Well, what I really meant is that lefty blacks don't consider Rice & Powell 'black' because they're conservative. The parent of my post was about the Bush administration's lack of appointing minorities.
And actually, I'd imagine liberals would sorta like Powell, cause now that he's no longer a general and in charge of the state department, they're still a bunch of pansy appeasers. This is true even for Powell when he doesn't have specific direction from Bush (ie, selling the war to the UN. or trying, rather.)
Your point is taken about disagreement on ideological grounds, but this caught my attention: then a conservative Hispanic is not going to support the viewpoints of most other Hispanics
A judge's job is not to support the viewpoint of most other hispanics. A Judge's job is to judge according to the law, with deference to the highest law in the land- the US constitution.
You want someone to represent hispanic viewpoints in the government? Fine. Elect a senator or representative to do so. A judge, on the other hand, should just do his job. Creative judges representing viewpoints and effectively writing laws is what has many of us right-wingers pissed off at the judiciary and the percieved lefty takeover of it.
Estrada (that was his name, wasn't it?) , when asked about representing hispanic viewpoints while on the bench replied that he didn't see what being hispanic had to do with anything. He's just gotta judge according to the law. That's the kind of people this right winger wants, I don't give a shit what color he is.
France and Germany didn't say "Don't go to war", they said "Give us more time to work on a diplomatic solution, and if it doesn't work, we'll go with you".
Bush/Cheney secretly re-wrote the countries energy policy to allow the type of manipulation of California's energy supplies which resulted in the fake energy crisis of '01. Bush & Company have personally ripped me off for hundreds of dollars during that time. So far, no one has been charged with any crimes relating to the Calif rip off and no money has been re turned to the state.
Really? because I was under the impression that the deregulation scheme set up by the California legislature de-regulated wholesale prices of electricity while still regulating consumer prices of electricity, (so power distributors couldn't pass on the cost to consumers, which might have encouraged them to moderate their energy use) plus a few other laws that didn't result in de-regulation, but even more complex and counter productive regulation.
Enron, then, cynically/criminally manipulated the market and caused the blackouts and energy crisis for profit. Add on top of that the environmentalists in CA preventing any serious powerplant construction, and you had a disaster.
Nowhere do I see how Bush fits into their, except for refusing to bail california out for their mistakes.
Please cite the specific policy change bush implemented and how this led to the fake california energy crisis, because I don't think there's any connection.
Condeleeza Rice and Colin Powell? That oughta get you started.
Oh, wait, they're not really black because they're conservative, right? Isn't that the type of racism that's okay in the twisted view of the democrats?
As for civil liberties, I'm just not concerned about the people in Guantanamo, who were detained on a BATTLEFIELD. That doesn't mean that they forfeit all rights as human beings, but it does mean that all the procedural niceties like access to a lawyer don't need to apply right away.
I have no issue how they're being treated, but we should remember that the Geneva convention.
That is, since these guys were caught fighting out of uniform, and for no recognizable country, they have no rights under the geneva convention and could simply be executed any time we damn well please.
But that Hispanic judge was spectacularly conservative, and thus not especially representative of the Hispanic community.
It's sort of like Republicans and Clarence Thomas-- the Democrats can't fight his appointment without losing face, because he's black, even though underneath the skin he's about as conservative as your average white CEO.
Well, that's the most racists and prejudiced thing I've read in a while.
Basically, you're saying that a conservative hispanic isn't really conservative at all, because hispanics are liberal.
So race determines thought and behavior. Nope, no free will or independant thinking here.
Same things for blacks. Clarence thomas isn't black because he isn't liberal.
So, are all the pasty, patchouli wearing liberal protestor types at my college not really white because they're not conservative? Or maybe since it's white males who have all the power, they must be conservatives. So the liberals holding up those idiotic signs drawn with their mother's markers must be some other skin color or gender, right?
YOU are stating that SKIN COLOR DETERMINES BEHAVIOR AND THOUGHT.
You may be right that the republicans intentionally sought out a hispanic conservative judge, but only to show that the democrats are full of shit when they claim to have the moral high ground on race.
They can't stand having a black (Thomas) or a hispanic in a very prominent position that isn't in their camp. The slaves are escaping the plantation! Pull out the filibuster!
