I[f] you have a goatee, *you're* the evil twin. Your cleanshaven counterpart is the good guy.
Just because he's the "evil twin" doesn't mean, that his cleanshaven counterpart is a good guy. See the Spooky Fish episode of South Park. As Stan said to the the goateed Evil Cartman, "You know Evil Cartman, I like you better than our Cartman.".
I don't know how Illinois works but Northeast Republicans tend to be moderate "fiscal-conservative" Republicans. We don't have the bible-belt freaks around here -- they simply wouldn't get elected.
That said I'd have a hard time voting for any of my NYS Republicans (think: Pataki or Guliani) if they were running for Federal office. I am not going to help elect somebody that will caucus with the religious-right Republicans that are running Washington DC -- even if I like them.
We have the same problem with former governor Jim Edgar. (Some of us have even taken to calling it "The Edgar Quandary".) The man was a spectacular governor. He spoke honestly, and for the all too brief time he was governor, the state was soluable. Jim Edgar loved by everyone. He would be an excellent senator. A true statesman in every sense of the word. But a vote for him, is a vote for the hardline Republicans to remain in power. I can't do that, and it's a shame.
Luckily for the Democrats, but unluckily for the nation, Edgar has a bad heart, and so his politcal career is at an end.
You don't live in upstate New York do you? There are lots of people around here that advocate exactly that.
Yeah, we have those nut jobs too. How they expect the southern most 17 counties to survive without a tax base of any sort is beyond me.
We both know, those people are a very small minority.
Disclaimer: And I'm a Democrat! You should listen to the Republicans bitch about NYC...
I'm a Democrat too, but I won't vote for a Democrat for Illinois Governor. The Democrats take all the money back to Chicago. Statewide Republicans are mostly moderates and realize the dynamics of the heavily Democratic state aren't Democrat-vs-Republican, but rather Chicagoland-vs-The-Rest-of-the-State.
I did vote for the Democrat last time because the Republican canidate, Attorney General Jim Ryan, protected the previous governor, a sleezeball Republican named George Ryan (no relation). Now we have a Governor that simply refuses to live in the state capital. As a friend of mine said, "It's not like he didn't know where the job was."
What about when civil rights don't mean anything to the majority of the people? Or the environment? Or gay marriage?
One of the great strengths of the American democracy is that it tends to give favor towards minorities. There are a lot of reasons for that, of course, not just the electoral college, but to think that majority rules is always desirable is (IMHO) a huge mistake.
You're point is valid, and I didn't mean to say that the minority shouldn't be respected and protected, but you can't rule through consensus either. When you have a sizeable group for something, a majority that's indifferent, and small vocal minority opposed, the minority shouldn't have a veto. Especially when they're not affected. (e.g. the "christian" right and gay marriage. (I'm sorry, but if your bond with your spouse is predicated on what other people do, your marriage is in a lot more trouble than you realize.))
Hey, look at that, I get modded a troll and this guy gets modded insightful. Shows how childesh the left is.
And now it's modded "flamebait". Trully once again this shows how no one is more persecuted than the middle class white christian male. I mean where are they represented in the government, buisness, and education, and the other power structures of this country?
First of all, Wolfowitz may have been talking out of his ass, it happens, politicians are people too.
Wolfowitz is the Deputy Secertary of Defense. He's widely considered one of the most influential people in the administration. Perhaps you should learn something about the people you're a fan of.
And Reagan did what was smart, if he had ordered another raid after the botched Carter raid, it is likely all the hostages and many of the raiders would have been killed, then of course you could flip flop and call him a war monger. I was talking about the Beruit Marine barracks bombing and Iran-Contra. Again, learn something about the people you're a fan of.
Again with the second guessing, you don't know what he was thinking but you assume he froze because you harbor deep irrational prejudices that control you.
He froze during the debate repeatedly. The man freezes when he's stressed.
if these people really felt that way they would support us democratizing Iraq and the rest of the middle east and Afghanastan,
Because Iraq and Afghanastan aren't the same. Because you can't democracize the middle east at the barrel of a gun. Even the State Department doesn't believe you can. You can't impose democracy. You certainly can't impose democracy when your hated by the very people you're imposing it on. It's a fools errand.
That's another reason that Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Rhode Island, and many other states have more electoral and House representation than their population relative to the larger states would suggest. If those states were held completely hostage to the will of California and New York, they would leave the Union.
That's just dumb. You don't see Southern Illinois trying to secede from Chicago. You don't see upstate New York seceding from NYC.
When the electoral college was created in 1789, the ratio from the most populous state (Virginia) to the least populous (Delaware) was 11 to 1. Today, it's 68 to 1 (California and Wyoming). While, I haven't done no research, I think it would be interesting to see how this imbalance was affected with the 1911 law limiting the House to 435 representitives, and the admission of the western states.
Under the current situation, we don't have a tyrany of the majority, but rather a tyrany of the minority. Sparsely populated states generate little revenue, but receive large subsidies. Politcal decisions that are backed by a majority of the public are effectively vetoed by a hermit in a mountain shack. The small states like this. The conservatives like this. It gives them a disproportional amount of power.
There is more to a state than just raw population numbers. States like Alaska have natural resources, very strategic location, and a lot of other cool things.
