The House is gerrymandered. It does not accurately represent the will of the people, but rather represents the cumulative will of the parties in control of the states.
You act like there's some huge discrepancy, when in actuality the gerrymandering effect is far smaller (namely that it becomes the "will of the people" plus or minus a small number). At any rate, in 2010, the House took not only 63 House seats, but also 6 Senate seats (which are immune from the effects of gerrymandering). SO whereas you might be able to write off a 9% swing in the House, you can't write off a 5% swing in the Senate.
so clearly this can't be the will of the people, if half of them have no idea what the law is or will do.
The Democrats didn't give a flying fuck about the "will of the people" when they passed that bill. A plurality of people didn't want it and they passed it anyways.
I'm not sure how this could conceivably be seen as anything other than the political obsession of a minority of congress
There's better systems out there- just see Canada or anywhere in Europe.
Then seriously, why don't you go live there? This country has never held those values. We grew up with the belief that people take care of themselves -- that is the country I love and the country I want. If 99% of the world represents the ideal you aspire to, why are you hell bent to ruin the 1% I treasure? I like having the freedom of having the extra 20-30% of my paycheck you'd gladly piss away.
The libertards confuse taxation with shoplifting.
They want to fill their shopping bags with all the goodies in the Mall of Society, but when they want to walk out without paying, they start whining about the 'force of arms' of the mall security guards.
There's a huge difference between taxation that supports programs that benefit society (particularly equally) and taxation that serves solely to redistribute wealth. Not all taxes are equal. And you're naive and foolish (and clearly a bit of an ass as well) to not see that.
All I need to read. Sorry Libertardians, you do not get to redefine the word theft to your liking.
So...what you're saying is that no form of taxation ever in the history of governments is analogous to theft? Ever heard of a dictatorship? Stalin? Castro nationalization of US property? The Stamp Act?
I mean, I know you Libtards love to foam at the mouth about Libertarians, but you're seriously naive if you believe that anything the government does is allowed and forgiven because it's in the name of "official government duties".
A major part of the ACA is that medical insurance companies must spend a certain percentage of their premiums on medical care. If they don't, they have to return it to their customers.
That's one of the stupidest parts of the regulation. It's just going to drive overhead & operating costs high -- very much like government organizations blow through their budget dollars at the end of the year so they don't "lose it" the next year, insurance companies will just funnel their extra dollars into R&D and various other places so they don't have to give out refunds.
True. That's why you never see a casino go bankrupt.
Oh wait. Nvm.
That's from mismanagement. Either expanding too much, running ridiculously opulent shows/restaurants or other expensive attractions, or not saving enough money for "down times" such as recessions. A casino is never a losing venture, unless you make it so.
Talking about why it's changing is an academic exercise and is irrelevant in the context of "what do we do about climate change?"
How is it irrelevant? If we don't know why it's changing, we certainly can't know what to do about it. If the climate is changing because of the Spaghetti Monster, and we shutdown all fossil fuel production in an attempt to change something -- and then the Spaghetti Monster's mood doesn't change, we're left with the same situation, albeit much poorer (and consequently with less resources to react).
On another closely watched issue, the scientists retreated slightly from their 2007 position.
Regarding the question of how much the planet could warm if carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere doubled, the previous report largely ruled out any number below 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit. The new draft says the rise could be as low as 2.7 degrees, essentially restoring a scientific consensus that prevailed from 1979 to 2007.
They move the goalposts constantly as they discover the realized climate does not match their expectations. Of course, the global warming cult just calls this process "the scientific method". Although it's certainly a very different one than I remember from school. All I see is a bunch of people haphazardly guessing at something they clearly don't fully understand, while feigning certainty.
I concur with the need for a falsifiable hypothesis. Sure sounds like a cult to me. Most debates I've entered with those cultists result in the sheep falling back on "but our enlightened overlord's consensus says it's so!" and then proceeding immediately to ad hominem. Soft on the facts, heavy on the groupthink. It amuses me immensely that they target the other side for strutting out agenda-laden talking points while bringing little to the table themselves but such non-scientific, personal-attacking soapbox tripe.
No, you just didn't pay attention. All Myst took to beat was a notebook. Go everywhere, write down everything unusual, use the clues in the obvious place. If anything it was too easy, I beat it in one sick day home from school. You want frustrating? Try a Sierra adventure game.