The new documents that came out this morning are already highly suspect:
Every single one of the memos to file regarding Bush's failure to attend a physical and meet other requirements is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing (especially in the military), and typewriters used mono-spaced fonts.
The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction high-end word processing systems from Xerox and Wang, and later of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's.
Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang and other systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used mono-spaced fonts. I doubt the TANG had typesetting or high-end 1st generation word processing systems.
I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively.
UPDATE: Thanks to all the readers who have written regarding this post. Several have pointed out that the Executive line of IBM typewriters did have proportionally spaced fonts, although no reader has found the font used in the memos to be a familiar one or thought that the an IBM Executive was likely to have been used by the National Guard in the early 1970's. Reader Monty Walls has also cited the IBM Selectric Composer. However, reader Eric Courtney adds this wrinkle: The "Memo To File" of August 18, 1973 also used specialized typesetting characters not used on typewriters. These include the superscript "th" in 187th, and consistent ' (right single quote) used instead of a typewriter's generic ' (apostrophe). These are the sorts of things that typesetters did manually until the advent of smart correction in things like Microsoft Word. UPDATE 2: Reader John Risko adds: I was a clerk/typist for the US Navy at the Naval Underwater Systems Center (NUSC) in Newport RI for my summer job in 1971 when I was in college. I note the following with regard to the Killian memos:
1) Tom Mortensen is absolutely correct. Variable type was used only for special printing jobs, like official pamphlets. These documents are forgeries, and not even good ones. Someone could have at least found an old pre-Selectric IBM (introduced around 1962). Actually, I believe we were using IBM Model C's at the time, which was the precursor to the Selectric.
2) I also used a Variype machine in 1971. I fooled around with it in my spare time. It was incredibly difficult to set up and use. It was also extremely hard to correct mistakes on the machine. Most small letters used two spaces. Capital letters generally used three spaces. I think letters like "i" may have used one space. Anyway, you can see that this type of machine was piloted by an expert, and it would NEVER be used for a routine memo. A Lt. Colonel would not be able to identify a Varitype machine, let alone use it.
3) US Navy paper at the time was not 8 1/2 x 11. It was 8 x 10 1/2. I believe this was the same throughout the military, but someone will have to check on that. This should show up in the Xeroxing, which should have lines running along the sides of the Xerox copy.
4) I am amused by the way "147 th Ftr.Intrcp Gp." appears in the August 1, 1972 document. It may have been written that way in non-forged documents, but as somone who worked for ComCruDesLant, I know the military liked to bunch things together. I find "147 th" suspicious looking. 147th looks better to me, but the problem with Microsoft Word is that it keeps turning the "th" tiny if it is connected to a number like 147. And finally......
5) MORE DEFINITIVE PROOF OF FORGERY: I had neglected even to look at the August 18, 1973 memo to file. This forger was a fool. This fake document actually does have the tiny "th" in "187th" and there is simply no way this could
Prepare? How? He's already fessed up that he was never in cambodia and his first purple heart was (unintentionally) self inflicted. There's two of the SBVT major points right there.
How can he prepare for attacks on his record that are true?
Where's his 20 years of service to America? Oh yeah, running companies into the ground. Great man, there.
Actually, last I knew he was governor of Texas. And again, you have his last 4 years as President to judge wether or not you want to hire him again. He is running, incidentally, largely on the activities of his last term. Not on his ANG service.
No he's not. Did you listen to his speech? "If you elect me I will..." He's running on promises he still hasn't delivered from his first campaign -- and he's had a Republican House and Senate. Therefore he's either lying about his goals, or completely ineffective at them. Take your pick.
Hey, he's been pretty busy the last four years. Crushing two regimes, getting that trashy medicare prescription drug benefit passed, tax cuts, etc. Sure, he hasn't delivered on all his promises, but you can't deny he's done alot. Wether you like what he's done is another matter, but he's been doing something. That's more than enough for me to give him another shot at the rest that he wants to accomplish.
And let's not forget that GWB took great pains to dress up in a flight suit and stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier, mocking the very job he did so poorly at 30 years ago.
Poorly? What's your basis for this statement? Give me a link to scans of his military performance records. Moreover, one photo-op morale boosting trip to an aircraft carrier is a far cry from Kerry's "I was in vietnam" every other breath.