COOL! Ha! *knee slap* In all honesty, we all love Alaska's giant mosquitos.:)
In all seriousness, you have a point that Alaska contributes to the great tapestry of the United States, but is it fair for an Alaskan voter to be worth 3 times as much as a New York voter? ((NYpop / NYev) / (AKpop / AKev)) New York, has more people, generates more revenue, and has more of a cultural impact than most states. Most telling of all, urban states states provide much more money to the federal treasury, than they receive.
And finally... who the fuck would trust City People to run this country?
Because, that's where most of the people live?
[What] about the issues of farmers, Alaskans, hunters, people who fish for a living, gun owners, miners, military communities, or anything else that takes place outside a major urban area.
Quite frankly these issues don't mean anything to the majority of the people. You listen to the majority in a democracy. Shocking, I know; but that's the way it does, and should, work.
Being from rural Southern Illinois, I know something about the urban-rural dynamic. Being from Alaska, you really don't. Juneau and Anchorage, simply aren't that big.
Thos issues aren't really that much of a problem, since governemnts tend to maximize revenue, whether it's in the form of taxes from assorted industries, or from federal government subsidizes. Illinois has the third largest city in the nation, yet it throws a fit everytime there's talk about cutting farm subsidies. Why? Agriculture is a large industry in the state.
What is a problem is allocation of state resources. For instance, Chicago REALLY doesn't want education funding to be allocated from a combined pool with each pupil receiving a equal ammount. Instead, they want the current system where education is funded directly though property taxes. This creates a system where the affluent suburban and urban neighborhood schools have multiple astroturfed football fields, million dollar chem labs, and everything their heart desires. The rural and innercity schools are lucky if their schools don't leak. (My high school didn't even have air conditioning.) That's where the issues lie.
Conversely, Why would we want someone who lives in a hut in the middle of Alaska running the country? They have no idea about the issues facing the majority of the nation.
What the hell do I know about the plight of innercities, suburban sprall, and traffic congestion? Nothing really.
First off FDR, Truman, and JFK would all be considered Right wing today by the likes of George Sores.
Yeah right. FDR and his graduated income tax that Grover Norquist wants to abolish for the antequated flat tax. (Yes, we had that before. It didn't work, because it causes an undue burden on lower and middle income levels.)
Nice pun on Soros.
Now on to carter who's administration was well on the way to bankrupting America. You'll notice how well that hostage rescue went. With all the lawyers running around making, and changing, rules of engagement that caused those in the mission to figuratively and literally run into each other.
Yeah, lawyers are known to cause sandstorms.
I personally love this argument, what was the right course of action then?
How about: Contact the FAA? Contact the joint chiefs? Contact the CIA? Contact The FBI? Contact Richard Clarke and the counter terrorism team? Contact Gulianni?
You know. Do something.
Military power is used to either protect or destroy infrastructure. Thats it, thats all, nothing more. Tracking down and arresting individuals is not what the armed forces do.
Exactly my point. The Bush administration has neglected using the entire power of the United States, but rather focused solely on miltary action. How are they going to get countries to use their internal security apparatuses to help us? Threaten invasion if they don't? You have to use both the stick and the carrot.
(See first section for links on Osama and Saddam.)
You really need to listen to something more than Republican propaganda. Try the BBC or the CBC.
Remember Mogadishu? The 1993 World Trade Center bombing? The bombing of the U.S.S. Cole?
The Beruit Marine Barracks...
Look at Iraq. Flouting the terms of our cease-fire for over a decade -- shooting at us occasionally, screwing around with the inspections, scamming the Food for Oil program, attempting to assassinate a former President... at what point do we put our foot down? 9/11 demonstrated that we can't wait forever.
All this may be true, but he was contained. Was not a threat to region or the world. That, makes all the difference.
He had to sit in the classroom until the Secret Service worked out an exit plan.
The president has an escape route planned for every conceivable emergency. Are we to belive that it would take 7 minutes for the secret service to wisk the president away during an assiination attempt, or in this case a war?
It's not like Bush could have done anything anyways
True. But he's the symbol of the nation. And the symbol sat on his hands.
Squandered goodwill? All that America-love was just a blip on the radar. Almost immediately after 9/11, foreigners were worried about what 'evil America' might do to retaliate.
Yes, it was blip. Because the Bush adminstration's reckless actions, made it so. But as you imply that the goodwill disappered within 48 hours, is simply untrue. NATO invoked its "an attack on one, is an attack on all" clause. We had no problem getting allies to go into Afghanistan. It was only when talk to towards Iraq, that world backed away.
Israel actually seems to have nearly won the current "intifada"
Just like how they won the last one. And the one before that. And the one before that...
What occuption in 1991? You mean the no-fly zones? The current "occupation" is rather more comprehensive.
It was a reference to the total cost of military action of Desert Storm compared to cost of Iraqi Freedom.
As opposed to the war's opponents, who were bought off with Saddam's "Oil for Food" money.
And this negates the State Department and the military warning that Iraq would be a quagmire, and none of our goals would be achievable how?
He had to sit in the classroom until the Secret Service worked out an exit plan.