For the third time in this thread, I bring up the Channelwood tree elevator...how the hell was that "obvious" via a notebook? What clues linked a button in a cabin to a tree some ten screens away? (that doesn't even remotely look like something capable of moving, let alone acting as an elevator...) -- the only hint following the button push is a mechanical sound that could be just about anything. I couldn't imagine anyone solving this puzzle without repeated trial and error (push button, walk around, look at a bunch of stuff -- oh the sound stopped?...wash, rinse, repeat) -- nothing of that is logical, it's literally no different than the pixel hunting "try object with object" days of the earlier adventure games.
If you don't think that the puzzles made sense, then I'd suggest that you simply didn't explore the world as fully as you were meant to.
Explain to me the clues that would have led a person to know that a button pushed in a cabin would make a door appear at a given time in a tree some 10 screens away from the original button? Hell, explain to me the logic that would even connect the button to said tree (or point to the mechanical nature of the tree).
Yeah, you're supposed to experiment with things to find out what they do, except you don't even know what experiment you'll be trying.
A million times this. I still remember the exact moment in Myst that I threw up my hands in frustration and gave up on the game. I was stuck and had no idea how to proceed. The "puzzle" in question was a cabin with a button. When you push the button, a "chunking" sound could be heard over the next minute or so. Yet it didn't appear to do anything in the cabin, nor were there any clues as to what it _should_ do. Lo and behold, when I checked a walkthrough later, it apparently caused a tree BEHIND the cabin to go down into the ground. If you happened to go to the tree during the appropriate time period and happened to notice the tree moving (which wasn't easy with the graphics of the day) and also were patient enough to watch the moving tree for several seconds, a door would appear. How the hell were you supposed to put two and two together on that one?
We're talking about reducing human contributions to the problem of Global Climate Change
No one has proved this to be a problem. In fact, all recent trends (last 15 years) point to the opposite. All the projections and claimed damages are just vaporware at the moment. This is especially true if the Earth starts cooling down again.
Except that recent studies show we don't fully understand the scope of CO2's role on the planet...else, the models would have been more accurate and the past 15 years would have shown more warming. Why do you not find this relevant? You disregard one argument "because we just don't understand it enough" -- but when another argument (CO2) is _proven_ to be not fully understood by humans, you don't use the same tack?
You could say the same thing about any branch of scientific study.
Why bother studying distant stars when we could be curing HIV or cancer!
Why bother studying life when we could be putting people on Mars!
Why bother studying rocks when we could be developing artificial intelligence!
Understanding how the climate of the planet we live on behaves and changes seems like a very important thing to know.
Ah, but it's not the same. Because "understanding" and "acting on assumed understanding" are two entirely different things. Continuing to research climate and expand our knowledge of it will always have value. However, making snap judgments about the safety of our earth and consuming large amounts of resources to address non-problems based on hasty research conclusions -- that is something entirely different.
That's ridiculous -- there's always something left to do, even if that "something" is "sit around and think up a better way to X". Low skill jobs may feel a pinch, but that just means society as a whole has to move forward in the education curve (which is a good thing). If we eliminated all menial jobs, the resulting work force would by necessity be more educated. Obviously this would take time, but so would "the elimination of all menial jobs". These kind of changes don't happen overnight.
He didn't. He had a majority in both the House and Senate, but only had a fillibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate for a total of 181 days (and the Senate was only in session for 94 of those days), from August 25, 2009 until February 4, 2010 and again from June 28, 2010 until July 16, 2010.
The OP didn't say he had a filibuster-proof supermajority -- he said "a Demcratic House and Senate", which implies majority, and is absolutely true. And only half a year of unchecked, unrestricted legislation of your choice is hardly something to sneeze at.
Unfortunately that the equilibrium point will be at a point lower than the original cost of workers, much like if you got rid of minimum wage.
I agreed with everything you said up until this...what you just stated there is a pure assumption. And it's provably false in many industries. For instance, industries where skillsets are rare and quality candidates are hard fought for (to the point of companies making the smallest margin of a profit just to maintain the employment of that individual). In this case, the new "equilibirum" would almost entirely shift towards the employee -- if it did not, the companies that simply pocketed the difference would lose the skilled labor to those that filtered it down to their employees. I'm not saying this is going to be the case for 100% of workers, but claiming that lowering the cost of operation is a guaranteed loss for those employed (and a guaranteed gain for greedy CEOs) is just silly. It would have many upsides, both in wages AND in increased employment.
Maybe. But if you're aware that you're greeting him "normally" then you're probably a racist.
When I see an old Chinese woman walking her poodle on the street I treat her the same as I would any other person who was not...