You can't, cause you're just making shit up.
At best, he deserved a Dishonorable Discharge which would have tanked his first run for the Presidency before it even got started.
Again, provide some proof. What I've read suggests that he fulfilled his commitments, though somewhat irregularly, it was permission from his commanders.
Moreover, Bush is not running on his military service, but has released his records. Kerry is running on his service, and has not released the records.
Am I the only one who thinks that it doesn't matter what Bush or Kerry did or did not do 30 years ago?
Hey, did you know senator Kerry was in vietnam?
seriously, it would matter less if Kerry wasn't running almost entirely on his vietnam service and skipping his 20 years in the senate entirely. The entire democratic convention was spent talking about what happened 30 years ago, painting Kerry as the nice little war hero. Or trying.
Problem is, real heros don't proclaim they're heros at every turn.
Kerry doesn't run on his 20 years in the senate- which would be most relevant- because he'll get nowhere on it. His votes on defense, on taxes, on many issues were consistently the type of positions that would play very poorly with at least half of america. His campaign knows this, which is why you never hear about it from the dems or the media. It also doesn't help that his twenty year history of being a complete and utter peacenik contradict any talk now of seriously protecting the United States from any threat that may be out there.
Bush, on the other hand, is running on his past four years as president, not on being in the ANG 30 years ago. Perhaps his Air National Guard service is not much to brag about, but that is precisely why he isn't doing so.
Kerry made his vietnam service the centerpiece of his qualifications. The scrutiny of his service is therefor justified.
Making an issue of President Bush's service 30 years ago does seem rather pointless, as he's never mentioned it, and we have four years of his presidency to judge him on, which should be more than enough to decided if you want him again.
Kerry's 20 years in the senate is also enough to judge him on, but he made the vietnam service scrutiny a legitimate issue all by himself.
one has to wonder whether airing such a controvercial movie on the eve of an election helps or hurts the political process by influencing the vote with last-minute emotions rather than thoroughly contemplation.
Not to mention it may very well be prohibited under the mccain-feingold act, a trashy unconstitutional piece of legislation if there ever was one.
Funny how the supreme court finds it more important to protect simulated child pornography (unimportant) and is okay with silencing political speech (the most important type!).
If someone ever finds the supreme court's balls, please return them to washington. They're desperately needed.
Because of gambling. Nevada's got so many video gaming machines/slot machines that they're rather adept at investigating and regulating such machinery as a state.
Or so I'd imagine.
Basically, the knowledge required to run & regulate the gambling industries electronics honestly would be useful for voting machines.
Paper trail verifiable instantly by the voter? I'm all for it!
I seem to recall that the administration put forward an energy bill that offered substantial tax breaks on the next 8,000 MW of nuclear generating capability built, and was dedicated to moving Yucca mountain forward- and having someplace to stick all that waste is very important to the nuke industry.
There's a difference between being picky about disposing of a ladder that's as radioactive as a coleman lantern filament you can buy at walmart, and making fuel.
One can obviously kill you. The other might make you ill if you hugged it for five years.
Appropriate controls for the risk involved. That's all I'm saying.
People here turn into idiots when someone mentions the french, why is that?
Because Americans 1. Don't respect the french, as they capitulated to hitler comparitively easily, and lost rapidly in WW1 as well.
2. Don't like the french for their obstructionism of our agenda in Iraq, made worse when it became evident that the obstructionism was just to protect lucrative & crooked oil deals.
3. Are annoyed that france's policy decisions seem to be consistently based on 'Let's do the opposite of whatever the US wants'
That's a list that should get you started. I'm sure people could add more to it.
Who gives a damn about the fuckin' Euro perception of America?
Right on. As if winning an international popularity contest was the most important thing for the US to be doing, or as if we could ever win such a contest under any circumstance.
or december. Rumor has it that the DNC cry babies, not content they had made a mockery of the electorial process with their selective recounts in Florida in 2000, are already planning lawsuits to contest the outcome of the coming election.
Because yahoo isn't run by French people. If it were, they would surely capitulate instantenously.
Oh, and doing so would make a serious dent in their bottom line, and they'd have to weigh that against just how much money having a france-specific portal brings in, and wether pulling out physically from france but still offering french language services is a better option.
