some private clinic in the States to make the really big bucks. Well that and the general litigious nature of medicine in the US.
Just to go a bit off topic and add my 2 cents to your health care example; the Canadian health care system may be cheaper on a per capita basis than the American (in fact the same can be said for every other country in the world) but that doesn't necessarily mean it is a shing example of government efficiency.
As a supposedly 100% public system (there are varying degrees of private participation across the country), what we save on cost we sacrifice on service. Procedures and tests routinely done in the States on the same day or later in the same week can take several weeks or even months in Canada to have performed. Until we can match the available level of service (I am am well aware that those in the US without insurance do not generally have access to these services... period) it's hard to say which of the two systems is working better.
If we bring the EU into the picture we see that the best systems seem to involve both private and public interaction. A little more private involvement to add competition and through that, improvements in service availability, with a signifigant government involvement to ensure standards and access for everyone.
While I'm not advocating a 'fend for yourself' system, as is generally the case in the US, I also don't think that our current Canadian system of dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator is anything to be gloating over.
Unless you were personally holding the defective power unit when it overheated, thereby causing 2nd or 3rd degree burns, not be able to play with your new toy for a week or two is not grounds for emotional stress or pain and suffering.
I've had to deal with the microsoft hardware department a couple times myself for my mouse (plus a few times for work but I'll keep the corporate support seperate). Because of the way the cable was fed into the mouse it had a nasty habit of breaking the wires and causing the mouse to behave irratically. Both times I called them they sent me a brand new mouse, free of charge, and never asked for the old one back. The last times I even got one of the newer styles and haven't had a problem since. I've never had a hassle from them and never once thought about a lawsuit. From the sounds of it, their XBox support is about the same.
Anyone aware of the XBox or PS history should know that by buying the systems on the release date they are just asking for trouble. Best to wait for revision 2 or 3 to come around. Thats being said, I haven't heard the same about Nintendo and depending on price I will probably buy a Revolution as soon as it's out, but I also wouldn't be too upset if something like this happened then.
When you buy leading edge tech, you've essentially signed up to be unpaid testers. A lot of problems can only be discovered when you move from a few hundred test machines in controlled environments to thousands of machines out in the wild.
You generally shouldn't have to pay when going into an out of province clinic, unless Quebec is involved. The province's health plans, with the exception of Quebec, have a standing arangement under which they agree to pay the service fees as dictated by the province in which you receive treatment, even if the fee in that province is higher than the one from you native province. Essentially, if a routine visit costs $50 in Ontario and $75 in Newfoundland, and you are in NF on vacation and have to run in to the doctor, OHIP (the Ontarion health care plan) will pay the NF doctor $75 and not their usual $50. Quebec only pays what their fee happens to be for the procedure and as that is generally pretty stingy, most non-Quebec doctors will require upfront payment to ensure they get their full amount.
That being said, the clinic/hospital may charge you if they have had problems with payments in the past from your particular provincial medical plan but it should not be the norm. AFAIK, I don't believe there is anything in place to legally dictate their procedures one way or the other.
And I agree, the grandparents story doesn't sit well with me either. I've only had to go to the doctor 3 times in the last 8 years (at least twice because I was feeling terrible and also bored at work but that third time, well I can just say that benign positional vertigo is a lot more interesting than it sounds) and the longest I had to wait was about 45 minutes. Of course, unless I'm in need of actual surgery I tend to think of going to a clinic first and not the full fledged hospital.
As for the queue for MRIs and the such for serious medical problems, it is definately a mess. I know of a friend of a friend (I only met her once in passing) who was diagnosed with terminal cancer a year and a half ago and the earliest she could get in for the necessary tests to pinpoint the tumors for more accurate treatment was a month after the date the doctor told her she would be dead by. She was given 4-5 months to live and the earliest opening on the critical list was 6 months away. The doctor was actually telling her to buy Christmas gifts for her kids in July and the earliest she could get tested was in January. In the end the additional tests probably wouldn't have helped a whole lot, but the entire situation was a terrible indictment on how our system is failing.
My regular highspeed upstream is 100+ KB/s according to my Bell profile, although I sometimes hit in the low teens according to my line monitoring software.
And I know how it affects my d/l speed because my brother is constantly leeching from my computer at 50KB/s plus my P2P software uses roughly 25-40 KB/s and then whatever is left is for my general browsing. None of this prevents me from d/l'ing simultaneously at 300+KB/s. It's not the least bit unusual to see my output in the 90's with no discernable affect on my d/l speed.
On Rogers, which I had from the time it was launched, till about a year ago when they started with the caps, when someone was grabbing anything from me at more than 20KB/s my d/l speed would be lucky to hit 100. And if they were actually hitting the max 45KB/s, my d/l speed would top out at about 5-10. I had a friend try this out last week on his Rogers and he had the exact same numbers.
I can't tell you how many times I had to use the software limit to restrict my outputs to under 20KB/s on Rogers just so I could do some browsing let alone d/l anything signifigant. In the year since I've switched to Bell I can't think of anytime I've done this and I routinely D/L 110+ GB/month.
And this is just the basic highspeed with Bell as my line stats are actually pretty bad and I can't even get Ultra service.
