And ironically, Rexford Guy Tugwell, one of the architects of FDRs policies said, "We didn't admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started." And that too is ironic since FDR's running mate, Garner charged that Hoover was "leading the country down the path of socialism." Just like today, both sides were to blame for turning a short recession into a long depression.
Good point, I stand corrected. But if private sector interest rates were to rise naturally, wouldn't that indirectly affect the treasury market as well?
A war was never formally declared, so Bush was operating under the war powers act, as far as I can tell. It would make sense since he declared "Mission Accomplished" right before his authorization would have run out. But it was still a war and as such, could be proved unconstitutional in the courts. They didn't have to pass a new bill.
Or they could have just filibustered the spending bills. Granted, they would have opened themselves up to all sorts of attack if they had done that, but I doubt that would have hurt them in this election since it's all about the economy now, not to mention that spending cuts would now have seemed wise now in retrospect.
As for "blaming" the Democrats, I don't blame them any more than I blame the Republicans. Wellstone aside (and we see where that got him), they were mostly complicit in the war. No serious person bought that yellowcake bullshit. They all played along with it. The now discredited intelligence wasn't their reason for voting for the force resolution, it was their cover. Just like this economic crisis is the Republicans cover for nationalizing the banks.
Both parties are pro-war and both parties embrace this socialist/fascist hybrid we're now burdened with. And both parties seem to now be completely ignoring the will of their constituents. As a staunch "conservative" myself, I feel more kinship with extreme liberals than I do with the Republican or Democratic party. It's just the power-elite versus everybody else. Anybody who truly cares about this country, on either side, is shut out.
We've been living on credit cards since world war II. You can't blame one administration. The problem was easy money. If we had free market interest rates, the economy would grow much slower and people would have to be more careful with their investments. The added bonus would be that government would be forced to curtail its spending lest they drive those interest rates so high that nobody would be able to borrow. But instead, we're going to fight our easy money problem with free money as the bailout bill allows for Paulson to lower the bank reserve requirements to 0% and Bernake is about to bring fed rates down to almost 0%. Our problem is the banks and the fact that we allow them to legally counterfeit money. Right now, we're in the process of making the problem so much worse.
As someone who usually leans Republican, I must admit that I think we are less screwed should Obama win.
You're less screwed as a Republican anyway. The next president will, perhaps unfairly, be associated with this economic catastrophe. Bush almost destroyed the party, another Republican in office at this time will be the final nail in the coffin of the GOP. If you think the backlash is bad now, it will be five times as worse if McCain follows up on Bush.
Are you going to vote for John McCain or are you a Marxist?
But wait, McCain voted for the bailout and I don't want to vote for a Marxist, so I must vote for John McCain, but wait he wants to bail out all the irresponsible homeowners too and I don't want to vote for a Marxist, so I must vote for..... bzzzz...... does not compute.... illogical.... Norman, coordinate!
The Democrats have done a good job of standing up for their ideas, or at least the stupid ones.
Oh like when they got elected in 2006 to end the war and then they didn't? I gave up on the hypocrisy of Democrats when I was a liberal and I'm giving up on the hypocrisy of the Republicans now that I'm a conservative. I've been on both sides, they're all full of shit.
In this case, then, the question generally boils down to "does my candidate accept that there is a problem and that action is necessary?" and both top candidates seem to fit the bill.
They may accept that there is a problem, but I do think they're underestimating the seriousness of it. I haven't seen anything change since Jim Lehrer asked them what they'd have to give up, given the economic climate. They aren't willing to give the new programs they want, much less cutting existing ones. Trimming pork barrel spending won't even come close to being enough. We need to pick either medicare, social security or defense and wack it. Otherwise we will see a collapse of the dollar in our lifetime.
Given how many people have given up on the political system, I don't think you can say either will have a true mandate. What I'd like to see is for every ballot in every election to have a "None of the Above" option. Then you'd truly see how little support these guys get. Hell, I'd be enthusiastically campaigning for None of the Above. Although with my luck, I'd probably end up helping to elect Montgomery Brewster.