My proposition: Have no physical presense or employees in france to act against. Continue to otherwise rake in as much dough as possible from french citizens, and fuck their government out of the tax money they need to run their pathetic nanny state.
Why do I always hear this back yard argument? If you took an average size suburban house and made it water tight, all of the nuclear waste made by all of mans reactors since the beginning of the nuclear age wouldn't even fill the basement.
Not quite correct, I work in a nuclear plant. If you take the volume of your high-end single family home, 2 stories + basement, you have a volume about equal to the fuel used by a single reactor in it's lifetime.
That being said, to generate the same amount of electricity, you need to burn 4-5 times that volume in coal per day, and several times the weight.
A nuclear fission event releases 2 million times the energy of any chemical reaction (i.e. burning). The amount of waste fuel a nuke plant generates is incredibly small by any reasonable standard.
Of course, we also generate lots of low level radioactive waste (contaminated tools, clothing, instruments, neutron sources, etc) but much of this stuff really isn't harmful, it's just that since we know it's more radioactive on it's way out of the plant than on the way in, we have to exercise ridiculous controls.
I don't know what country you're from (I'm from the US), but I've heard some parlimentary systems run like this:
1. People vote for a party, not a person. 2. The seats in the legislative body are allocated according to each party's respective portion of the popular vote.
If this is true, where is the accountability? To get into office, you get in good with a party, and then hope your party gets enough votes that you make it in.
In the United States, lawmakers are accountable directly to the voters they represent. Having party backing is usually very helpful, but not a necessity- you can get into office and survive without party backing (it happens) but you cannot get into office, or keep it, unless a majority of the people you represent like what you're doing.
I'm of the opinion the more accountable government is, the better, and I was wondering how it worked under a parlimentary system, and your thoughts on it. Thanks.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, maybe you missed the politics section that just opened up. check the left side of the window for the'sections' header
Go Bush-bash over there, retard.
Well, what I really meant is that lefty blacks don't consider Rice & Powell 'black' because they're conservative. The parent of my post was about the Bush administration's lack of appointing minorities.
And actually, I'd imagine liberals would sorta like Powell, cause now that he's no longer a general and in charge of the state department, they're still a bunch of pansy appeasers. This is true even for Powell when he doesn't have specific direction from Bush (ie, selling the war to the UN. or trying, rather.)
Your point is taken about disagreement on ideological grounds, but this caught my attention:
then a conservative Hispanic is not going to support the viewpoints of most other Hispanics
A judge's job is not to support the viewpoint of most other hispanics. A Judge's job is to judge according to the law, with deference to the highest law in the land- the US constitution.
You want someone to represent hispanic viewpoints in the government? Fine. Elect a senator or representative to do so. A judge, on the other hand, should just do his job. Creative judges representing viewpoints and effectively writing laws is what has many of us right-wingers pissed off at the judiciary and the percieved lefty takeover of it.
Estrada (that was his name, wasn't it?) , when asked about representing hispanic viewpoints while on the bench replied that he didn't see what being hispanic had to do with anything. He's just gotta judge according to the law. That's the kind of people this right winger wants, I don't give a shit what color he is.
France and Germany didn't say "Don't go to war", they said "Give us more time to work on a diplomatic solution, and if it doesn't work, we'll go with you".
Twelve years wasn't enough?
Bush/Cheney secretly re-wrote the countries energy policy to allow the type of manipulation of California's energy supplies which resulted in the fake energy crisis of '01. Bush & Company have personally ripped me off for hundreds of dollars during that time. So far, no one has been charged with any crimes relating to the Calif rip off and no money has been re turned to the state.
Really? because I was under the impression that the deregulation scheme set up by the California legislature de-regulated wholesale prices of electricity while still regulating consumer prices of electricity, (so power distributors couldn't pass on the cost to consumers, which might have encouraged them to moderate their energy use) plus a few other laws that didn't result in de-regulation, but even more complex and counter productive regulation.
Enron, then, cynically/criminally manipulated the market and caused the blackouts and energy crisis for profit. Add on top of that the environmentalists in CA preventing any serious powerplant construction, and you had a disaster.
Nowhere do I see how Bush fits into their, except for refusing to bail california out for their mistakes.