The Rogers Faq explaining their decision.
Of course, the fact their network is in many places being severely burdened by one or two users leeching everthing from the alt.binary newsgroups has nothing to do with it. =)
This was about the only advantage Rogers had over Bell (our major DSL provider). They both have about the same speed at any given price point (although Bell has twice the upload speed for regular high speed), but Bell acts more like a full duplex line (u/l speed does not affect d/l's while on Rogers u/l'ing at 50KB/s can limit your d/l's to single digits) and while Rogers is capped (60GB for regular and now 100GB for 'Extreme') Bell is unlimited.
The fact that Rogers still has newsgroup (although they've limited dl speeds to 30KB/s) was about the only reason I was thinking about moving back. Bells groups have retention times that can be measured in minutes, not days and it almost impossible to get a full post on a Bell server even if it's only text, let alone a binary.
Since this will most likely only really upset heavy downloaders (which Rogers is more than happy to get rid of anyway) the average user who is paying $50/month to check their email will be almost completely unaffected. Probably a good business decision for Rogers but that still doesn't mean we have to like it.
No matter how I try your link, or links on Salon proper, I cannot get to the article you are pointing too.
I'll admit it looks like my timeline was a little mixed up with the various declarations of 'states of emergency'.
On Friday Blanco declared a State of Emergency. On Saturday, Bush followed suit to allow for pre-positioning of Federal resources. Sometime between Bush declaring and the Blanco/Nagin press conference (like I said I can't see to read your post but I haven't seen anywhere else indicating it was just minutes before) Bush called Blanco to urge an evac. That much she admitted during the press conference.
The confusion about the delay comes from the fact that the LA/NO emergency response plans call for evacs to be called at the 72 hour point (preliminary evac), 60 hour point (special needs evac) and 48 hour point (general evac). Nagin apparently issued a preliminary evac order a little over 30 hours prior to landfall, and did not move it to a mandatory order until approximately 12 hours prior to landfall. All this even though the emergency had been decalred at the 72 hour point (State level) and 48 hour point (National level).
Even accounting for the fact that weather maps did not confirm Katrina's path until Saturday morning, thats still an approximate 36 hour delay in ordering the mandatory evacs. Nagin admitted the delay was so that they could investigate what legal liabilities (with regards to closing hotels and such) they faced in ordering a mandatory evac. A process they started Saturday evening.
Actually I believe your dates are a little off with regards to the evac. Bush suggested a evac order be issued on the Saturday (possibly even as early as Friday)prior to the storm, an order that Blanco agreed with and requested Mayor Nagins to initiate (it's actually part of both the LA and NO emergency plans but for some reason neither the Mayor or Governor seemed to be following those). The problem was the Mayor waited for 24 hours before issueing the order and then neither the Mayor or the Governor provided adequate services to accomplish the evac (witness the unused buses (specifically mentioned in the emergency plans), failure to mobilize the National Guard or State Police).
As for the military issue, from one of the people responding to your post, while the CiC can authorize the use of the US Military (which Bush did) he/she does not actually fully control their actions once mobilized. From the moment they reach the disaster zone their actions within that zone are directed by local authorities and ultimately the states Governor, as are all other formal relief efforts (look at the the Red Cross page for insight on this).
The President of the United States, while a convienent target, under the Constitution has very little actual authority in a disaster situation, except to allow the local government to use federal resources. To be part of the US, individual states surrender certain rights and freedoms, which are clearly spelt out, but all others, including disaster handling, remain solely their domain. That being said, there is a process for a Governor to hand over control to the Federal government, but as of today, despite a request from the President, Governor Blanco has refused to do that.
Slashdot Mirror
Which US citizens were being held under the Iraqi Force resolution?
Not every action taken by the Federal government while engaged in a military action are a direct result of that action. The Patriot Act, for example, which I don't want to debate the merits of in this thread, granted the ability for the Feds to 'suspend' (for lack of a better word) certain constitutional rights but had no direct relation to the Iraq war.
If you mean the wire tapping, even the FISA courts have found that they were within the Presidents inherent powers and as such, legal and they had no authority to limit them (google the phrase: "we take for granted that the President does have that authority and, assuming that is so, FISA could not encroach on the President's constitutional power.")
The Presidential powers to defend the country from threat do not only come into being during a time of war. While a declaration may grant him special authority that he wouldn't otherwise of had, even on those lazy Sundays in those off years when everything is peaceful, he still has certain abilities inherent in his job.
And I'm sure there have been many people detained accidentily, but focusing on single cases while ignoring the bigger picture doesn't help. There have been many recorded instance of people being arrested, prosecuted and found guilty only later to be proven innocent of the crime. Do we then use those instances as a basis to do away with the entire criminal justice system? Of course not. You determine what went wrong, and if possible, put in safeguards to prevent that same thing from happening again.
If people are improperly held, and despite what you seem to be implying, very few if any, detainees at GITMO are American citizens, then the way to fix the problem is NOT to release everyone (many of which are in deed guilty of taking direct action against the US) but to do a better job of filtering out those who are innocent through better intelligence gathering or raising the bar as to what constitutes an offence worthy of detention.
