Then don't let them have an e-mail account. There is no perfect spam filter... except you filter it by your own. Another question, why does an 5 year old need to have an own e-mail account by itself??
Because likely, he sees his friends having their own email accounts. You tend to want what your peers have, even if it isn't good for you.
"And yes, it'd be a rosy and happy world if mortgage holders could pay back mortgages that are pretty much slanted directly against them, but they can't. The idea was that they'd go through a cycle of refinancings and somehow stay on top of it, even with refinancing, there's no way some of these mortgage holders could've paid off their mortgages. Even worse is that commentators and financial analysts were saying that it was a great time to buy homes and to get a mortgage
Slanted against them? What the hell???
Whose fault is it that these people went out and got mortgagees they couldn't afford? Did the government or banks hold a gun to their heads and say "hey you, go buy that house"? What???
"Thank god we have George W Bush in office to uphold the law and protect the constitution. Who knows what a bleeding heart liberal like Al Gore would have done with it?"
Considering that he's telling his followers to do "civil disobedience" to halt new coal plant construction, gee, as President, he probably would have stopped any new power plant construction, period. I don't care what you think of Bush, if you can't see that Gore has a messiah complex, you're blind. Yeah, lets put a guy like that in the oval office, where he can "save us" whether we like it or not.
Gore is also a longtime proponent of the "living Constitution" theory... that it's "living, breathing, and evolving", and that the actual text doesn't matter, as long as we interpret it correctly "for the times".
So never mind that tenth amendment thing... the "times" say federalism is outmoded, so out it goes, baby!
The devastating hurricanes we've experienced in his administration? Yep, Bush caused them"
Didn't you get the memo? Damnit, I hate it when that happens.
It's not Bush, it's Karl Rove. Get it right! Bush is just a puppet with a hole in his back for Karl Rove's hand. Rove is responsible for everything... before he turns into a cloud of bats and flutters away.
You see, there you go again. You could have the most incredibly insightful thoughts and opinions, but you lose any and all credibility as soon as you use the term "Nobama". It's akin to "Micro$oft" and such....it immediately makes you come across as childish and immature, and I stopped taking you seriously as soon as I read it.
As long as you apply the same standards to these clowns saying "McSame", fine, I'm with you on that.
"I suggest you read up on corporate finance because your post indicates a profound misunderstanding of the current economical crisis' ACTUAL source : Deregulation of investmebnt banking"
You sir, are quite full of shit. The repeal of Glass-Steagall simply allowed regular banks to get into other financial activities... stocks, bonds, etc. It didn't have a damn thing to do A) the government pressuring banks to give home loans to people that didn't qualify for them, and B) banks caving and giving those loans out of fear of being labled "racist". One political schmuck was saying last night that these "ninja loans"... no income, no assetts, were morally good because "the free market doesn't work for poor people".
The Glass-Steagall repeal also wasn't responsible for the culture of easy credit that helped get us into this mess. This is largely a failure of responsibility on the part of all the American people, rich and poor, democratic and republican. We abandoned responsibility, and now the bill is coming due. Victor Davis Hanson had it right... we're victims, but not innocent victims. We stopped seeing homes as a place to live, and starting seeing them as a way to make a quick buck by "flipping" them after some minor improvements. We all did things that made the price of homes shoot through the roof, far above any rational standard, and now reality has set in. The McMansions were never worth a million dollars or more. That was paper inflation, and we greedily, eagerly helped keep their prices inflated. We made it worse by taking out mortgages we couldn't afford.
One finance guy on Bloomberg made an excellent point yesterday. There would be no crisis if these mortgage holders were paying their bills. That's what it all comes down to. So spare me the bullshit about deregulation. This isn't about regulations, it's about responsibility. When the government did try new regulations to reform Fannie/Freddie in 2003, it was blocked, largely by Democrats, because the tightened lending standards for minorities and the poor would have been "unfair".
These days it seems all but the most classified tech makes it into market very, very quickly. In ten years, not only will this system be a reality, but the civilian market will have figured out how to squeeze even more out of it than the military figured.
A top Admiral in the Navy was lamenting how the Navy is having a problem selling itself as a cutting edge tech provider simply because any such new tech they get goes to the civilian sector so quickly, and further, civilian use eclipses military use. In particular, he used the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers as an example. When it was being designed in the 80's, it was absolutely cutting edge stuff. It's been in service just over 15 years, and now the Admiral lamented that a single Blackberry has more com bandwidth than an entire Burke destroyer.