Please cite the specific policy change bush implemented and how this led to the fake california energy crisis, because I don't think there's any connection.
you're breaking my heart.
Condeleeza Rice and Colin Powell? That oughta get you started.
Oh, wait, they're not really black because they're conservative, right? Isn't that the type of racism that's okay in the twisted view of the democrats?
As for civil liberties, I'm just not concerned about the people in Guantanamo, who were detained on a BATTLEFIELD. That doesn't mean that they forfeit all rights as human beings, but it does mean that all the procedural niceties like access to a lawyer don't need to apply right away.
I have no issue how they're being treated, but we should remember that the Geneva convention.
That is, since these guys were caught fighting out of uniform, and for no recognizable country, they have no rights under the geneva convention and could simply be executed any time we damn well please.
But that Hispanic judge was spectacularly conservative, and thus not especially representative of the Hispanic community.
It's sort of like Republicans and Clarence Thomas-- the Democrats can't fight his appointment without losing face, because he's black, even though underneath the skin he's about as conservative as your average white CEO.
Well, that's the most racists and prejudiced thing I've read in a while.
Basically, you're saying that a conservative hispanic isn't really conservative at all, because hispanics are liberal.
So race determines thought and behavior. Nope, no free will or independant thinking here.
Same things for blacks. Clarence thomas isn't black because he isn't liberal.
So, are all the pasty, patchouli wearing liberal protestor types at my college not really white because they're not conservative? Or maybe since it's white males who have all the power, they must be conservatives. So the liberals holding up those idiotic signs drawn with their mother's markers must be some other skin color or gender, right?
YOU are stating that SKIN COLOR DETERMINES BEHAVIOR AND THOUGHT.
You may be right that the republicans intentionally sought out a hispanic conservative judge, but only to show that the democrats are full of shit when they claim to have the moral high ground on race.
They can't stand having a black (Thomas) or a hispanic in a very prominent position that isn't in their camp. The slaves are escaping the plantation! Pull out the filibuster!
How did you get fucked by Bush?
please, do share.
Cause I think you're full of shit.
The new documents that came out this morning are already highly suspect:
Every single one of the memos to file regarding Bush's failure to attend a physical and meet other requirements is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman. In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing (especially in the military), and typewriters used mono-spaced fonts.
The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction high-end word processing systems from Xerox and Wang, and later of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers. They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's.
Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang and other systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used mono-spaced fonts. I doubt the TANG had typesetting or high-end 1st generation word processing systems.
I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old. This should be pursued aggressively.
UPDATE: Thanks to all the readers who have written regarding this post. Several have pointed out that the Executive line of IBM typewriters did have proportionally spaced fonts, although no reader has found the font used in the memos to be a familiar one or thought that the an IBM Executive was likely to have been used by the National Guard in the early 1970's. Reader Monty Walls has also cited the IBM Selectric Composer. However, reader Eric Courtney adds this wrinkle:
The "Memo To File" of August 18, 1973 also used specialized typesetting characters not used on typewriters. These include the superscript "th" in 187th, and consistent ' (right single quote) used instead of a typewriter's generic ' (apostrophe). These are the sorts of things that typesetters did manually until the advent of
smart correction in things like Microsoft Word.
UPDATE 2: Reader John Risko adds:
I was a clerk/typist for the US Navy at the Naval Underwater Systems Center (NUSC) in Newport RI for my summer job in 1971 when I was in college. I note the following with regard to the Killian memos:
1) Tom Mortensen is absolutely correct. Variable type was used only for special printing jobs, like official pamphlets. These documents are forgeries, and not even good ones. Someone could have at least found an old pre-Selectric IBM (introduced around 1962). Actually, I believe we were using IBM Model C's at the time, which was the precursor to the Selectric.
2) I also used a Variype machine in 1971. I fooled around with it in my spare time. It was incredibly difficult to set up and use. It was also extremely hard to correct mistakes on the machine. Most small letters used two spaces. Capital letters generally used three spaces. I think letters like "i" may have used one space. Anyway, you can see that this type of machine was piloted by an expert, and it would NEVER be used for a routine memo. A Lt. Colonel would not be able to identify a Varitype machine, let alone use it.