No one wants to see a person wrongly held for a crime or action they didn't commit but the question is, since no system is perfect, under the conditions that are in place, what is an acceptable percentage of error.
For example, if you know one person is an apartment building of 20 people just stole a candy bar from a corner store it would be ludicrous to arrest all 20 and then try and sort them out. The stakes vs the probability of error make the excercise not worth it. But if that same set of circumstances occured but the item was a cannister of VX nerve gas, you wouldn't think twice about grabbing all 20 and then sorting out the innocent people.
So while I believe that the detaining of 'enemy combatant' plays a very important role in the general 'war on terrorism', I also believe than there is definite room for improvement as to how the military determines who is and is not an enemy. For example, I agree that the use of a bounty system, while it may occasionally net a big fish, is probably lowering the standards too far and to continue with my example, akin to saying "we know the cannister is somewhere on Manhatten Island, so round 'em up". The 'prize' may be extremely valueble, but the error rate would be astronomical.
Your argument is based on two key concepts:
...". Any changes of heart by various members of Congress afterward does not change the fact that they authorized these actions.
1)the false premise that the President made a unilateral decision to invade Iraq, against the wishes of the US Congress but the 'Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq' was passed by both the House and the Senate in 2002.
and
2)that the United States can take no military action without a formal declaration of war. That argument is ridiculous on it's face, as it would require a formal declaration of war any time that NATO or the UN or any of the many countries America has some mutual defense pact with, were in need of military assistance.
No matter how you try to spin it, this was not a case of the President's 'circumvention of Congress', this was a clear cut case of a President following the accepted method to take military action against a perceived threat to the United States. People may not like the result but the fact of the matter is Congress gave him their blessing and as you said, "If it looks like a duck
And from my understanding, the originalists interpretation of the constitution is to not read into it additional powers and protections that are not clearly stated (the right to privacy, 'seperation' of Church and State, etc..). According to the originalist view of the Constitution any rights or powers not directly assigned to or protected by the Federal government by the Constitution are the domain of the individual States, a view I happen to hold.
Either way, I wouldn't see this as a violation of that interpretation as the President did indeed request Congress's approval before taking action, how they chose to give it is left up to them. By adding a stipulation that a formal declaration of war be made every time a military action is taken it is you that is creating a new requirement under the Constitution where none previously existed, in clear opposition of the originalist philosophy.
A small point of contention.
While it is true that legally the Constitution give congress the sole power to 'declare war', it does not actually do much to limit the President's ability to instigate 'military actions'.
After consulting with congress and gaining their concent, which was the case of the Iraq war, the President is well within his legal rights to take military action to defend US interests without a formal declaration of war. There's even a lot of debate as to whether or not Congressional concent is even a legal hinderence to the President to act at all.
The actual declaration is a formality that is often seen as unnecessary and time consuming. In most cases, the procedure is for congress to issue a resolution supporting the President's use of force without formally declaring war. Ever hear of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution?
You may want to calm down and do a little reading before declaring something unconstitutional. And stop with the excessive shouting, despite what you may think, it does nothing to help your case.
Except Yee was never detained at GITMO. He was arrested in Florida and then held at the naval base in Charleston, South Carolina.
His case does look like an over zealous move by Maj. Gen. G. Miller, but since it appears no case was actually presented, just a lot of charges, and this was an internal military and not civil action, which has it's own set rules, it's hard to use that as an example even if he was detained in Cuba.
But that's all moot anyways because he wasn't, but thanks for playing anyway.
There is a pretty simple explaination for that, as someone accidentily pointed out earlier (in a Chrisitan Science Monitor article about some Chinese which actually ran counter to their point), once detainees reach American soil they are given certain rights which no one in the government wants, namely the right to apply for asylum.
As long as they are on American controlled territory outside of the US, their treatment may be dictated by US law, but once their confinement is over they can be returned to their country of origin without much legal wrangling. If they were being held somewhere within the 50 states, then they would have to be deported, which depending on which country they are legally a citizen of, could give them grounds for aplying for sanctuary, which based on their specific case details, the US government may be legally required to offer them.
The fact that the US is currently holding upwards of 8 cleared detainees at GITMO simply because they would face persecution from their homelands should they be retured there, show that this concern is very real. While they feel for these people and will not send them back home to face punishment for their political or religous beliefs, they also don't want to give them US citizenship.
What you're complaining about is essentially the role of GITMO; evaluate questionable personnel captured on the battfield (admittedly sometimes by mistake) and determine if they pose a threat to the US either domesticaly or abroad. Once they have been cleared, which in no way is a sign of innocence, just a belief that they are no longer a threat, they are shipped back to their country of origin. Many of those release have been tried and found guilty in the courts of their home country based on the actions that lead to their being sent to GITMO in the first place and at least 12 released detainees have been recaptured or killed while taking part in further actions against the US.
As for the Chinese, the very article you cite does more to prove the case for the kindness of the US that disprove it. The US does not want to send them back to China because they may face persecution for their political or religous beliefs. They also do not want to give them asylum within the US because that would lead to a precedent that no one wants to see set so until such time as they can find a safe place to send these 'prisoners' they will hold them at GITMO. This has happened several times before as prisoners have outright refused to board awaiting planes because the felt safer at GITMO than at home.