Anyone know how close the surrounding gas would have to be before it would appear to stop swirling from our perspective? Or is it moving so fast that time dilation wouldn't appear to have much effect. Would the gas that gets blown away actually appear to speed up as it gets further from the black hole?
It seems like they'll either fail in the first three months or not at all. Given that, the 5 year warranty probably doesn't cost Seagate any more than a 1 year one would. I generally stick with the ES drives though and I've only seen one early failure there.
Not so well, but I think we're getting close. Vmplayer now supports experimental Direct X and despite the textures being screwed up on the buildings, I was finally able to play Rise of Nations just fine under Linux (something Wine hasn't come close to achieving).
The problem is that Republicans and Democrats have worked to institutionalize their control of the political system to the point where 3rd parties haven't been viable. And if a 3rd party managed to eventually become viable, no doubt it would be co-opted by the same types that control the two parties we have. Evil people will always be drawn to power wherever they can find it.
The problem is that the constitution has been abandoned in favor of necessity (the plea of tyrants, the creed of slaves). If we could just hold our leaders to comply with the rule of law, then the rest tends to work itself out. But once they decide that there are "very important" issues that supersede the rule of law, then the question of right and wrong gets thrown out the window and we all become the victims of unbridled power. That may be the order of the day in a Democracy, but that's why our founding fathers wisely elected to make us a Constitutional Republic. The idea was always that the majority would be legally restricted from being able to vote away your natural rights.
This is why labels like conservative don't really mean anything anymore. The "actual conservative" movement you mentioned is really more of a Republican movement and Republicans are no more "conservative" than Democrats are "liberal." I know my local Republican party leadership understands this problem (on some level) and everyone recognizes that the party is dying and they are nearly in a panic. You can see it in the drop off in funding and attendance. You can see it when precinct committee people are resigning their positions left and right. That doesn't mean that the movement becomes theirs, it merely means that the traditional small government conservatives are left adrift right now. That's why former Republicans like Barr are trying to capitalize on those frustrations right now through third party outlets. He recognizes an opportunity. Eventually someone will figure out how to pull the real conservatives back in the game and then we can talk movements again. Right now, it's all about the identity crisis.
Well after reading everyones' comments, I can now conclude that Obama just made the biggest mistake of his campaign to date. All of his other controversies just led me to roll my eyes and say the press is taking fluff too seriously. But apparently, a lot of you actually thought that Obama was the real deal, representing the little guy, instead of the status quo. I've read comment after comment here by people who've been shocked back into apathy.
You can bet that the media won't report this as much of a misstep. No, they'll probably conclude that it was good for him to do. But this is the first time I've seen his base start to wobble in any real way. Even more so than with Jeremiah Wright. I had always assumed that he had it locked up, but now I wonder if McCain might not have a shot after-all.
Obama could have easily stuck to his guns and further energized his base. Republicans wouldn't have been any more likely to turn out for McCain if Obama had voted against it. All he needs to do is hold onto his base and the election is easily his. McCain will never be able to turn out his base in significant numbers unless Obama chose Hillary as his running mate or we get another 9/11 style event. But with a steady enough build-up, it only takes a few stumbles by Obama for McCain to get within striking distance.
Either way, we're screwed. The next president will take all of the totalitarian powers that Bush had and expand upon them, without regard for the next guy who'll inherit those powers. The congress will continue to rubber-stamp it all and our standard of living will continue to decline. There's no turning back now. There is only starting over.
Four years ago I saw an interview with Feingold, the democrat from Wisconsin. I thought he would be the one running this election, and now I wish he were.
Ughh. I've had enough of McCain-Feingold myself. But it would be ironic to watch each race to destroy the law they worked so hard for. I'd take my comment back. I might even pay to see that.