Except you probably don't, and most people don't. I'll give an example. Black people routinely call each other the N word, in casual jest. Yet white people can never do that, even if in jest. Ill give another example. There is one manner in which you act around your friends, and another manner in which you conduct yourself professionally at the workplace. What flies in one location might not necessarily fly in another. Hell, I've seen many cases of people attempting to great extents to tie actions to racism where there is no visible tie whatsoever -- I'd argue that very action is far more racist than the claim being made.
Depending on your state, you may have the right to execute a citizen's arrest, but you do not (repeat, NOT) have the right to detain anyone otherwise, demand answers from them, et cetera. When you demand an answer to such a question, you are committing a crime. You can ask a question, but once someone tells you to leave them alone, you must leave them alone or you are engaging in harassment.
Yet you believe that assault is a legal response to harassment? Even if Zimmerman was harassing Martin, the facts of the case show Zimmerman being assaulted by Martin. Whereas self-defense is an acceptable defense when you feel your life is threatened, assault is not an acceptable defense when you're merely being harassed. The fact that Martin never even called the police ever, despite the fact he had a cell phone available, doesn't exactly lend much credence to your claim either. There was a long period of time, including the long lull after we here Zimmerman stop running, when Martin could have called 911, yet he never does -- why? He had plenty of time to get home, yet he either doubled back or stopped to wait for Zimmerman -- why? Physical evidence shows that he was assaulting Zimmerman when the gun was fired. All the evidence is against Martin, yet you continue to paint Zimmerman as some kind of hunter killer. Only ideology could possibly lead you to that conclusion, as none of the facts support such a stance.
Zimmerman was the only aggressor in this case. He took out his gun and followed someone with the intent of causing harm to the person he was following.
None of the facts presented in the case indicated the gun was out at any time prior to the altercation -- you're simply making that up. Additionally, nothing indicated intended harm. Frankly, if Zimmerman had a ranged weapon and an intent to kill, he could have shot Martin LONG before Martin would have had the ability to close to short range and initiate physical violence. Instead, Zimmerman called the police (something intended killers do not do) and didn't even try to confront Martin until he started running. This at best points towards Zimmerman attempting to detain Martin, which though stupid, is not assault or murder.
Similarly, we know from the duration of the 9/11 call that Martin had plenty of time to get home -- the only way an altercation could have occurred at the location it did was if Martin doubled back, or stopped & ambushed. A victim being chased by someone with a visible gun would try neither of these things.
And the problem I have with those in the opposition, so to speak, is that they take the stance that until absolute proof has been given, nothing should be done.
I don't know of many taking this approach among us doubters of AGW. Rather, we support a more moderate response: continue the transition from coal to natural gas, continue to pursue better techs (field them when they become economical), continue to push better efficiency (insulation in homes for instance, more efficient engines, whatnot). That's a far cry from "nothing". However, if you'd believe the green community, that's no one where near "enough", which is why they probably equate it with "nothing".
Slashdot Mirror
You act like there's some huge discrepancy, when in actuality the gerrymandering effect is far smaller (namely that it becomes the "will of the people" plus or minus a small number). At any rate, in 2010, the House took not only 63 House seats, but also 6 Senate seats (which are immune from the effects of gerrymandering). SO whereas you might be able to write off a 9% swing in the House, you can't write off a 5% swing in the Senate.
Yet a majority of the populace disapproves of the bill, and polling shows it is MAJORLY partisan w/ 10% Republican support and 75% Democrat support: http://www.people-press.org/2013/09/16/as-health-care-law-proceeds-opposition-and-uncertainty-persist/
That's voter support, not politician. Compare that to a topic that actually was bipartisan, like background checks for guns (which carried strong support from both sides of the aisle): http://www.people-press.org/2013/05/23/broad-support-for-renewed-background-checks-bill-skepticism-about-its-chances/
The Democrats didn't give a flying fuck about the "will of the people" when they passed that bill. A plurality of people didn't want it and they passed it anyways.