Chances are these Chinese, now cleared, are being treated quite well, with stories more akin to these kids than of the images you seem to have stuck in your head.
But you seem to be all for the US sending them back to China where the meaning of the word 'torture' still resembles the one in the dictionary as opposed to the type of 'torture' their may receive in US hands, like 3 squares a day, prayer rugs, all the Korans they can handle, and most likely access to the sports facilities.
Is this the same Amnesty international report that was written based almost entirely on the unsubstantiated accounts of released prisoners; many of which are currently serving sentences in their home countries.
The same Amnesty International that, even with a direct invitation to visit GITMO refused because they wouldn't be given unfettered access to all the prisoners but instead would only be permitted the same level of access as a visiting US Senator.
I don't know about you, but even if I couldn't get all the info, I would at least like to see the subject of my 'report' before condemning it; unless, of course, you already know what you are going to write and wouldn't want any facts to get in your way.
I'm guessing they left out the part about the younger prisoners that were held at GITMO who have said they missed it and while they didn't like being away from their families, much preferred their time at GITMO to their current living conditions back home. Something to do with the free education, good food, snorkeling on the pristine Cuban beaches, daily football, basketball and volleyball games with the guards.
And while I'm sure not everyone is treated to this level of kindness (it is a prison after all) the type of things Amnesty International now considers torture for the purposes of their reports on US detention centers has pretty much made the word meaningless.
If you want to see reports of inhumane treatement of detainees just look up some stories about the treatment of prisoners in pretty much any French jail.
At least that's something we both agree on, the American election process is in a shambles and doesn't do that good a job of protecting the people from outside interference from either political party. I guess that's just the price you pay to have the seperation of powers between the State and Federal levels. So instead of one big fight to set the rules, you have 50, with each party, and maybe even occasionally the electorate themselves, winning some and losing some.
Up here, the seperation is a bit murkier, with the Feds having a much greater impact on how the provinces run. While that works well for nation wide interests, like elections, it can be a major hinderence for more localized issues.
I guess it's just kind of a damned if you do, damned if you don't type of thing.
The DNC's own report found no evidence of orchestrated voter suppression in Ohio although a similar independant report did find fraud on the part of at least 4 Democratic friendly organizations, ACORN, America Coming Together, the AFL-CIO and the NAACP National Voter Fund, in which they submitted several thousand false registrations, including registrations for such characters as Mary Poppins and Dick Tracey. Once again, faulty math didn't help either as several districts reported more registered voters than residence of voting age. The NAACP specifically, paid several people $2/card and at least one person crack cocaine to 'collect' voter registration cards. And they all managed to register at few dead men (or as Democrats call them, their base) and submitted several dozen of cards in the same handwriting.
Now, try and figure out WHY the Republicans wanted the ability to challenge voter registrations. To make things even worse, even though they attempted to notify voters of challenges to their registrations prior to the election, a Cincinnati judge prevented that, which made election day challenges in certain areas all the more likely.
But as for the poll workers being faultless, failing to aid handicapped voters, failing to properly instruct voters as to the proper way to use the machines, running out of pencils, opening late (the last two also occured in Republican districts) all fall clearly under the responsabilities of the poll workers and are totally independant of the State. These were some of the major reported reasons for long lines and delays. Oh, and the record turn out in many areas reporting such long lines may have had something to do with it too.
And why am I, a lowly Canadian interested in what happens in our largest trading partner who happens to be about 45 minutes away from my apartment, just curious I guess. I'm also dumbfounded at the American Election system. In Canada, the federal government makes the rules that all polling stations, across the country, have to follow. Any problems can be reported to Elections Canada, and are dealt with in a non partisan way. The US system where every state makes up their own rules, and in some states each district can make up their own rules, leads inevitably to a lack of uniformity and causes these type of election problems. Here, you walk in, show a registraion card and/or drivers license, go to you particular booth, and place an 'X'. If we were to directly vote for PM, that would require 2 X's. Either way, no biggie and takes about 2-5 minutes from the time you enter to the time you leave. I do like the fixed date concept though.
It probably doesn't help that in some places every Tom Dick and Harry can place an initiative on the ballot and add another page or two to the required reading, and create even more difference between ballots from state to state. I know it would require a constitutional change, but the only way to clean up the mess that is the American voting system, is to create a Federal standard for Federal elections. State elections, well there you can do whatever floats your boat.
You're really reaching now aren't you going with the whole "It depends on what the meaning of the words 'is' is." defense. Truly a classic, but it didn't work then and it doesn't work now. The meaning is quite clear.
Either way, any abiguity in those statements still doesn't explain how your counter argument was that I claimed that "state legislatures are controlled by democrats." As you can't seem to understand the meaning of the word 'may' I understand your difficulty in understanding the use of quotation marks. Just to help you out, in general, quotation marks are used to distinguish a quote from the rest of the posts text. When including a statement in quotation marks in your post it is assumed that the quoted line comes from either a previous post, or from some common expression or widely know statement. As your quote doesn't appear anywhere in the preceding posts, I have to assume you meant to use them as an example of one of the latter cases. I'm sorry, but being Canadian I'm not familiar with any widely known expression that includes "state legislatures are controlled by democrats.".