Hell, it worked for Brewster's Millions. Seriously though, I would love nothing more than to see a "None of the Above" option on all ballots. Politician's only care about people who vote, but there are millions out there who would be more than happy to show up if there were only an option to register their discontent. And how sweet would these results be on election day:
12% McCain 12% Obama 76% None of the Above
No stinking Republican or Democrat would ever be able to claim a mandate over us ever again since neither side would ever be able to capture a majority of voters.
As for those "mass protests," the government will likely have a lot more on their hands to deal with if they continue to ignore the best interest of this country and the will of the people. Why do you think crap like FISA gets passed in the first place? They know what's coming and it has nothing to do with terrorism.
Are you really that surprised? Do you think he would have gotten as far as he did if he wasn't the type to play ball in the end? I'll do you one more, you can bet that a President Obama will engage in some degree of military intervention in Iran. Seriously, mark my words, you will see it. And maybe then you'll finally come to see these people as the power hungry mad-men they are. It doesn't matter the rhetoric they use or whether they have a R or D next to their name (with one notable exception of course). The Democrats and Republicans are equally hypocritical.
the greater of two evils starts winning. If everyone always voted for the lesser of two evils instead of holding themselves politics, the evils would diminish instead of grow.
It's about principle. And since Americans have none these days, things will continue to get worse and worse. If you vote for evil, then not only will you get evil, but you've given your mandate to and are responsible for all the evil acts they commit.
But if you insist on thinking of it strategically, then consider how riled up and energized your base gets when the other party is in power. It's usually good for the cause to be the underdog as we're seeing now with the approaching Democratic takeover. With this in mind, you might not consider it such a risk to vote your consciouses, knowing that the other guy getting in can benefit you too. I for one would rather my party lose than for it to stop representing me.
Slashdot Mirror
We recognize that your country is in a pretty deep hole left by the last administration, but we trust you'll do your best.
No we won't, what kind of loser nerds do you think we are?
Hell, even today, most people think FDR ended the first great depression.
He most certainly did. He ended it by dying.
And the republicans are still blaming FDR!
And ironically, Rexford Guy Tugwell, one of the architects of FDRs policies said, "We didn't admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started." And that too is ironic since FDR's running mate, Garner charged that Hoover was "leading the country down the path of socialism." Just like today, both sides were to blame for turning a short recession into a long depression.
Good point, I stand corrected. But if private sector interest rates were to rise naturally, wouldn't that indirectly affect the treasury market as well?
A war was never formally declared, so Bush was operating under the war powers act, as far as I can tell. It would make sense since he declared "Mission Accomplished" right before his authorization would have run out. But it was still a war and as such, could be proved unconstitutional in the courts. They didn't have to pass a new bill.
Or they could have just filibustered the spending bills. Granted, they would have opened themselves up to all sorts of attack if they had done that, but I doubt that would have hurt them in this election since it's all about the economy now, not to mention that spending cuts would now have seemed wise now in retrospect.
As for "blaming" the Democrats, I don't blame them any more than I blame the Republicans. Wellstone aside (and we see where that got him), they were mostly complicit in the war. No serious person bought that yellowcake bullshit. They all played along with it. The now discredited intelligence wasn't their reason for voting for the force resolution, it was their cover. Just like this economic crisis is the Republicans cover for nationalizing the banks.
Both parties are pro-war and both parties embrace this socialist/fascist hybrid we're now burdened with. And both parties seem to now be completely ignoring the will of their constituents. As a staunch "conservative" myself, I feel more kinship with extreme liberals than I do with the Republican or Democratic party. It's just the power-elite versus everybody else. Anybody who truly cares about this country, on either side, is shut out.
McCain is the closeted gay guy calling Obama a faggot. And I'm just wondering where da white women at. Apparently, we're all socialists now.
We've been living on credit cards since world war II. You can't blame one administration. The problem was easy money. If we had free market interest rates, the economy would grow much slower and people would have to be more careful with their investments. The added bonus would be that government would be forced to curtail its spending lest they drive those interest rates so high that nobody would be able to borrow. But instead, we're going to fight our easy money problem with free money as the bailout bill allows for Paulson to lower the bank reserve requirements to 0% and Bernake is about to bring fed rates down to almost 0%. Our problem is the banks and the fact that we allow them to legally counterfeit money. Right now, we're in the process of making the problem so much worse.