The president has an escape route planned for every conceivable emergency. Are we to belive that it would take 7 minutes for the secret service to wisk the president away during an assiination attempt, or in this case a war?
It's not like Bush could have done anything anyways
True. But he's the symbol of the nation. And the symbol sat on his hands.
Hellooooo, 9/11, non-compliance with UN resolutions, etc. This guy is basically saying that since Bush didn't want to invade before he had a good reason, he should not have wanted to after he got a good reason (9/11 and Saddam's non-compliance giving us sufficient reason to believe he was a threat being the good reasons).
What did Iraq have to do with 9/11? Attacking Iraq after 9/11 makes as much sense as the United States invading Brazil after Pearl Harbor. The two were not related at all, as numerous bipartisan investigations have confirmed. That lie, more than anything else, is why Bush adminstration is despised. We can not trust this administration with the power of war.
On September 12, 2001, the administration was already drawing up invasion plans for Iraq; even though we were attacked from Afghanistan. It just doesn't make any sense. Their initial reaction wasn't to strike back at those who attacked us, but rather carry out their wet dream of converting the middle east to democracy at the barrel of a gun. As their report said, they would need "a cataclysmic event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" in order to carry this out.
Now with the non-complience with resolutions:
The truth is, as Wolfowitz admitted, Iraq's WMD was just a convient excuse. An excuse that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
Saddam's economy was in the tank. His infrastructure to reconsititue any weapons program was evicerated and atrophied to the point of being worthless. The bogus "intellegence" we were being fed about Iraq was coming from dubious sources. Furthermore, during the rush to war, the intellegence was not vetted. Instead it shoved directly to Doug Feith and the ominously named "Office of Special Plans". But it wasn't simply all the intellegence about Iraq. It was sifted first. Anything that supported a reason to invade, was good. Anything that didn't was disregarded.
I can hear you now. "But EVERYONE thought he had WMD!". Not exactly. As subsequent investigations have determined, the western world's intellegence apparatus is an echo chamber. Chalabi had been telling the US whatever he thought would get the US to invade Iraq, so he could be setup as the new strongman. His reports were considered by many in the CIA to range from interesting to fanciful.
However there was one group that bought everything Chalabi said. The neocons. This group was still upset that Bush I didn't "finish the job" by invading Iraq back in 1991. (Bush I said in his memoirs that he didn't because the coallition of 100+ nations would fall apart if he did, and he was afraid of what would happen in Iraq after the invasion.) Chalabi enjoyed his new patrons. They gave him money, and he in return told them exactly what they wanted to hear. He hoped that one day they would take control of the White House, and the invasion would be on. He was right.
The neocons would ask the CIA what they knew about Chalabi's claims. Not having many sources in Iraq, the CIA would ask the countries we formerly considered allies (i.e. Europe), if they could check in to it. The allies, not having sources in Iraq either, would ask each other what they knew. The allies would then tell each other that they too had heard these reports from secret sources too. Of course, their secret source was us. The nations-formerly-known-as-allies would then say "Yeah, we've heard these reports from secret sources too." Q.E.D.
The irony is that since there were no weapons, and so Saddam was in complience afterall.
As far as "etc." I have no idea what your "etc." could refer to, and I suspect you don't either.
"If we re-elect him now, we endorse the Bush doctrine of preemptive action and the invasion of Iraq, and w
Yeah, Election Projection is obviously wrong. They have Oregon going for Bush. There's no way those latted drinking flanel wearing hippies:) are going to vote for Bush.
I used to look at electoral-vote.com too, but I decided that it's predictions were to volatile, so I made my own. [url:http://www.cs.siu.edu/~jkoren/electoral_vote. html]
Mine averages the assorted polls roughly based on "trustworthiness". For instance: Gallup is weighted lower than Zogby, but not because Zogby polls Kerry consistently higher. It's because Zogby was the most accurate poll of 2000, and made a strong argument about what was wrong with Gallup's polling this year.
By the way, one of FDR's biggest legacies is the Federal Income Tax (instead of a traditional property tax or wealth tax). Although originally targetted only at the wealthy, has since become essentially a tax on the middle class. Of course the wealthy get to defer their income by purchasing property which goes up in value w/o being taxed, and since the relative tax burden of income vs property has shifted, they in fact get a defacto tax break. Yeah, that morgage interest deduction is a token that gets thrown the middle class's way, but if you look at the percentage of wealth of individuals and the percentage of federal income tax collected from those individuals, you can easily see how the Federal Income tax has slowly but surely become the tax on the middle class that keeps the poor from entering the middle class and the middle class from becoming more wealthy (by introducing an artificial economic class structure in its progressive rate structure).
You can thank the anti-New-Deal Republicans (Yes, they STILL exist.) for that. The problem came from supply-siders that kept arging that cutting taxes on the richest 1% is a a panacea. To blame FDR for the perversion of the system by fisically irresponsible "conservatives", is silly. FDR was long dead when this happened.
Let's see... the People's Republic of China gets as many votes as the Federated States of Micronesia (namely, one), so it's not democratic in the popular sense (double entendre!)
Ahh yes, but if UN votes were based on the number of voters in each nation (i.e. 1 UN vote per N voters in the member nation), then Micronesia and China would be equal, or maybe even Micronesia is under represented. After all only then elite Communist members have any real authority in China.