I guess I'm just lucky that you came along during an odd convergence of a slow work week with an equally slow blog week. Honestly, if Rotten Tomotoes had been working properly, this post would have ended after the word 'clear'. Well 5 minutes down, only another 4 hours 18 minutes to go.
I've already stated that while I believe Republicans will try to tip the scales in their favor, they are more willing to work within the rule of law to do so (i.e Redistricting). My assertion is that when it comes to illegal actions in order to win elections the Democrats have time and time again shown that they are far and away the most active, although their inability to do math is really hurting their ability to cover their tracks (i.e more votes than voters is not a good thing). If you don't accept my examples from the past election then just look up anything on the Nixon/Kennedy election (for example, a Texas poll with only 4900 voters had results with 6200 votes, 75% for Kennedy, and a second with only 86 votes recorded, somehow ended up 147 for Kennedy and 24 for Nixon).
And just to clarify, if you read any of my comments, I stated the state legislatures were controlled by the Republicans, backing up the original comments claims, but added the fact that troubled polls were generally controlled by the Democrats, as it is usually the party with the largest representative base in the area that runs the polling stations (a very stupid system IMHO). So my argument is that the reason the Democratic areas had polling problems was not in fact interference from State legislators as was the original claim (as they generally have little control over individual polling statiions) but incompetance on the part of the local Democratic teams running the polling stations.
BTW, it's not a good idea to call someone "functionally retarded" while displaying for all to see your inability to read simple statements, or are these too tough to understand?
"Republicans may control the various State governments"
"Republicans may indeed control the State legislatures"
Ok if you need a map I'll try and draw it for you.
From Original post:
"As for who was more partisan, consider the relentless smear campaigns carried out against Bush opponents.."
"The Republicans were simply more partisan, beating on the system without regard for the spirit and principle of the rules to get the result they wanted."
"Who is more partisan? Republicans. One of the great failures of the Democratic party in the last 5 years has been to underestimate the ruthlessness and lack of principle on the part of the Republicans."
"Consider the (more subtle) shenanigans in the 2004 election, particularly in Ohio,..."
Now, my response was to point out that while indeed Republicans are indeed partisan, Democrats are no shrinking violets in the area of political partisanship. I questioned his lack of principles assertion, that in my opinion implied a certain superiority on the part of the Dems, by pointing out both cases where Democrats had crossed the line and where a Republican had, pointing out that while the Dems who commit such acts are routinely glorified, the Republicans are both rebuked by the opposition as well as their own party members.
In my second reply I then questioned his assertions that the 'shenanigans' in 2004 were due to Republican interference by pointing out the simple fact that while Republicans may indeed control the State legislatures, it is the local riding associations, the majority of the ones in question being run by Democrats, that were in charge of the actual operations of the polls, thereby negating his argument.
I'm not in the mood to do a line by line breakdown, as you seem to require, so feel free to move on to your next attempt to discredit my posts, I'm sure I've misspelled more than a few words (a word of warning though, I'm Canadian so any 'ou''s in the place of 'o's are not necessarily spelling mistakes this side of the border). That'll teach me.
Seriously, it feels like I'm debating with my old Economics Prof. In his class 2+3+4 did not equal 9 unless it first equaled 5+4. Everything had to be spelt out the longest way possible. Dr. Asadula, it that you?
And honestly, if you cannot figure out the tone of the original post after reading his closing paragraph, then I would strongly suggest taking a remedial English course. He's really not leaving much to the imagination.
You may want to brush up on your reading comprehension. While not referencing every point, I was more expanding on his overall tone, namely that Dems are victims of the evil Repubs. That are directly responding to his last paragraph.
Of course if you want me to get more directly involved with his core arguments that Repubs try to disenfranchise voters while Dems only care about the purity of the system I could point out that the majority of cases of election fraud have been commited by either Democratic party members or sypathizers. Unless of course you truly believe that the dead legally vote in Washington and rental truck tires are inherently prone to popping on election days. Add that to the fact that while the Republicans may control the various State governments, the majority of districts where the types of problems with lines, too few machines, etc.. that he mentioned occur are in areas where the Democrats control the voting process and you might come away with the idea that the reason they try and cheat is that the Dems can't win even when they control the process.
Is there are question as to why it is almost uniformly Democrats who oppose any form of validation added to the voting process, such as picture ID. My point is that they could care less about the process, they're just sorry they lost. And don't think I'm saying the Repubs care any more about fairness, they just happen to use more legal means to tip things in their favor (i.e. redistricting).
Wow, have you been missing a lot of in the last few years. You've not only drunk the Democratic Kool-aid, I'm pretty sure you're head is still in the barrel.
Who is the most partisan? Sure Republicans attack Dems as Dems attack Republicans, whenever people have a chance to gain power their will always be people who want to oppose them. The big difference is that on the Republican side, most of the attacks are from independent people who may or may not even be official party members and not the actual elected officials, while on the Dems side, even though you have those same types of outside groups (although they spend exponentially more than their Republican counterparts) the elected party officials routinely use the slightest difference of opinion, or even cases where there is no difference, to attack Bush, or the Republicans at large. Just look at Polosi, Dean, Hillary (but only on odd days, on evens she's a 'centrist'), Kennedy, Kerry etc.. Look at the launch of the renewed draft legislation, by democrats, to try and scare young people away from the right. Look at how they handled two Supreme court judicial appointments, or did you happen to miss Kennedy's odd tirade against Sam Alito, a judge who every legal expert in the country, Democrat, Republican or other, said was an outstanding nominee.