Kind of hard to sell recruits on "cutting edge" when that's the case.
There's no such thing as dangerous ideas, only dangerous people.
The descendants of six million dead Jews disagree with you. The descendants of 20-60 million dead Russians and East Europeans disagree with you. So do millions of people in China, Cambodia, and Rwanda.
Some ideas stink to the core, and always end with death. Was National Socialism ever going to end any other way than it did?
Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, an old, established, and prestigious news and politics magazine, still insists that the onus is on Palin to prove that Trig is really hers.
"On a different note, I notice that even though her claim to have stopped the bridge to nowhere has been thoroughly debunked,"
"Are we suddenly supposed to stop asking questions about whether this woman is experienced enough or capable enough to assume the leadership of the United States of America? We are, after all, engaged in two major wars."
If that was all that was being asked, you'd be right, but when the press indicates you're a horrible mother by running for high office, they've crossed the line. No one asked Joe Biden if he was a bad father when he took office 30 years ago, a widower with two boys that depended on him.
Ask Palin all of the pertinent questions you want, but be honest, much of the crap being slung at her isn't about questions of fitness for office or policy, but tabloid crap like "so, did your daughter really give birth to Trig the retardo boy?".
"And by violating the air-heads yahoo account, it was shown that Palin has -- just like the current republicans in the White House -- used a non-governmental email account to hide how she uses the powers given her by her office."
Uhh, if you don't think Democrats do this too, you're either naive or foolish or both. And it isn't illegal to use third party email for official communications.
"I have yet to see anyone ask Cheney or Palin if they feel they are above the law. Their actions seem to indicate they do. "
But... using a third party email service isn't against the law. If you don't like it, then push for a law that mandates all official communications go through official email channels.
This is like saying someone cheated on their taxes if they put their money into a legal tax haven. If you don't like it, make the tax havens illegal.
"Are you making an argument for a flat tax rate or just taking a swipe at Biden?"
Both, actually.
I do not support the so-called "fair tax"... I think it's simply an act of shifting IRS accountants from personal income tax forms to sales tax forms. It won't shrink the IRS much. A flat tax with few or no deductions actually would.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here. At this point, I'd just settle for a realization in Washington DC that the money we make is our property, and not a resource on loan to us from our masters in the capital.
"Then you're just, quite simply, un-American. It is the purpose of the Federal government to "promote the general welfare." It is our duty as citizens to protect each other from outside threats, and our duty as humans not to let the poor among us die in the streets."
And you are, quite simply, a fucking troll. The purpose of the government, stated clearly in the Constitution, is to provide limited authority, shared and divided between the central government, states, and cities. You're taking one generic clause, and redefining the whole scope of American government. You're using the "general welfare" clause the same way the Democrats used the Commerce Clause for years... as a justification for the government to do anything and everything.
Why is this the government's job? Where does the Constitution say this is the responsibility of the government?
"- Reforming the tax code so it doesn't take a graduate degree to know how much your bill should be?
Republicans have been doing this for years. The simple 1040A form was a Reagan initiative. Both the flat tax and fair tax plans have come from conservative thinkers. It's Democrats that like a large tax code, because it allows them to use tax policy to obtain their various social engineering goals. It allows them to use tax funds as a carrot and stick in trying to change or influence various behaviors. Republicans are the party that believes the money you make is your property. Liberals don't see money as personal property, they see it as a resource shared for the public good. That's an important difference.
"- Investing in science and research so China doesn't kick our asses so handily in the next decade as they have in the past decade?"
China's rise doesn't have a farking thing to do with science or research. China's rise has everything to do with the world's consumers loving cheap goods, and Chinese willingness to work for less in making those goods. Name one scientific or technical breakthrough Chinese research has made that eclipses American research... don't hold your breath, because you aren't likely to find any. The only place where the US is truly lacking in research is big physics, but you can thank Democrats for that too. They killed the Supercollider in 1993, a project strongly supported by the GOP, and killed by Democrats in their war on, and I quote, "Big Science". So when the Europeans make huge breakthroughs at their new supercollider at CERN, be sure and write Bill Clinton and Jim Wright and thank them for "Better, Faster, and Cheaper" in science, which lost us a slew of NASA probes because the government cheaped out on quality control.
"- Increasing funding for charter schools so that even poor people can have school choice?"