3) US Navy paper at the time was not 8 1/2 x 11. It was 8 x 10 1/2. I believe this was the same throughout the military, but someone will have to check on that. This should show up in the Xeroxing, which should have lines running along the sides of the Xerox copy.
4) I am amused by the way "147 th Ftr.Intrcp Gp." appears in the August 1, 1972 document. It may have been written that way in non-forged documents, but as somone who worked for ComCruDesLant, I know the military liked to bunch things together. I find "147 th" suspicious looking. 147th looks better to me, but the problem with Microsoft Word is that it keeps turning the "th" tiny if it is connected to a number like 147. And finally......
5) MORE DEFINITIVE PROOF OF FORGERY: I had neglected even to look at the August 18, 1973 memo to file. This forger was a fool. This fake document actually does have the tiny "th" in "187th" and there is simply no way this could
Kerry's mistake was not preparing for it sooner.
Prepare? How? He's already fessed up that he was never in cambodia and his first purple heart was (unintentionally) self inflicted. There's two of the SBVT major points right there.
How can he prepare for attacks on his record that are true?
Where's his 20 years of service to America? Oh yeah, running companies into the ground. Great man, there.
Actually, last I knew he was governor of Texas. And again, you have his last 4 years as President to judge wether or not you want to hire him again. He is running, incidentally, largely on the activities of his last term. Not on his ANG service.
No he's not. Did you listen to his speech? "If you elect me I will..." He's running on promises he still hasn't delivered from his first campaign -- and he's had a Republican House and Senate. Therefore he's either lying about his goals, or completely ineffective at them. Take your pick.
Hey, he's been pretty busy the last four years. Crushing two regimes, getting that trashy medicare prescription drug benefit passed, tax cuts, etc. Sure, he hasn't delivered on all his promises, but you can't deny he's done alot. Wether you like what he's done is another matter, but he's been doing something. That's more than enough for me to give him another shot at the rest that he wants to accomplish.
And let's not forget that GWB took great pains to dress up in a flight suit and stand on the deck of an aircraft carrier, mocking the very job he did so poorly at 30 years ago.
Poorly? What's your basis for this statement? Give me a link to scans of his military performance records. Moreover, one photo-op morale boosting trip to an aircraft carrier is a far cry from Kerry's "I was in vietnam" every other breath.
You can't, cause you're just making shit up.
At best, he deserved a Dishonorable Discharge which would have tanked his first run for the Presidency before it even got started.
Again, provide some proof. What I've read suggests that he fulfilled his commitments, though somewhat irregularly, it was permission from his commanders.
Moreover, Bush is not running on his military service, but has released his records. Kerry is running on his service, and has not released the records.
Am I the only one who thinks that it doesn't matter what Bush or Kerry did or did not do 30 years ago?
Hey, did you know senator Kerry was in vietnam?
seriously, it would matter less if Kerry wasn't running almost entirely on his vietnam service and skipping his 20 years in the senate entirely. The entire democratic convention was spent talking about what happened 30 years ago, painting Kerry as the nice little war hero. Or trying.
Problem is, real heros don't proclaim they're heros at every turn.
Kerry doesn't run on his 20 years in the senate- which would be most relevant- because he'll get nowhere on it. His votes on defense, on taxes, on many issues were consistently the type of positions that would play very poorly with at least half of america. His campaign knows this, which is why you never hear about it from the dems or the media. It also doesn't help that his twenty year history of being a complete and utter peacenik contradict any talk now of seriously protecting the United States from any threat that may be out there.
Bush, on the other hand, is running on his past four years as president, not on being in the ANG 30 years ago. Perhaps his Air National Guard service is not much to brag about, but that is precisely why he isn't doing so.
Kerry made his vietnam service the centerpiece of his qualifications. The scrutiny of his service is therefor justified.
Making an issue of President Bush's service 30 years ago does seem rather pointless, as he's never mentioned it, and we have four years of his presidency to judge him on, which should be more than enough to decided if you want him again.
Kerry's 20 years in the senate is also enough to judge him on, but he made the vietnam service scrutiny a legitimate issue all by himself.
one has to wonder whether airing such a controvercial movie on the eve of an election helps or hurts the political process by influencing the vote with last-minute emotions rather than thoroughly contemplation.
Not to mention it may very well be prohibited under the mccain-feingold act, a trashy unconstitutional piece of legislation if there ever was one.