Senior Democrat officials are so partisan they are actually proud of their obstructionist methods even in cases like Social Security where they were invited to offer alternatives but instead choose to attack Bush and Co.
While the Republicans have their Rick Santorums (who if I remember correctly actually formally apologized for his asinine comments) the Dems have, well with the exception of a few truly centrist members, pretty much their entire party. And while Santorum was ripped apart by his own party for making stupid Nazi references, Democrats are routinely praised and honoured for saying much worse.
Talking about lack of principles? When was the last national funeral you've seen the Republicans try and turn into a campaign stop? When Bill Clinton is the most restrained Democrat in the room, you know your parties losing it. When was the last time you heard a Republican official or party member publicly call members of the opposing party 'Uncle Toms' and 'House N@##$%^' or 'Oreo' without the slightest rebuke from those in authority. Who was the last Republican former President or VP who travelled around the globe to insult their country and its current administration.
If you think that the Republicans are the bullies picking on the poor helpless Democrats that you should seriously wake up and smell the coffee. Both parties routinely attack each other but from what I can see, while the Republicans are at least still trying to put a nice face on it, the Democrats have officially given up any semblance of civility and are storming ahead full force to try and impress what they see as their base. The problem is this plays too much to the far left and leaves those center left people, who may actually have a few Republican friends, no one to vote for. Of course then, because your message is so far removed from the mainstream that it fails to resonate with the vast majority, you complain that the other side isn't playing fair.
This is Slashdot, there is no room for that type of talk here.
Don't try to inject your logic and unbiased review of the article into this discussion. Can't you see we're in full on Bush bashing mode here.
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Seriously, the guys an idiot for forging credentials he did not have. It's been done before, it will be done again and by people on both sides of the political divide. It's the type of thing you end up with when you give the responsibility to appoint hundreds or even thousands of positions to one person.
If they actually used the types of strict background checks they should, the number of these types of cases would decrease (even then they would never totally dissappear) but the backlog for appointments would be in the decades. About the only solution is to minimize the numbers of appointed positions and try to let the different agencies run their own process to fill these types of jobs. While some jobs require Presidential appointments (ambassadorships and judges come to mind), the vast majority are simply a way for whichever administration's in power to spread their political influence.
Of course you forget to mention that all former predictions were based on overflowing the levees and not the levees actually breaking, which would have resulted in widespread flooding but not of the type we saw in Katrina. I.E. a 'one shot' flood and not one that was sustained by constantly flowing waters even after the storm had passed.
But the again, why involve the facts when they get in the way of such a good partisan attack.
And also a good sign that the author of said quote is in that lower half of which he speaks. I figured especially on Slashdot, this type of things wouldn't be repeated all the time.
....
An average is a soft number, an descriptive value that can be used for any number of reasons, but not to break a group into two equal portions as it is susceptible to outliers and other aberrations, has 'Old School' taught us nothing?!?
Just do the math yourself, and just to insert some more needless politics into the debate, lets say you have a room with 11 Republicans and 2 Democrats. Each of the Repubs has an IQ of 110 while the 2 Dems have IQ of 95 and 115 (feel free to swap party affiliations if it makes you feel better).
So how many are above the average IQ of 109?
So to be more accurate
50% of Americans are below the median intelligence, not the average.
But then again, it just doesn't have the same ring to it, so, I guess, carry on.
(Truth be told, I don't really care. I'm just bored at work and didn't feel like jumping into the whole International vs. Domestic or FISA vs. Presidential Powers topics.)
Creating a budget surplus by not paying your expenses is not very sound fiscal management and that is essentially what has been happening in Canada for the past 12 years. In that time the enourmous amounts of debt have been transfered to the provinces through reduced transfer payments and the cuts in national programs such as military spending have dropped to an abysmal level all so someone can use their managerial accounting skills to point to a positive number on the balance sheet.
Our own emergency response team, DART, supposedly one of the better funded and equiped military groups, can't even be deployed until weeks after a disaster strikes, and even then sometimes not at all, all because of funding problems and the fact that the Canadian military doesn't have adequate transport for what equipement we do have.
We created the idea of Peacekeepers and we can't meet the minimal levels required to meet our UN obligations on that front. All the while, our service men and women fly aircraft and ride in vehicles, with the exception of some of our jeeps, that were designed and built, sometimes decades before they were even born. Our federal leaders have repeatedly refused to even ride on the very helicopters they order the troops to use, instead opting to use British or American transport. In at least one case refusing to board a helicopter that had been specifically sent to pick them up, and instead making a special request to a foreign government to give them a ride to a Canadian ship which was not even equipped to properly handle the other helo.