As someone who usually leans Republican, I must admit that I think we are less screwed should Obama win.
You're less screwed as a Republican anyway. The next president will, perhaps unfairly, be associated with this economic catastrophe. Bush almost destroyed the party, another Republican in office at this time will be the final nail in the coffin of the GOP. If you think the backlash is bad now, it will be five times as worse if McCain follows up on Bush.
Are you going to vote for John McCain or are you a Marxist?
But wait, McCain voted for the bailout and I don't want to vote for a Marxist, so I must vote for John McCain, but wait he wants to bail out all the irresponsible homeowners too and I don't want to vote for a Marxist, so I must vote for ..... bzzzz ...... does not compute .... illogical .... Norman, coordinate!
The Democrats have done a good job of standing up for their ideas, or at least the stupid ones.
Oh like when they got elected in 2006 to end the war and then they didn't? I gave up on the hypocrisy of Democrats when I was a liberal and I'm giving up on the hypocrisy of the Republicans now that I'm a conservative. I've been on both sides, they're all full of shit.
In this case, then, the question generally boils down to "does my candidate accept that there is a problem and that action is necessary?" and both top candidates seem to fit the bill.
They may accept that there is a problem, but I do think they're underestimating the seriousness of it. I haven't seen anything change since Jim Lehrer asked them what they'd have to give up, given the economic climate. They aren't willing to give the new programs they want, much less cutting existing ones. Trimming pork barrel spending won't even come close to being enough. We need to pick either medicare, social security or defense and wack it. Otherwise we will see a collapse of the dollar in our lifetime.
Given how many people have given up on the political system, I don't think you can say either will have a true mandate. What I'd like to see is for every ballot in every election to have a "None of the Above" option. Then you'd truly see how little support these guys get. Hell, I'd be enthusiastically campaigning for None of the Above. Although with my luck, I'd probably end up helping to elect Montgomery Brewster.
Anyone know how close the surrounding gas would have to be before it would appear to stop swirling from our perspective? Or is it moving so fast that time dilation wouldn't appear to have much effect. Would the gas that gets blown away actually appear to speed up as it gets further from the black hole?
Apparently, it'll be out in coming months:
http://help.comcast.net/content/faq/Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Excessive-Use#tracking
However, they really should have released it first. It shouldn't be all that complicated to implement.
It seems like they'll either fail in the first three months or not at all. Given that, the 5 year warranty probably doesn't cost Seagate any more than a 1 year one would. I generally stick with the ES drives though and I've only seen one early failure there.
Not so well, but I think we're getting close. Vmplayer now supports experimental Direct X and despite the textures being screwed up on the buildings, I was finally able to play Rise of Nations just fine under Linux (something Wine hasn't come close to achieving).
The problem is that Republicans and Democrats have worked to institutionalize their control of the political system to the point where 3rd parties haven't been viable. And if a 3rd party managed to eventually become viable, no doubt it would be co-opted by the same types that control the two parties we have. Evil people will always be drawn to power wherever they can find it.
The problem is that the constitution has been abandoned in favor of necessity (the plea of tyrants, the creed of slaves). If we could just hold our leaders to comply with the rule of law, then the rest tends to work itself out. But once they decide that there are "very important" issues that supersede the rule of law, then the question of right and wrong gets thrown out the window and we all become the victims of unbridled power. That may be the order of the day in a Democracy, but that's why our founding fathers wisely elected to make us a Constitutional Republic. The idea was always that the majority would be legally restricted from being able to vote away your natural rights.