Is that also how you viewed Obama's posturing on tax increases at the 250k+ line when we almost careened off the fiscal cliff in December? (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/12/15/report-boehner-offers-millionaire-tax-hike-obama-stands-firm-at-250k/). Because I certainly don't see the difference. And that demand had even less support than Obamacare in its current form: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/11/tax-cuts-and-americans-its-complicated/ (that's 43% in favor of Obama, 49% in favor of other alternatives). Support for Obamacare as is or Obamacare++ is at 38% whereas support for altering or eliminating Obamacare is at 62%: http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/09/30/new-poll-only-one-third-of-americans-support-repealing-defunding-or-delaying-obamacare/
Then seriously, why don't you go live there? This country has never held those values. We grew up with the belief that people take care of themselves -- that is the country I love and the country I want. If 99% of the world represents the ideal you aspire to, why are you hell bent to ruin the 1% I treasure? I like having the freedom of having the extra 20-30% of my paycheck you'd gladly piss away.
There's a huge difference between taxation that supports programs that benefit society (particularly equally) and taxation that serves solely to redistribute wealth. Not all taxes are equal. And you're naive and foolish (and clearly a bit of an ass as well) to not see that.
So...what you're saying is that no form of taxation ever in the history of governments is analogous to theft? Ever heard of a dictatorship? Stalin? Castro nationalization of US property? The Stamp Act?
I mean, I know you Libtards love to foam at the mouth about Libertarians, but you're seriously naive if you believe that anything the government does is allowed and forgiven because it's in the name of "official government duties".
That's one of the stupidest parts of the regulation. It's just going to drive overhead & operating costs high -- very much like government organizations blow through their budget dollars at the end of the year so they don't "lose it" the next year, insurance companies will just funnel their extra dollars into R&D and various other places so they don't have to give out refunds.
Polls do not favor it, actually (both recent, and at its initial release as well)
That's from mismanagement. Either expanding too much, running ridiculously opulent shows/restaurants or other expensive attractions, or not saving enough money for "down times" such as recessions. A casino is never a losing venture, unless you make it so.
How is it irrelevant? If we don't know why it's changing, we certainly can't know what to do about it. If the climate is changing because of the Spaghetti Monster, and we shutdown all fossil fuel production in an attempt to change something -- and then the Spaghetti Monster's mood doesn't change, we're left with the same situation, albeit much poorer (and consequently with less resources to react).
How about this Frdiay when the new IPCC report is released? http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/science/earth/extremely-likely-that-human-activity-is-driving-climate-change-panel-finds.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
If I may choice quote:
They move the goalposts constantly as they discover the realized climate does not match their expectations. Of course, the global warming cult just calls this process "the scientific method". Although it's certainly a very different one than I remember from school. All I see is a bunch of people haphazardly guessing at something they clearly don't fully understand, while feigning certainty.
I concur with the need for a falsifiable hypothesis. Sure sounds like a cult to me. Most debates I've entered with those cultists result in the sheep falling back on "but our enlightened overlord's consensus says it's so!" and then proceeding immediately to ad hominem. Soft on the facts, heavy on the groupthink. It amuses me immensely that they target the other side for strutting out agenda-laden talking points while bringing little to the table themselves but such non-scientific, personal-attacking soapbox tripe.
For the third time in this thread, I bring up the Channelwood tree elevator...how the hell was that "obvious" via a notebook? What clues linked a button in a cabin to a tree some ten screens away? (that doesn't even remotely look like something capable of moving, let alone acting as an elevator...) -- the only hint following the button push is a mechanical sound that could be just about anything. I couldn't imagine anyone solving this puzzle without repeated trial and error (push button, walk around, look at a bunch of stuff -- oh the sound stopped?...wash, rinse, repeat) -- nothing of that is logical, it's literally no different than the pixel hunting "try object with object" days of the earlier adventure games.
Explain to me the clues that would have led a person to know that a button pushed in a cabin would make a door appear at a given time in a tree some 10 screens away from the original button? Hell, explain to me the logic that would even connect the button to said tree (or point to the mechanical nature of the tree).
A million times this. I still remember the exact moment in Myst that I threw up my hands in frustration and gave up on the game. I was stuck and had no idea how to proceed. The "puzzle" in question was a cabin with a button. When you push the button, a "chunking" sound could be heard over the next minute or so. Yet it didn't appear to do anything in the cabin, nor were there any clues as to what it _should_ do. Lo and behold, when I checked a walkthrough later, it apparently caused a tree BEHIND the cabin to go down into the ground. If you happened to go to the tree during the appropriate time period and happened to notice the tree moving (which wasn't easy with the graphics of the day) and also were patient enough to watch the moving tree for several seconds, a door would appear. How the hell were you supposed to put two and two together on that one?
Pish, I'd still not buy it out of spite for making that initial decision in the first place.