So please, don't try to use a positive balance sheet to try and make things look rosey for the future. All the feds have done for the past 12 years (and for some things much longer) is pass the buck and delay paying for essential services. It's like not changing the oil in your car. You may save $50 once or twice a year, but at some point the engine is going to seize and that $100-$200 you managed to save won't quite cover the $30,000 for a new car.
As for funding, recent reports comparing each provinces wait times versus money spent on health care have shown that in all but one case (and I can't remember which one but I think it may have been Alberta), increases in funding have not in any way impacted wait times or service levels.
But that's all besides the point. I have already stated that I don't believe we should copy the American health care system but believe we should move closer to the systems the major European nations use; a public system with private options. That type of system has the benefits of improving health care service availability as well as reducing per capita cost.
For example, if Ontario allowed private MRI clinics but put restrictions in place to require OHIP (the Ontario medical plan) only billing during the hours of, say, 8am to 6pm, but then allowed private billing after those hours, with the added condition that during those public hours the machine would have to be operating on par with a publicly operated machine (so no slacking off during the 'cheap' hours), private MRI clinics would be popping up wherever current logjams exist and would greatly reduce, if not eliminate the current delays. So if John or Jane Doe requires a test, they can schedule one at a clinic of their choosing with no worries about payment, but if Mr. of Mrs. Moneybags want a test done because they have the sniffles, they can go to the same clinic, after 6:00 and pay whatever fee the market will bear. The public at large is provided better access to services while the clinics themselves can make a healthy profit, pardon the pun. Everybody wins.
A similar system could be expanded to include Doctors, especially those who are experts in their fields. This would allow the doctors to make money off their hard work, while at the same time keeping them availble to the public system. Right now, while doctors can still do ok for themselves in Canada, if they actually become good at what they do, it is mostly just out of the goodness of their hearts that they don't move to some private clinic in the States to make the really big bucks. Well that and the general litigious nature of medicine in the US.
Just to go a bit off topic and add my 2 cents to your health care example; the Canadian health care system may be cheaper on a per capita basis than the American (in fact the same can be said for every other country in the world) but that doesn't necessarily mean it is a shing example of government efficiency.
... period) it's hard to say which of the two systems is working better.
As a supposedly 100% public system (there are varying degrees of private participation across the country), what we save on cost we sacrifice on service. Procedures and tests routinely done in the States on the same day or later in the same week can take several weeks or even months in Canada to have performed. Until we can match the available level of service (I am am well aware that those in the US without insurance do not generally have access to these services
If we bring the EU into the picture we see that the best systems seem to involve both private and public interaction. A little more private involvement to add competition and through that, improvements in service availability, with a signifigant government involvement to ensure standards and access for everyone.
While I'm not advocating a 'fend for yourself' system, as is generally the case in the US, I also don't think that our current Canadian system of dragging everyone down to the lowest common denominator is anything to be gloating over.
Unless you were personally holding the defective power unit when it overheated, thereby causing 2nd or 3rd degree burns, not be able to play with your new toy for a week or two is not grounds for emotional stress or pain and suffering.
I've had to deal with the microsoft hardware department a couple times myself for my mouse (plus a few times for work but I'll keep the corporate support seperate). Because of the way the cable was fed into the mouse it had a nasty habit of breaking the wires and causing the mouse to behave irratically. Both times I called them they sent me a brand new mouse, free of charge, and never asked for the old one back. The last times I even got one of the newer styles and haven't had a problem since. I've never had a hassle from them and never once thought about a lawsuit. From the sounds of it, their XBox support is about the same.
Anyone aware of the XBox or PS history should know that by buying the systems on the release date they are just asking for trouble. Best to wait for revision 2 or 3 to come around. Thats being said, I haven't heard the same about Nintendo and depending on price I will probably buy a Revolution as soon as it's out, but I also wouldn't be too upset if something like this happened then.
When you buy leading edge tech, you've essentially signed up to be unpaid testers. A lot of problems can only be discovered when you move from a few hundred test machines in controlled environments to thousands of machines out in the wild.
You generally shouldn't have to pay when going into an out of province clinic, unless Quebec is involved. The province's health plans, with the exception of Quebec, have a standing arangement under which they agree to pay the service fees as dictated by the province in which you receive treatment, even if the fee in that province is higher than the one from you native province. Essentially, if a routine visit costs $50 in Ontario and $75 in Newfoundland, and you are in NF on vacation and have to run in to the doctor, OHIP (the Ontarion health care plan) will pay the NF doctor $75 and not their usual $50. Quebec only pays what their fee happens to be for the procedure and as that is generally pretty stingy, most non-Quebec doctors will require upfront payment to ensure they get their full amount.
That being said, the clinic/hospital may charge you if they have had problems with payments in the past from your particular provincial medical plan but it should not be the norm. AFAIK, I don't believe there is anything in place to legally dictate their procedures one way or the other.
And I agree, the grandparents story doesn't sit well with me either. I've only had to go to the doctor 3 times in the last 8 years (at least twice because I was feeling terrible and also bored at work but that third time, well I can just say that benign positional vertigo is a lot more interesting than it sounds) and the longest I had to wait was about 45 minutes. Of course, unless I'm in need of actual surgery I tend to think of going to a clinic first and not the full fledged hospital.