This is why labels like conservative don't really mean anything anymore. The "actual conservative" movement you mentioned is really more of a Republican movement and Republicans are no more "conservative" than Democrats are "liberal." I know my local Republican party leadership understands this problem (on some level) and everyone recognizes that the party is dying and they are nearly in a panic. You can see it in the drop off in funding and attendance. You can see it when precinct committee people are resigning their positions left and right. That doesn't mean that the movement becomes theirs, it merely means that the traditional small government conservatives are left adrift right now. That's why former Republicans like Barr are trying to capitalize on those frustrations right now through third party outlets. He recognizes an opportunity. Eventually someone will figure out how to pull the real conservatives back in the game and then we can talk movements again. Right now, it's all about the identity crisis.
Well after reading everyones' comments, I can now conclude that Obama just made the biggest mistake of his campaign to date. All of his other controversies just led me to roll my eyes and say the press is taking fluff too seriously. But apparently, a lot of you actually thought that Obama was the real deal, representing the little guy, instead of the status quo. I've read comment after comment here by people who've been shocked back into apathy.
You can bet that the media won't report this as much of a misstep. No, they'll probably conclude that it was good for him to do. But this is the first time I've seen his base start to wobble in any real way. Even more so than with Jeremiah Wright. I had always assumed that he had it locked up, but now I wonder if McCain might not have a shot after-all.
Obama could have easily stuck to his guns and further energized his base. Republicans wouldn't have been any more likely to turn out for McCain if Obama had voted against it. All he needs to do is hold onto his base and the election is easily his. McCain will never be able to turn out his base in significant numbers unless Obama chose Hillary as his running mate or we get another 9/11 style event. But with a steady enough build-up, it only takes a few stumbles by Obama for McCain to get within striking distance.
Either way, we're screwed. The next president will take all of the totalitarian powers that Bush had and expand upon them, without regard for the next guy who'll inherit those powers. The congress will continue to rubber-stamp it all and our standard of living will continue to decline. There's no turning back now. There is only starting over.
Oh I don't know, Ron Paul didn't say "change" enough. And I'm more interested in change than upsetting the status quo.
Four years ago I saw an interview with Feingold, the democrat from Wisconsin. I thought he would be the one running this election, and now I wish he were.
Ughh. I've had enough of McCain-Feingold myself. But it would be ironic to watch each race to destroy the law they worked so hard for. I'd take my comment back. I might even pay to see that.
Hell, it worked for Brewster's Millions. Seriously though, I would love nothing more than to see a "None of the Above" option on all ballots. Politician's only care about people who vote, but there are millions out there who would be more than happy to show up if there were only an option to register their discontent. And how sweet would these results be on election day:
12% McCain
12% Obama
76% None of the Above
No stinking Republican or Democrat would ever be able to claim a mandate over us ever again since neither side would ever be able to capture a majority of voters.
As for those "mass protests," the government will likely have a lot more on their hands to deal with if they continue to ignore the best interest of this country and the will of the people. Why do you think crap like FISA gets passed in the first place? They know what's coming and it has nothing to do with terrorism.
Are you really that surprised? Do you think he would have gotten as far as he did if he wasn't the type to play ball in the end? I'll do you one more, you can bet that a President Obama will engage in some degree of military intervention in Iran. Seriously, mark my words, you will see it. And maybe then you'll finally come to see these people as the power hungry mad-men they are. It doesn't matter the rhetoric they use or whether they have a R or D next to their name (with one notable exception of course). The Democrats and Republicans are equally hypocritical.
the greater of two evils starts winning. If everyone always voted for the lesser of two evils instead of holding themselves politics, the evils would diminish instead of grow.
It's about principle. And since Americans have none these days, things will continue to get worse and worse. If you vote for evil, then not only will you get evil, but you've given your mandate to and are responsible for all the evil acts they commit.
But if you insist on thinking of it strategically, then consider how riled up and energized your base gets when the other party is in power. It's usually good for the cause to be the underdog as we're seeing now with the approaching Democratic takeover. With this in mind, you might not consider it such a risk to vote your consciouses, knowing that the other guy getting in can benefit you too. I for one would rather my party lose than for it to stop representing me.
Progressive is what you call yourself when you're ashamed to be called a liberal.
I would prefer the term central-planner though, since neither liberal or progressive really applies as descriptions go.