No one has proved this to be a problem. In fact, all recent trends (last 15 years) point to the opposite. All the projections and claimed damages are just vaporware at the moment. This is especially true if the Earth starts cooling down again.
Except that recent studies show we don't fully understand the scope of CO2's role on the planet...else, the models would have been more accurate and the past 15 years would have shown more warming. Why do you not find this relevant? You disregard one argument "because we just don't understand it enough" -- but when another argument (CO2) is _proven_ to be not fully understood by humans, you don't use the same tack?
Ah, but it's not the same. Because "understanding" and "acting on assumed understanding" are two entirely different things. Continuing to research climate and expand our knowledge of it will always have value. However, making snap judgments about the safety of our earth and consuming large amounts of resources to address non-problems based on hasty research conclusions -- that is something entirely different.
An identical statement could be made with regard to "CO2" and the size of its role in "planet warming".
That's ridiculous -- there's always something left to do, even if that "something" is "sit around and think up a better way to X". Low skill jobs may feel a pinch, but that just means society as a whole has to move forward in the education curve (which is a good thing). If we eliminated all menial jobs, the resulting work force would by necessity be more educated. Obviously this would take time, but so would "the elimination of all menial jobs". These kind of changes don't happen overnight.
The OP didn't say he had a filibuster-proof supermajority -- he said "a Demcratic House and Senate", which implies majority, and is absolutely true. And only half a year of unchecked, unrestricted legislation of your choice is hardly something to sneeze at.
I agreed with everything you said up until this...what you just stated there is a pure assumption. And it's provably false in many industries. For instance, industries where skillsets are rare and quality candidates are hard fought for (to the point of companies making the smallest margin of a profit just to maintain the employment of that individual). In this case, the new "equilibirum" would almost entirely shift towards the employee -- if it did not, the companies that simply pocketed the difference would lose the skilled labor to those that filtered it down to their employees. I'm not saying this is going to be the case for 100% of workers, but claiming that lowering the cost of operation is a guaranteed loss for those employed (and a guaranteed gain for greedy CEOs) is just silly. It would have many upsides, both in wages AND in increased employment.
Except you probably don't, and most people don't. I'll give an example. Black people routinely call each other the N word, in casual jest. Yet white people can never do that, even if in jest. Ill give another example. There is one manner in which you act around your friends, and another manner in which you conduct yourself professionally at the workplace. What flies in one location might not necessarily fly in another. Hell, I've seen many cases of people attempting to great extents to tie actions to racism where there is no visible tie whatsoever -- I'd argue that very action is far more racist than the claim being made.
Yet you believe that assault is a legal response to harassment? Even if Zimmerman was harassing Martin, the facts of the case show Zimmerman being assaulted by Martin. Whereas self-defense is an acceptable defense when you feel your life is threatened, assault is not an acceptable defense when you're merely being harassed. The fact that Martin never even called the police ever, despite the fact he had a cell phone available, doesn't exactly lend much credence to your claim either. There was a long period of time, including the long lull after we here Zimmerman stop running, when Martin could have called 911, yet he never does -- why? He had plenty of time to get home, yet he either doubled back or stopped to wait for Zimmerman -- why? Physical evidence shows that he was assaulting Zimmerman when the gun was fired. All the evidence is against Martin, yet you continue to paint Zimmerman as some kind of hunter killer. Only ideology could possibly lead you to that conclusion, as none of the facts support such a stance.
None of the facts presented in the case indicated the gun was out at any time prior to the altercation -- you're simply making that up. Additionally, nothing indicated intended harm. Frankly, if Zimmerman had a ranged weapon and an intent to kill, he could have shot Martin LONG before Martin would have had the ability to close to short range and initiate physical violence. Instead, Zimmerman called the police (something intended killers do not do) and didn't even try to confront Martin until he started running. This at best points towards Zimmerman attempting to detain Martin, which though stupid, is not assault or murder.
Similarly, we know from the duration of the 9/11 call that Martin had plenty of time to get home -- the only way an altercation could have occurred at the location it did was if Martin doubled back, or stopped & ambushed. A victim being chased by someone with a visible gun would try neither of these things.
Stop letting your ideology blind your judgment.
I don't know of many taking this approach among us doubters of AGW. Rather, we support a more moderate response: continue the transition from coal to natural gas, continue to pursue better techs (field them when they become economical), continue to push better efficiency (insulation in homes for instance, more efficient engines, whatnot). That's a far cry from "nothing". However, if you'd believe the green community, that's no one where near "enough", which is why they probably equate it with "nothing".