Something the Democratic Party and their NEA allies adamantly oppose. His own party isn't going to let him move one whit on this.
"- Ending an immoral war by setting concrete timelines, but recognizing that they may have to be modified depending on the conditions on the ground?"
Then they're not concrete, are they?
"- Moving race-based affirmative action toward a more socioeconomic-based affirmative action, so that his daughters are judged more fairly compared to a rural white boy with an underfunded school?"
Now you're just trolling. Obama is a strong believer in race-based affirmative action programs.
"- Better sex education, so that there are fewer unexpected pregnancies, and so that when there are unexpected pregnancies, the women know there are options BESIDES abortion?"
Of all of your points, this one is the most disingenuous. Do you honestly think that adoption wouldn't occur to anyone outside a public classroom? Do you honestly think that teenagers don't know about condoms outside of a classroom?
McCain was wrong the first time. He's right at this time.
Despite what Joe Biden says, there's nothing patriotic about having a larger chunk of your income taken by the government simply because you make more than others. That's punishment, not patriotism.
"I mean, I generally consider myself conservative (in the old sense, when it mean fiscal and political conservative and social liberal because a real conservative doesn't want the government mucking in the personal affairs of people.)"
Then you are not, and have never been, a conservative. American conservatism from its very beginning has placed a high value on cultural conservatism; the notion that settled cultural order is a good thing, a stabilizing force, and must be defended. Tradition is so highly valued, Brooks Adams (grandson of John Adams) was a critic of early industrial capitalism because he feared it would destroy the cultural underpinnings of the country. Conservatism isn't opposed to cultural change, but demands that its eyed suspiciously when judging it. It also makes judgement on personal behavior, and mandates that some of those behaviors be restricted for the public good. I'd be willing to bet that your "don't muck with personal affairs" stuff is standard libertarian boilerplate, which isn't conservative.
You're almost certainly a libertarian in belief. That is different from a conservative. Libertarians, frankly, don't give a damn about the culture or morality based on religious tradition and belief. The only thing they have in common with conservatives is antipathy towards government power and how government spends tax dollars.
Some libertarians call themselves conservatives because of Barry Goldwater, but Goldwater was a brief blip in the conservative movement, not a redefining event. He was preceded by real conservatives, and after getting his ass handed to him by Lyndon Johnson, succeeded by real conservatives. The only true change in bedrock conservative ideology has been the move from isolationsim to aggressive protection of national interests abroad. This is something you can truly credit Democrats for, as Reagan was influenced by FDR in this respect. Otherwise, Reagan was a successful return to pre-Goldwater conservative traditions.
Advocate for whatever positions you like, but you're not a conservative, and likely never have been. You can consider yourself a conservative all you like, but that matters not one whit. You can consider yourself Martian as well, and that doesn't make it so.
"Man, that's sad. He's making more than 200K (must be, or the O-man's plan has him in line for a tax cut), and *that's* his whole basis for voting? No cocern for society as a whole huh? Just your own personal pocketbook."
Thanks for providing a blatant example of hypocrisy.
For years, Democrats have been indignantly telling voters "Fool! Why aren't you voting your economic interests?", completely rejecting any notion that money shouldn't be the most important thing to voters. But Adams indicates that's exactly what he's doing... voting his economic interests... and now he's a bad guy for it? He's not allowed to vote his interests?
So, do vote economic interests for a Democrats, because its the only logical choice.
But don't vote economic interests for a Republicans, because there are more important things than money. Have I got that right?
" But remember that CEOs are paid to be advocates for their stockholders, not advocates for voters."
Well who says that economists are advocates for voters? Economists are usually advocates for their own faction of economic ideology. What many economists believe depend as much on their politics as any set of financial data.
"Wow, if the source is credible that's pretty damning. For those who don't like to RTFA:
One message includes bin Laden's denial of having anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania."
Good Lord, do you people have short memories. Yes, Bin Laden initially denied complicity in 9/11. But as evidence gathered against him, he reversed himself and admitted Al Qaeda was behind it. He warned that unless the West complied with his demands, more attacks were coming. The Koran allows the faithful to lie in the course of jihad if it furthers the cause.
What pisses me off is that this article is going to be used as a justification by the Truther movement, when we have a videotaped confession by Bin Laden himself.
"Exactly - the reason we can teach about alchemy in chemistry class is because nobody takes alchemy seriously any more."