Ans speaking of China... At what point does China cease being "communist" and become merely another totalitarian regime?
Spending your time watching what your Sim will do when he finds out that his wife is cheating on him isn't entirely different from spending time watching "Friends" to see who will stay with who.
Really? One of my main problems with the Sims was that they never seemed to become proactive. I always had to make them take the shower. I always had to tell them to make dinner. I always had to tell them "hey now! Be pissed off!" or "Hey now! 'Play' with her on the vibrating heart shape bed!". That "I wonder what happens next, either didn't exist for me, or didn't exist at the level I wanted. Perhaps I should dust off Sims1 and play it again.
Perhaps inadvertently, "The Sims" seemed to me as indictment of materialism. The sims get up, take a shower and go to work to buy things. These things improve their lives. Better stoves provide better meals. Robot maids provide better more time for entertainment. Eventually you reach a point where you're buying things just to buy things.
You have all these simoleans, and you feel like you need to spend them. So you buy a plasma screen for your sims' living room. Then their bedroom. Then their dining room, and kitchen. You stick a home theater system in every room of their house. You create a family of trailer trash next door simply so your sims can make enough friends to get a job promotion, so they can earn more simoleans, so they can buy more things they don't need.
Even in light of lesbian love triangles where two of the participates hate each other so much they can't keep from torturing the other with the voodoo doll; there's something very depressing about the whole game.
Certainly an impressive undertaking but somehow it just doesn't sit right. The image depth is what my mind would be questionning. I mean if you don't actually feel like it's really out there then it may as well just be a nice photograph that you've glued over your windowpanes
Perhaps if the image was projected onto a concave mirror like in a flight sim. People have been doing it their homes, but I don't know how feasible a concave mirror would be in this situation, since you need to keep the whole projection system pretty compact.
Of course, like everyone else here, I'm talking out my ass.
The 7 justices of Florida who occasionally must go before the public for retention elections were more unbiased than the 7 justices of the United States Supreme Court who serve lifetime appointments?
Scalia is obviously above reproach.
Although Justice Souter thought the case should have been avoided on other grounds and sent back to Florida, he agreed that the remedy ordered at that point by the Florida court was a violation of the equal protection clause:
And yet, when it came down to it, the Court said, "You have to change the way you're counting, but we won't let you do it." There sole reason for forbidding the state from carring out their own order was to freeze the counts before Bush loss.
It was immoral, and bad law. Right up there with all the other infamous cases like Plessy v. Ferguson.
In short, Bush v. Gore was entirely a decision that the laws and actions of a state government violated provisions of the federal constitution.
Yeah. That's why the court split 5-4 right down idelogical lines and why Stevens said:
What must underlie petitioners' entire federal assault on the Florida election procedures is an unstated lack of confidence in the impartiality and capacity of the state judges who would make the critical decisions if the vote count were to proceed. Otherwise, their position is wholly without merit. The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land. It is confidence in the men and women who administer the judicial system that is the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.
It was a politcally motivated theft of an election. We all know it.
It is this authority that led the Supreme Court to overrule STATE laws that: established racial discrimination; prohibited birth control distribution; promoted religion in schools; and (among many, many others) prohibited abortions.
So I'm not sure what in the world you are talking about when you claim the Republicans have used the federal supreme court to rule on state law
Bush V. Gore.
The federal court ruled on the interpretation of state law. Your examples are of no consequence because in your examples the state laws you cited were in direct violation to the federal constitution. No such violation existed in the Floridian election laws. Instead, the federal supreme court issued an edict for cheap politcal gain, with no basis in law or tradition.
Nothing like a blatently unconstitutional powergrab. Emboldened by their success in using the federal supreme court to overstep the federal bounds and rule on state law; they up the ante and openly consider a blatently unconstitutional power grab.
Anyone in the Senate that would support this tactic, especially the senator that would overstep the check-and-balances and rule that a political tactic that written into the Constitution is unconstitutional would have to be impeached and removed from office. Why? They would have violated their oath of office to support the consitution as perscribed by Article VI, Clause 3.
No wonder why half the country looks at the current Republican party as them as a gang of protofacists.
You might not agree with Bush, but at least he's running on his record.
Really? What I heard at the convention was:
"9/11! 9/11! 9/11!" and "Ignoring what happened over the previous 4 years, here's a bunch of things I'll do when I become President!". Now Bush-Cheney are running on "Vote for us or die.".
This is because they CAN'T run on their record. Proverty is up. Jobs are down. The deficit is record highs. Iraq is a mess. None of these is a winner.
Like I've said many times before, this is a referendum on Bush... Kerry is irrelevant, and he's run his campaign like he is.
You're right. The election is a referendum on Bush, and Bush is weak across the board, and Kerry needs to execute, but he hasn't yet. Hopefully soon. (I think that's the real reason the Democrats have so many 527s. The grassroots are fed up with the incompetence of the DLC.)
Slashdot Mirror
I[f] you have a goatee, *you're* the evil twin. Your cleanshaven counterpart is the good guy.
Just because he's the "evil twin" doesn't mean, that his cleanshaven counterpart is a good guy. See the Spooky Fish episode of South Park. As Stan said to the the goateed Evil Cartman, "You know Evil Cartman, I like you better than our Cartman.".