Funny how the supreme court finds it more important to protect simulated child pornography (unimportant) and is okay with silencing political speech (the most important type!).
If someone ever finds the supreme court's balls, please return them to washington. They're desperately needed.
Because of gambling. Nevada's got so many video gaming machines/slot machines that they're rather adept at investigating and regulating such machinery as a state.
Or so I'd imagine.
Basically, the knowledge required to run & regulate the gambling industries electronics honestly would be useful for voting machines.
Paper trail verifiable instantly by the voter? I'm all for it!
I seem to recall that the administration put forward an energy bill that offered substantial tax breaks on the next 8,000 MW of nuclear generating capability built, and was dedicated to moving Yucca mountain forward- and having someplace to stick all that waste is very important to the nuke industry.
There's a difference between being picky about disposing of a ladder that's as radioactive as a coleman lantern filament you can buy at walmart, and making fuel.
One can obviously kill you. The other might make you ill if you hugged it for five years.
Appropriate controls for the risk involved. That's all I'm saying.
People here turn into idiots when someone mentions the french, why is that?
Because Americans
1. Don't respect the french, as they capitulated to hitler comparitively easily, and lost rapidly in WW1 as well.
2. Don't like the french for their obstructionism of our agenda in Iraq, made worse when it became evident that the obstructionism was just to protect lucrative & crooked oil deals.
3. Are annoyed that france's policy decisions seem to be consistently based on 'Let's do the opposite of whatever the US wants'
That's a list that should get you started. I'm sure people could add more to it.
Who gives a damn about the fuckin' Euro perception of America?
Right on. As if winning an international popularity contest was the most important thing for the US to be doing, or as if we could ever win such a contest under any circumstance.
or december. Rumor has it that the DNC cry babies, not content they had made a mockery of the electorial process with their selective recounts in Florida in 2000, are already planning lawsuits to contest the outcome of the coming election.
Francophobe
Wouldn't that mean I'm afraid of the french? Why would anyone be afraid of the french?
Everyone else here is floating their own ideas for yahoo, with the same expectation- none- that yahoo brass is paying attention.
Pointless yapping is the point of slashdot. So comment with that in mind, jerky.
Because yahoo isn't run by French people. If it were, they would surely capitulate instantenously.
Oh, and doing so would make a serious dent in their bottom line, and they'd have to weigh that against just how much money having a france-specific portal brings in, and wether pulling out physically from france but still offering french language services is a better option.
My proposition: Have no physical presense or employees in france to act against. Continue to otherwise rake in as much dough as possible from french citizens, and fuck their government out of the tax money they need to run their pathetic nanny state.
Why do I always hear this back yard argument? If you took an average size suburban house and made it water tight, all of the nuclear waste made by all of mans reactors since the beginning of the nuclear age wouldn't even fill the basement.
Not quite correct, I work in a nuclear plant. If you take the volume of your high-end single family home, 2 stories + basement, you have a volume about equal to the fuel used by a single reactor in it's lifetime.
That being said, to generate the same amount of electricity, you need to burn 4-5 times that volume in coal per day, and several times the weight.
A nuclear fission event releases 2 million times the energy of any chemical reaction (i.e. burning). The amount of waste fuel a nuke plant generates is incredibly small by any reasonable standard.
Of course, we also generate lots of low level radioactive waste (contaminated tools, clothing, instruments, neutron sources, etc) but much of this stuff really isn't harmful, it's just that since we know it's more radioactive on it's way out of the plant than on the way in, we have to exercise ridiculous controls.
I don't know what country you're from (I'm from the US), but I've heard some parlimentary systems run like this:
1. People vote for a party, not a person.
2. The seats in the legislative body are allocated according to each party's respective portion of the popular vote.
If this is true, where is the accountability? To get into office, you get in good with a party, and then hope your party gets enough votes that you make it in.
In the United States, lawmakers are accountable directly to the voters they represent. Having party backing is usually very helpful, but not a necessity- you can get into office and survive without party backing (it happens) but you cannot get into office, or keep it, unless a majority of the people you represent like what you're doing.
I'm of the opinion the more accountable government is, the better, and I was wondering how it worked under a parlimentary system, and your thoughts on it. Thanks.