But we do teach Alchemy now. We just don't call it that anymore, because "Alchemy" is nothing but the idea that one element could be turned into another. What was once ludicrous fantasy and fiction is now science. We see Alchemy happening every day. The Sun turns Hydrogen into Helium constantly, and our earliest nuclear scientists practiced Alchemy, when you get right down to it. Modern Chemistry and Physics very much includes fields that were once considered Alchemy.
"I welcome this news. For too long, research on the Internet has been a frustrating task."
Right, but even though Google Books is doing the public a service, to me, doing the newspaper archives is a much bigger service in terms of research, because most people don't like reading entire books on a computer screen... they like to relax and kick back with a physical, paper book, that gives a sense of tactile satisfaction as well as mental stimulation. Reading books is a totally different sensory experience than short reading.
But... newspapers are bette for research uses than books in many cases, and this is where Google's scanning project is truly helpful. Newspaper story research is all about information in short bursts... perfect for the Internet. There are untold millions of pages of of newspaper stories out there, and not only are they great sources of information, they're a visit back in time... look at the ads, the language, the tone of conversation. Reading a newspage from 1948 is instantly different than reading one form 1978, even if there's no date on the page. A hobby of mine is buying old books (pre-1950), especially textbooks, and one I recently acquired had an article clipping from a Minnesota newspaper from 1944 in it... the article was on the new modern miracle of ambulance airplanes, and how they were drastically cutting down on the casualty rate in the War. On the other side were ads for local entertainment venues and auto service. Fun and fascinating stuff.
The biggest benefit here? The research and historical value. I hope the newspaper companies go along with this. The addition to knowledge and history from this in incalculable.
Slashdot Mirror
Then don't let them have an e-mail account. There is no perfect spam filter ... except you filter it by your own. Another question, why does an 5 year old need to have an own e-mail account by itself??
Because likely, he sees his friends having their own email accounts. You tend to want what your peers have, even if it isn't good for you.
"And yes, it'd be a rosy and happy world if mortgage holders could pay back mortgages that are pretty much slanted directly against them, but they can't. The idea was that they'd go through a cycle of refinancings and somehow stay on top of it, even with refinancing, there's no way some of these mortgage holders could've paid off their mortgages. Even worse is that commentators and financial analysts were saying that it was a great time to buy homes and to get a mortgage
Slanted against them? What the hell???
Whose fault is it that these people went out and got mortgagees they couldn't afford? Did the government or banks hold a gun to their heads and say "hey you, go buy that house"? What???
" How about if Bush's campaign chair in Florida weren't put in charge of that states recount? "
How about if the Florida Supreme Court weren't shills for the Florida Democratic Party, voting party line for Gore every time?
"How about if George W. Bush's corrupt brother Jeb weren't the governor of that state?"
Yeah, being that he was hugely popular in Florida and elected twice, what if, huh?
" How about if that lying cheating sonofabitch didn't steal the election?"
What if you weren't a drama queen?
"Second, they showed that if there been a full statewide recount of all counties, Al Gore would have received more votes than Bush"
Uhhh, Who did? Not the newspapers doing the recount study. How about a link on that?
"Thank god we have George W Bush in office to uphold the law and protect the constitution. Who knows what a bleeding heart liberal like Al Gore would have done with it?"
Considering that he's telling his followers to do "civil disobedience" to halt new coal plant construction, gee, as President, he probably would have stopped any new power plant construction, period. I don't care what you think of Bush, if you can't see that Gore has a messiah complex, you're blind. Yeah, lets put a guy like that in the oval office, where he can "save us" whether we like it or not.
Gore is also a longtime proponent of the "living Constitution" theory... that it's "living, breathing, and evolving", and that the actual text doesn't matter, as long as we interpret it correctly "for the times".
So never mind that tenth amendment thing... the "times" say federalism is outmoded, so out it goes, baby!
"Everything is the president's fault. Everything.
The devastating hurricanes we've experienced in his administration? Yep, Bush caused them"
Didn't you get the memo? Damnit, I hate it when that happens.
It's not Bush, it's Karl Rove. Get it right! Bush is just a puppet with a hole in his back for Karl Rove's hand. Rove is responsible for everything... before he turns into a cloud of bats and flutters away.
You see, there you go again. You could have the most incredibly insightful thoughts and opinions, but you lose any and all credibility as soon as you use the term "Nobama". It's akin to "Micro$oft" and such....it immediately makes you come across as childish and immature, and I stopped taking you seriously as soon as I read it.