Burning Libraries of Congress(es?)
Yes, it would be "Libraries of Congress". Library being the subject, and "of Congress", being the modifier. It's similar to "Attorneys General".
I don't know how Illinois works but Northeast Republicans tend to be moderate "fiscal-conservative" Republicans. We don't have the bible-belt freaks around here -- they simply wouldn't get elected.
That said I'd have a hard time voting for any of my NYS Republicans (think: Pataki or Guliani) if they were running for Federal office. I am not going to help elect somebody that will caucus with the religious-right Republicans that are running Washington DC -- even if I like them.
We have the same problem with former governor Jim Edgar. (Some of us have even taken to calling it "The Edgar Quandary".) The man was a spectacular governor. He spoke honestly, and for the all too brief time he was governor, the state was soluable. Jim Edgar loved by everyone. He would be an excellent senator. A true statesman in every sense of the word. But a vote for him, is a vote for the hardline Republicans to remain in power. I can't do that, and it's a shame.
Luckily for the Democrats, but unluckily for the nation, Edgar has a bad heart, and so his politcal career is at an end.
You don't live in upstate New York do you? There are lots of people around here that advocate exactly that.
Yeah, we have those nut jobs too. How they expect the southern most 17 counties to survive without a tax base of any sort is beyond me.
We both know, those people are a very small minority.
Disclaimer: And I'm a Democrat! You should listen to the Republicans bitch about NYC...
I'm a Democrat too, but I won't vote for a Democrat for Illinois Governor. The Democrats take all the money back to Chicago. Statewide Republicans are mostly moderates and realize the dynamics of the heavily Democratic state aren't Democrat-vs-Republican, but rather Chicagoland-vs-The-Rest-of-the-State.
I did vote for the Democrat last time because the Republican canidate, Attorney General Jim Ryan, protected the previous governor, a sleezeball Republican named George Ryan (no relation). Now we have a Governor that simply refuses to live in the state capital. As a friend of mine said, "It's not like he didn't know where the job was."
What about when civil rights don't mean anything to the majority of the people? Or the environment? Or gay marriage?
One of the great strengths of the American democracy is that it tends to give favor towards minorities. There are a lot of reasons for that, of course, not just the electoral college, but to think that majority rules is always desirable is (IMHO) a huge mistake.
You're point is valid, and I didn't mean to say that the minority shouldn't be respected and protected, but you can't rule through consensus either. When you have a sizeable group for something, a majority that's indifferent, and small vocal minority opposed, the minority shouldn't have a veto. Especially when they're not affected. (e.g. the "christian" right and gay marriage. (I'm sorry, but if your bond with your spouse is predicated on what other people do, your marriage is in a lot more trouble than you realize.))
Hey, look at that, I get modded a troll and this guy gets modded insightful. Shows how childesh the left is.
And now it's modded "flamebait". Trully once again this shows how no one is more persecuted than the middle class white christian male. I mean where are they represented in the government, buisness, and education, and the other power structures of this country?
First of all, Wolfowitz may have been talking out of his ass, it happens, politicians are people too.
Wolfowitz is the Deputy Secertary of Defense. He's widely considered one of the most influential people in the administration. Perhaps you should learn something about the people you're a fan of.
And Reagan did what was smart, if he had ordered another raid after the botched Carter raid, it is likely all the hostages and many of the raiders would have been killed, then of course you could flip flop and call him a war monger. I was talking about the Beruit Marine barracks bombing and Iran-Contra. Again, learn something about the people you're a fan of.
Again with the second guessing, you don't know what he was thinking but you assume he froze because you harbor deep irrational prejudices that control you.
He froze during the debate repeatedly. The man freezes when he's stressed.
if these people really felt that way they would support us democratizing Iraq and the rest of the middle east and Afghanastan,
Because Iraq and Afghanastan aren't the same. Because you can't democracize the middle east at the barrel of a gun. Even the State Department doesn't believe you can. You can't impose democracy. You certainly can't impose democracy when your hated by the very people you're imposing it on. It's a fools errand.
That's another reason that Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Rhode Island, and many other states have more electoral and House representation than their population relative to the larger states would suggest. If those states were held completely hostage to the will of California and New York, they would leave the Union.
:)
That's just dumb. You don't see Southern Illinois trying to secede from Chicago. You don't see upstate New York seceding from NYC.
When the electoral college was created in 1789, the ratio from the most populous state (Virginia) to the least populous (Delaware) was 11 to 1. Today, it's 68 to 1 (California and Wyoming). While, I haven't done no research, I think it would be interesting to see how this imbalance was affected with the 1911 law limiting the House to 435 representitives, and the admission of the western states.
Under the current situation, we don't have a tyrany of the majority, but rather a tyrany of the minority. Sparsely populated states generate little revenue, but receive large subsidies. Politcal decisions that are backed by a majority of the public are effectively vetoed by a hermit in a mountain shack. The small states like this. The conservatives like this. It gives them a disproportional amount of power.
There is more to a state than just raw population numbers. States like Alaska have natural resources, very strategic location, and a lot of other cool things.
COOL! Ha! *knee slap* In all honesty, we all love Alaska's giant mosquitos.