As for the queue for MRIs and the such for serious medical problems, it is definately a mess. I know of a friend of a friend (I only met her once in passing) who was diagnosed with terminal cancer a year and a half ago and the earliest she could get in for the necessary tests to pinpoint the tumors for more accurate treatment was a month after the date the doctor told her she would be dead by. She was given 4-5 months to live and the earliest opening on the critical list was 6 months away. The doctor was actually telling her to buy Christmas gifts for her kids in July and the earliest she could get tested was in January. In the end the additional tests probably wouldn't have helped a whole lot, but the entire situation was a terrible indictment on how our system is failing.
My regular highspeed upstream is 100+ KB/s according to my Bell profile, although I sometimes hit in the low teens according to my line monitoring software.
And I know how it affects my d/l speed because my brother is constantly leeching from my computer at 50KB/s plus my P2P software uses roughly 25-40 KB/s and then whatever is left is for my general browsing. None of this prevents me from d/l'ing simultaneously at 300+KB/s. It's not the least bit unusual to see my output in the 90's with no discernable affect on my d/l speed.
On Rogers, which I had from the time it was launched, till about a year ago when they started with the caps, when someone was grabbing anything from me at more than 20KB/s my d/l speed would be lucky to hit 100. And if they were actually hitting the max 45KB/s, my d/l speed would top out at about 5-10. I had a friend try this out last week on his Rogers and he had the exact same numbers.
I can't tell you how many times I had to use the software limit to restrict my outputs to under 20KB/s on Rogers just so I could do some browsing let alone d/l anything signifigant. In the year since I've switched to Bell I can't think of anytime I've done this and I routinely D/L 110+ GB/month.
And this is just the basic highspeed with Bell as my line stats are actually pretty bad and I can't even get Ultra service.
This was about the only advantage Rogers had over Bell (our major DSL provider). They both have about the same speed at any given price point (although Bell has twice the upload speed for regular high speed), but Bell acts more like a full duplex line (u/l speed does not affect d/l's while on Rogers u/l'ing at 50KB/s can limit your d/l's to single digits) and while Rogers is capped (60GB for regular and now 100GB for 'Extreme') Bell is unlimited.
The fact that Rogers still has newsgroup (although they've limited dl speeds to 30KB/s) was about the only reason I was thinking about moving back. Bells groups have retention times that can be measured in minutes, not days and it almost impossible to get a full post on a Bell server even if it's only text, let alone a binary.
Since this will most likely only really upset heavy downloaders (which Rogers is more than happy to get rid of anyway) the average user who is paying $50/month to check their email will be almost completely unaffected. Probably a good business decision for Rogers but that still doesn't mean we have to like it.
No matter how I try your link, or links on Salon proper, I cannot get to the article you are pointing too.
I'll admit it looks like my timeline was a little mixed up with the various declarations of 'states of emergency'.
On Friday Blanco declared a State of Emergency. On Saturday, Bush followed suit to allow for pre-positioning of Federal resources. Sometime between Bush declaring and the Blanco/Nagin press conference (like I said I can't see to read your post but I haven't seen anywhere else indicating it was just minutes before) Bush called Blanco to urge an evac. That much she admitted during the press conference.
The confusion about the delay comes from the fact that the LA/NO emergency response plans call for evacs to be called at the 72 hour point (preliminary evac), 60 hour point (special needs evac) and 48 hour point (general evac). Nagin apparently issued a preliminary evac order a little over 30 hours prior to landfall, and did not move it to a mandatory order until approximately 12 hours prior to landfall. All this even though the emergency had been decalred at the 72 hour point (State level) and 48 hour point (National level).
Even accounting for the fact that weather maps did not confirm Katrina's path until Saturday morning, thats still an approximate 36 hour delay in ordering the mandatory evacs. Nagin admitted the delay was so that they could investigate what legal liabilities (with regards to closing hotels and such) they faced in ordering a mandatory evac. A process they started Saturday evening.
Actually I believe your dates are a little off with regards to the evac. Bush suggested a evac order be issued on the Saturday (possibly even as early as Friday)prior to the storm, an order that Blanco agreed with and requested Mayor Nagins to initiate (it's actually part of both the LA and NO emergency plans but for some reason neither the Mayor or Governor seemed to be following those). The problem was the Mayor waited for 24 hours before issueing the order and then neither the Mayor or the Governor provided adequate services to accomplish the evac (witness the unused buses (specifically mentioned in the emergency plans), failure to mobilize the National Guard or State Police).
As for the military issue, from one of the people responding to your post, while the CiC can authorize the use of the US Military (which Bush did) he/she does not actually fully control their actions once mobilized. From the moment they reach the disaster zone their actions within that zone are directed by local authorities and ultimately the states Governor, as are all other formal relief efforts (look at the the Red Cross page for insight on this).
The President of the United States, while a convienent target, under the Constitution has very little actual authority in a disaster situation, except to allow the local government to use federal resources. To be part of the US, individual states surrender certain rights and freedoms, which are clearly spelt out, but all others, including disaster handling, remain solely their domain. That being said, there is a process for a Governor to hand over control to the Federal government, but as of today, despite a request from the President, Governor Blanco has refused to do that.