As long as you apply the same standards to these clowns saying "McSame", fine, I'm with you on that.
"I suggest you read up on corporate finance because your post indicates a profound misunderstanding of the current economical crisis' ACTUAL source : Deregulation of investmebnt banking"
You sir, are quite full of shit. The repeal of Glass-Steagall simply allowed regular banks to get into other financial activities... stocks, bonds, etc. It didn't have a damn thing to do A) the government pressuring banks to give home loans to people that didn't qualify for them, and B) banks caving and giving those loans out of fear of being labled "racist". One political schmuck was saying last night that these "ninja loans"... no income, no assetts, were morally good because "the free market doesn't work for poor people".
The Glass-Steagall repeal also wasn't responsible for the culture of easy credit that helped get us into this mess. This is largely a failure of responsibility on the part of all the American people, rich and poor, democratic and republican. We abandoned responsibility, and now the bill is coming due. Victor Davis Hanson had it right... we're victims, but not innocent victims. We stopped seeing homes as a place to live, and starting seeing them as a way to make a quick buck by "flipping" them after some minor improvements. We all did things that made the price of homes shoot through the roof, far above any rational standard, and now reality has set in. The McMansions were never worth a million dollars or more. That was paper inflation, and we greedily, eagerly helped keep their prices inflated. We made it worse by taking out mortgages we couldn't afford.
One finance guy on Bloomberg made an excellent point yesterday. There would be no crisis if these mortgage holders were paying their bills. That's what it all comes down to. So spare me the bullshit about deregulation. This isn't about regulations, it's about responsibility. When the government did try new regulations to reform Fannie/Freddie in 2003, it was blocked, largely by Democrats, because the tightened lending standards for minorities and the poor would have been "unfair".
These days it seems all but the most classified tech makes it into market very, very quickly. In ten years, not only will this system be a reality, but the civilian market will have figured out how to squeeze even more out of it than the military figured.
A top Admiral in the Navy was lamenting how the Navy is having a problem selling itself as a cutting edge tech provider simply because any such new tech they get goes to the civilian sector so quickly, and further, civilian use eclipses military use. In particular, he used the Arleigh Burke class of destroyers as an example. When it was being designed in the 80's, it was absolutely cutting edge stuff. It's been in service just over 15 years, and now the Admiral lamented that a single Blackberry has more com bandwidth than an entire Burke destroyer.
Kind of hard to sell recruits on "cutting edge" when that's the case.
There's no such thing as dangerous ideas, only dangerous people.
The descendants of six million dead Jews disagree with you. The descendants of 20-60 million dead Russians and East Europeans disagree with you. So do millions of people in China, Cambodia, and Rwanda.
Some ideas stink to the core, and always end with death. Was National Socialism ever going to end any other way than it did?
"OK, I'll bite. Who asked that question of her?"
Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, an old, established, and prestigious news and politics magazine, still insists that the onus is on Palin to prove that Trig is really hers.
"On a different note, I notice that even though her claim to have stopped the bridge to nowhere has been thoroughly debunked,"
Uhhh, that's because it hasn't been.
"Are we suddenly supposed to stop asking questions about whether this woman is experienced enough or capable enough to assume the leadership of the United States of America? We are, after all, engaged in two major wars."
If that was all that was being asked, you'd be right, but when the press indicates you're a horrible mother by running for high office, they've crossed the line. No one asked Joe Biden if he was a bad father when he took office 30 years ago, a widower with two boys that depended on him.
Ask Palin all of the pertinent questions you want, but be honest, much of the crap being slung at her isn't about questions of fitness for office or policy, but tabloid crap like "so, did your daughter really give birth to Trig the retardo boy?".
"And by violating the air-heads yahoo account, it was shown that Palin has -- just like the current republicans in the White House -- used a non-governmental email account to hide how she uses the powers given her by her office."
Uhh, if you don't think Democrats do this too, you're either naive or foolish or both. And it isn't illegal to use third party email for official communications.
"I have yet to see anyone ask Cheney or Palin if they feel they are above the law. Their actions seem to indicate they do. "
But... using a third party email service isn't against the law. If you don't like it, then push for a law that mandates all official communications go through official email channels.
This is like saying someone cheated on their taxes if they put their money into a legal tax haven. If you don't like it, make the tax havens illegal.
"Are you making an argument for a flat tax rate or just taking a swipe at Biden?"