In all seriousness, you have a point that Alaska contributes to the great tapestry of the United States, but is it fair for an Alaskan voter to be worth 3 times as much as a New York voter? ((NYpop / NYev) / (AKpop / AKev)) New York, has more people, generates more revenue, and has more of a cultural impact than most states. Most telling of all, urban states states provide much more money to the federal treasury, than they receive.
And finally... who the fuck would trust City People to run this country?
Because, that's where most of the people live?
[What] about the issues of farmers, Alaskans, hunters, people who fish for a living, gun owners, miners, military communities, or anything else that takes place outside a major urban area.
Quite frankly these issues don't mean anything to the majority of the people. You listen to the majority in a democracy. Shocking, I know; but that's the way it does, and should, work.
Being from rural Southern Illinois, I know something about the urban-rural dynamic. Being from Alaska, you really don't. Juneau and Anchorage, simply aren't that big.
Thos issues aren't really that much of a problem, since governemnts tend to maximize revenue, whether it's in the form of taxes from assorted industries, or from federal government subsidizes. Illinois has the third largest city in the nation, yet it throws a fit everytime there's talk about cutting farm subsidies. Why? Agriculture is a large industry in the state.
What is a problem is allocation of state resources. For instance, Chicago REALLY doesn't want education funding to be allocated from a combined pool with each pupil receiving a equal ammount. Instead, they want the current system where education is funded directly though property taxes. This creates a system where the affluent suburban and urban neighborhood schools have multiple astroturfed football fields, million dollar chem labs, and everything their heart desires. The rural and innercity schools are lucky if their schools don't leak. (My high school didn't even have air conditioning.) That's where the issues lie.
Conversely, Why would we want someone who lives in a hut in the middle of Alaska running the country? They have no idea about the issues facing the majority of the nation.
What the hell do I know about the plight of innercities, suburban sprall, and traffic congestion? Nothing really.
City
Please read the rest for your self here
And yet more evidence here[of supposeded Iraq-9/11 connections]
I'll see your blogs, and raise you The 9/11 Commission.
Hmm the UN doesn't seem to agree with you on that one. Please read The May 2004 Quarterly UNMOVIC Report which states:
You need more up to date information. The Iraqi Survey Group concluded that were no stockpiles.
First off FDR, Truman, and JFK would all be considered Right wing today by the likes of George Sores.
Yeah right. FDR and his graduated income tax that Grover Norquist wants to abolish for the antequated flat tax. (Yes, we had that before. It didn't work, because it causes an undue burden on lower and middle income levels.)
Nice pun on Soros.
Now on to carter who's administration was well on the way to bankrupting America. You'll notice how well that hostage rescue went. With all the lawyers running around making, and changing, rules of engagement that caused those in the mission to figuratively and literally run into each other.
Yeah, lawyers are known to cause sandstorms.
I personally love this argument, what was the right course of action then?
How about: Contact the FAA? Contact the joint chiefs? Contact the CIA? Contact The FBI? Contact Richard Clarke and the counter terrorism team? Contact Gulianni?
You know. Do something.
Military power is used to either protect or destroy infrastructure. Thats it, thats all, nothing more. Tracking down and arresting individuals is not what the armed forces do.
Exactly my point. The Bush administration has neglected using the entire power of the United States, but rather focused solely on miltary action. How are they going to get countries to use their internal security apparatuses to help us? Threaten invasion if they don't? You have to use both the stick and the carrot.
(See first section for links on Osama and Saddam.)
You really need to listen to something more than Republican propaganda. Try the BBC or the CBC.
Sorry for the double post, I clicked wrong.
Remember Mogadishu? The 1993 World Trade Center bombing? The bombing of the U.S.S. Cole?
The Beruit Marine Barracks...
Look at Iraq. Flouting the terms of our cease-fire for over a decade -- shooting at us occasionally, screwing around with the inspections, scamming the Food for Oil program, attempting to assassinate a former President... at what point do we put our foot down? 9/11 demonstrated that we can't wait forever.
All this may be true, but he was contained. Was not a threat to region or the world. That, makes all the difference.
He had to sit in the classroom until the Secret Service worked out an exit plan.
The president has an escape route planned for every conceivable emergency. Are we to belive that it would take 7 minutes for the secret service to wisk the president away during an assiination attempt, or in this case a war?
It's not like Bush could have done anything anyways
True. But he's the symbol of the nation. And the symbol sat on his hands.
Squandered goodwill? All that America-love was just a blip on the radar. Almost immediately after 9/11, foreigners were worried about what 'evil America' might do to retaliate.
Yes, it was blip. Because the Bush adminstration's reckless actions, made it so. But as you imply that the goodwill disappered within 48 hours, is simply untrue. NATO invoked its "an attack on one, is an attack on all" clause. We had no problem getting allies to go into Afghanistan. It was only when talk to towards Iraq, that world backed away.
Israel actually seems to have nearly won the current "intifada"
Just like how they won the last one. And the one before that. And the one before that...
What occuption in 1991? You mean the no-fly zones? The current "occupation" is rather more comprehensive.
It was a reference to the total cost of military action of Desert Storm compared to cost of Iraqi Freedom.
As opposed to the war's opponents, who were bought off with Saddam's "Oil for Food" money.
And this negates the State Department and the military warning that Iraq would be a quagmire, and none of our goals would be achievable how?
He had to sit in the classroom until the Secret Service worked out an exit plan.
The president has an escape route planned for every conceivable emergency. Are we to belive that it would take 7 minutes for the secret service to wisk the president away during an assiination attempt, or in this case a war?
It's not like Bush could have done anything anyways
True. But he's the symbol of the nation. And the symbol sat on his hands.
I'll take you up.
Hellooooo, 9/11, non-compliance with UN resolutions, etc. This guy is basically saying that since Bush didn't want to invade before he had a good reason, he should not have wanted to after he got a good reason (9/11 and Saddam's non-compliance giving us sufficient reason to believe he was a threat being the good reasons).
What did Iraq have to do with 9/11? Attacking Iraq after 9/11 makes as much sense as the United States invading Brazil after Pearl Harbor. The two were not related at all, as numerous bipartisan investigations have confirmed. That lie, more than anything else, is why Bush adminstration is despised. We can not trust this administration with the power of war.
On September 12, 2001, the administration was already drawing up invasion plans for Iraq; even though we were attacked from Afghanistan. It just doesn't make any sense. Their initial reaction wasn't to strike back at those who attacked us, but rather carry out their wet dream of converting the middle east to democracy at the barrel of a gun. As their report said, they would need "a cataclysmic event -- like a new Pearl Harbor" in order to carry this out.
Now with the non-complience with resolutions:
The truth is, as Wolfowitz admitted, Iraq's WMD was just a convient excuse. An excuse that doesn't hold up under scrutiny.
Saddam's economy was in the tank. His infrastructure to reconsititue any weapons program was evicerated and atrophied to the point of being worthless. The bogus "intellegence" we were being fed about Iraq was coming from dubious sources. Furthermore, during the rush to war, the intellegence was not vetted. Instead it shoved directly to Doug Feith and the ominously named "Office of Special Plans". But it wasn't simply all the intellegence about Iraq. It was sifted first. Anything that supported a reason to invade, was good. Anything that didn't was disregarded.
I can hear you now. "But EVERYONE thought he had WMD!". Not exactly. As subsequent investigations have determined, the western world's intellegence apparatus is an echo chamber. Chalabi had been telling the US whatever he thought would get the US to invade Iraq, so he could be setup as the new strongman. His reports were considered by many in the CIA to range from interesting to fanciful.
However there was one group that bought everything Chalabi said. The neocons. This group was still upset that Bush I didn't "finish the job" by invading Iraq back in 1991. (Bush I said in his memoirs that he didn't because the coallition of 100+ nations would fall apart if he did, and he was afraid of what would happen in Iraq after the invasion.) Chalabi enjoyed his new patrons. They gave him money, and he in return told them exactly what they wanted to hear. He hoped that one day they would take control of the White House, and the invasion would be on. He was right.
The neocons would ask the CIA what they knew about Chalabi's claims. Not having many sources in Iraq, the CIA would ask the countries we formerly considered allies (i.e. Europe), if they could check in to it. The allies, not having sources in Iraq either, would ask each other what they knew. The allies would then tell each other that they too had heard these reports from secret sources too. Of course, their secret source was us. The nations-formerly-known-as-allies would then say "Yeah, we've heard these reports from secret sources too." Q.E.D.
The irony is that since there were no weapons, and so Saddam was in complience afterall.
As far as "etc." I have no idea what your "etc." could refer to, and I suspect you don't either.
"If we re-elect him now, we endorse the Bush doctrine of preemptive action and the invasion of Iraq, and w
Yeah, Election Projection is obviously wrong. They have Oregon going for Bush. There's no way those latted drinking flanel wearing hippies
I used to look at electoral-vote.com too, but I decided that it's predictions were to volatile, so I made my own. [url:http://www.cs.siu.edu/~jkoren/electoral_vote
Mine averages the assorted polls roughly based on "trustworthiness". For instance: Gallup is weighted lower than Zogby, but not because Zogby polls Kerry consistently higher. It's because Zogby was the most accurate poll of 2000, and made a strong argument about what was wrong with Gallup's polling this year.
It's updated daily.
By the way, one of FDR's biggest legacies is the Federal Income Tax (instead of a traditional property tax or wealth tax). Although originally targetted only at the wealthy, has since become essentially a tax on the middle class. Of course the wealthy get to defer their income by purchasing property which goes up in value w/o being taxed, and since the relative tax burden of income vs property has shifted, they in fact get a defacto tax break. Yeah, that morgage interest deduction is a token that gets thrown the middle class's way, but if you look at the percentage of wealth of individuals and the percentage of federal income tax collected from those individuals, you can easily see how the Federal Income tax has slowly but surely become the tax on the middle class that keeps the poor from entering the middle class and the middle class from becoming more wealthy (by introducing an artificial economic class structure in its progressive rate structure).
You can thank the anti-New-Deal Republicans (Yes, they STILL exist.) for that. The problem came from supply-siders that kept arging that cutting taxes on the richest 1% is a a panacea. To blame FDR for the perversion of the system by fisically irresponsible "conservatives", is silly. FDR was long dead when this happened.