Both, actually.
I do not support the so-called "fair tax"... I think it's simply an act of shifting IRS accountants from personal income tax forms to sales tax forms. It won't shrink the IRS much. A flat tax with few or no deductions actually would.
But I'm getting ahead of myself here. At this point, I'd just settle for a realization in Washington DC that the money we make is our property, and not a resource on loan to us from our masters in the capital.
"Then you're just, quite simply, un-American. It is the purpose of the Federal government to "promote the general welfare." It is our duty as citizens to protect each other from outside threats, and our duty as humans not to let the poor among us die in the streets."
And you are, quite simply, a fucking troll. The purpose of the government, stated clearly in the Constitution, is to provide limited authority, shared and divided between the central government, states, and cities. You're taking one generic clause, and redefining the whole scope of American government.
You're using the "general welfare" clause the same way the Democrats used the Commerce Clause for years... as a justification for the government to do anything and everything.
"- Providing mandatory healthcare to children?"
Why is this the government's job? Where does the Constitution say this is the responsibility of the government?
"- Reforming the tax code so it doesn't take a graduate degree to know how much your bill should be?
Republicans have been doing this for years. The simple 1040A form was a Reagan initiative. Both the flat tax and fair tax plans have come from conservative thinkers. It's Democrats that like a large tax code, because it allows them to use tax policy to obtain their various social engineering goals. It allows them to use tax funds as a carrot and stick in trying to change or influence various behaviors. Republicans are the party that believes the money you make is your property. Liberals don't see money as personal property, they see it as a resource shared for the public good. That's an important difference.
"- Investing in science and research so China doesn't kick our asses so handily in the next decade as they have in the past decade?"
China's rise doesn't have a farking thing to do with science or research. China's rise has everything to do with the world's consumers loving cheap goods, and Chinese willingness to work for less in making those goods. Name one scientific or technical breakthrough Chinese research has made that eclipses American research... don't hold your breath, because you aren't likely to find any. The only place where the US is truly lacking in research is big physics, but you can thank Democrats for that too. They killed the Supercollider in 1993, a project strongly supported by the GOP, and killed by Democrats in their war on, and I quote, "Big Science". So when the Europeans make huge breakthroughs at their new supercollider at CERN, be sure and write Bill Clinton and Jim Wright and thank them for "Better, Faster, and Cheaper" in science, which lost us a slew of NASA probes because the government cheaped out on quality control.
"- Increasing funding for charter schools so that even poor people can have school choice?"
Something the Democratic Party and their NEA allies adamantly oppose. His own party isn't going to let him move one whit on this.
"- Ending an immoral war by setting concrete timelines, but recognizing that they may have to be modified depending on the conditions on the ground?"
Then they're not concrete, are they?
"- Moving race-based affirmative action toward a more socioeconomic-based affirmative action, so that his daughters are judged more fairly compared to a rural white boy with an underfunded school?"
Now you're just trolling. Obama is a strong believer in race-based affirmative action programs.
"- Better sex education, so that there are fewer unexpected pregnancies, and so that when there are unexpected pregnancies, the women know there are options BESIDES abortion?"
Of all of your points, this one is the most disingenuous. Do you honestly think that adoption wouldn't occur to anyone outside a public classroom? Do you honestly think that teenagers don't know about condoms outside of a classroom?
Let's see, McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts
You mean the tax cuts he now wants to make permanent?
McCain was wrong the first time. He's right at this time.
Despite what Joe Biden says, there's nothing patriotic about having a larger chunk of your income taken by the government simply because you make more than others. That's punishment, not patriotism.
"I mean, I generally consider myself conservative (in the old sense, when it mean fiscal and political conservative and social liberal because a real conservative doesn't want the government mucking in the personal affairs of people.)"
Then you are not, and have never been, a conservative. American conservatism from its very beginning has placed a high value on cultural conservatism; the notion that settled cultural order is a good thing, a stabilizing force, and must be defended. Tradition is so highly valued, Brooks Adams (grandson of John Adams) was a critic of early industrial capitalism because he feared it would destroy the cultural underpinnings of the country. Conservatism isn't opposed to cultural change, but demands that its eyed suspiciously when judging it. It also makes judgement on personal behavior, and mandates that some of those behaviors be restricted for the public good. I'd be willing to bet that your "don't muck with personal affairs" stuff is standard libertarian boilerplate, which isn't conservative.
You're almost certainly a libertarian in belief. That is different from a conservative. Libertarians, frankly, don't give a damn about the culture or morality based on religious tradition and belief. The only thing they have in common with conservatives is antipathy towards government power and how government spends tax dollars.
Some libertarians call themselves conservatives because of Barry Goldwater, but Goldwater was a brief blip in the conservative movement, not a redefining event. He was preceded by real conservatives, and after getting his ass handed to him by Lyndon Johnson, succeeded by real conservatives. The only true change in bedrock conservative ideology has been the move from isolationsim to aggressive protection of national interests abroad. This is something you can truly credit Democrats for, as Reagan was influenced by FDR in this respect. Otherwise, Reagan was a successful return to pre-Goldwater conservative traditions.
Advocate for whatever positions you like, but you're not a conservative, and likely never have been. You can consider yourself a conservative all you like, but that matters not one whit. You can consider yourself Martian as well, and that doesn't make it so.
"The surge escalation has failed."
It didn't succeed? Funny. Even your beloved political messiah now says that it has.
Ive already said its succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. - Barack Obama, Sept. 4th
"Man, that's sad. He's making more than 200K (must be, or the O-man's plan has him in line for a tax cut), and *that's* his whole basis for voting? No cocern for society as a whole huh? Just your own personal pocketbook."
Thanks for providing a blatant example of hypocrisy.
For years, Democrats have been indignantly telling voters "Fool! Why aren't you voting your economic interests?", completely rejecting any notion that money shouldn't be the most important thing to voters. But Adams indicates that's exactly what he's doing... voting his economic interests... and now he's a bad guy for it? He's not allowed to vote his interests?
So, do vote economic interests for a Democrats, because its the only logical choice.
But don't vote economic interests for a Republicans, because there are more important things than money. Have I got that right?
Well, thanks for clearing that up there, Janus.
" But remember that CEOs are paid to be advocates for their stockholders, not advocates for voters."
Well who says that economists are advocates for voters? Economists are usually advocates for their own faction of economic ideology. What many economists believe depend as much on their politics as any set of financial data.
"Wow, if the source is credible that's pretty damning. For those who don't like to RTFA:
One message includes bin Laden's denial of having anything to do with the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Pennsylvania."
Good Lord, do you people have short memories. Yes, Bin Laden initially denied complicity in 9/11. But as evidence gathered against him, he reversed himself and admitted Al Qaeda was behind it. He warned that unless the West complied with his demands, more attacks were coming. The Koran allows the faithful to lie in the course of jihad if it furthers the cause.
What pisses me off is that this article is going to be used as a justification by the Truther movement, when we have a videotaped confession by Bin Laden himself.
"Exactly - the reason we can teach about alchemy in chemistry class is because nobody takes alchemy seriously any more."
But we do teach Alchemy now. We just don't call it that anymore, because "Alchemy" is nothing but the idea that one element could be turned into another. What was once ludicrous fantasy and fiction is now science. We see Alchemy happening every day. The Sun turns Hydrogen into Helium constantly, and our earliest nuclear scientists practiced Alchemy, when you get right down to it. Modern Chemistry and Physics very much includes fields that were once considered Alchemy.
"I welcome this news. For too long, research on the Internet has been a frustrating task."
Right, but even though Google Books is doing the public a service, to me, doing the newspaper archives is a much bigger service in terms of research, because most people don't like reading entire books on a computer screen... they like to relax and kick back with a physical, paper book, that gives a sense of tactile satisfaction as well as mental stimulation. Reading books is a totally different sensory experience than short reading.
But... newspapers are bette for research uses than books in many cases, and this is where Google's scanning project is truly helpful. Newspaper story research is all about information in short bursts... perfect for the Internet. There are untold millions of pages of of newspaper stories out there, and not only are they great sources of information, they're a visit back in time... look at the ads, the language, the tone of conversation. Reading a newspage from 1948 is instantly different than reading one form 1978, even if there's no date on the page. A hobby of mine is buying old books (pre-1950), especially textbooks, and one I recently acquired had an article clipping from a Minnesota newspaper from 1944 in it... the article was on the new modern miracle of ambulance airplanes, and how they were drastically cutting down on the casualty rate in the War. On the other side were ads for local entertainment venues and auto service. Fun and fascinating stuff.
The biggest benefit here? The research and historical value. I hope the newspaper companies go along with this. The addition to knowledge and history from this in incalculable.