Let's see... the People's Republic of China gets as many votes as the Federated States of Micronesia (namely, one), so it's not democratic in the popular sense (double entendre!)
Ahh yes, but if UN votes were based on the number of voters in each nation (i.e. 1 UN vote per N voters in the member nation), then Micronesia and China would be equal, or maybe even Micronesia is under represented. After all only then elite Communist members have any real authority in China.
Ans speaking of China... At what point does China cease being "communist" and become merely another totalitarian regime?
Hey Fizzik McCarthy!
You keep using that word, socialism. I do not think it means what you think it means.
thanks.
Spending your time watching what your Sim will do when he finds out that his wife is cheating on him isn't entirely different from spending time watching "Friends" to see who will stay with who.
Really? One of my main problems with the Sims was that they never seemed to become proactive. I always had to make them take the shower. I always had to tell them to make dinner. I always had to tell them "hey now! Be pissed off!" or "Hey now! 'Play' with her on the vibrating heart shape bed!". That "I wonder what happens next, either didn't exist for me, or didn't exist at the level I wanted. Perhaps I should dust off Sims1 and play it again.
Perhaps inadvertently, "The Sims" seemed to me as indictment of materialism. The sims get up, take a shower and go to work to buy things. These things improve their lives. Better stoves provide better meals. Robot maids provide better more time for entertainment. Eventually you reach a point where you're buying things just to buy things.
You have all these simoleans, and you feel like you need to spend them. So you buy a plasma screen for your sims' living room. Then their bedroom. Then their dining room, and kitchen. You stick a home theater system in every room of their house. You create a family of trailer trash next door simply so your sims can make enough friends to get a job promotion, so they can earn more simoleans, so they can buy more things they don't need.
Even in light of lesbian love triangles where two of the participates hate each other so much they can't keep from torturing the other with the voodoo doll; there's something very depressing about the whole game.
Certainly an impressive undertaking but somehow it just doesn't sit right. The image depth is what my mind would be questionning. I mean if you don't actually feel like it's really out there then it may as well just be a nice photograph that you've glued over your windowpanes
Perhaps if the image was projected onto a concave mirror like in a flight sim. People have been doing it their homes, but I don't know how feasible a concave mirror would be in this situation, since you need to keep the whole projection system pretty compact.
Of course, like everyone else here, I'm talking out my ass.
The 7 justices of Florida who occasionally must go before the public for retention elections were more unbiased than the 7 justices of the United States Supreme Court who serve lifetime appointments?
Scalia is obviously above reproach.
Although Justice Souter thought the case should have been avoided on other grounds and sent back to Florida, he agreed that the remedy ordered at that point by the Florida court was a violation of the equal protection clause:
And yet, when it came down to it, the Court said, "You have to change the way you're counting, but we won't let you do it." There sole reason for forbidding the state from carring out their own order was to freeze the counts before Bush loss.
It was immoral, and bad law. Right up there with all the other infamous cases like Plessy v. Ferguson.
Yeah. That's why the court split 5-4 right down idelogical lines and why Stevens said:
It was a politcally motivated theft of an election. We all know it.
It is this authority that led the Supreme Court to overrule STATE laws that: established racial discrimination; prohibited birth control distribution; promoted religion in schools; and (among many, many others) prohibited abortions.
So I'm not sure what in the world you are talking about when you claim the Republicans have used the federal supreme court to rule on state law
Bush V. Gore.
The federal court ruled on the interpretation of state law. Your examples are of no consequence because in your examples the state laws you cited were in direct violation to the federal constitution. No such violation existed in the Floridian election laws. Instead, the federal supreme court issued an edict for cheap politcal gain, with no basis in law or tradition.
THAT is what I am talking about.
On another note. Was Captain Nemo Persian or whatever in any other source before the league of extrordinary gentlemen came out?
Get thee some culture. Or at least a junior high education.
Nothing like a blatently unconstitutional powergrab.
Emboldened by their success in using the federal supreme court to overstep the federal bounds and rule on state law; they up the ante and openly consider a blatently unconstitutional power grab.
Anyone in the Senate that would support this tactic, especially the senator that would overstep the check-and-balances and rule that a political tactic that written into the Constitution is unconstitutional would have to be impeached and removed from office. Why? They would have violated their oath of office to support the consitution as perscribed by Article VI, Clause 3.
No wonder why half the country looks at the current Republican party as them as a gang of protofacists.
You might not agree with Bush, but at least he's running on his record.
Really? What I heard at the convention was:
"9/11! 9/11! 9/11!" and "Ignoring what happened over the previous 4 years, here's a bunch of things I'll do when I become President!". Now Bush-Cheney are running on "Vote for us or die.".
This is because they CAN'T run on their record. Proverty is up. Jobs are down. The deficit is record highs. Iraq is a mess. None of these is a winner.
Like I've said many times before, this is a referendum on Bush... Kerry is irrelevant, and he's run his campaign like he is.
You're right. The election is a referendum on Bush, and Bush is weak across the board, and Kerry needs to execute, but he hasn't yet. Hopefully soon. (I think that's the real reason the Democrats have so many 527s. The grassroots are fed up with the incompetence of the DLC.)