Well, from what I've been told, George Lucas' old wife helped touch up a lot of the original scripts (she actually won numerous awards for her work). Star Wars episode I was long after they were divorced, and she wasn't there to fix a lot of his mistakes.
I see. So she was the one who could write dialogue?
A minor point, but aren't "affect" and "effect" the same in Am. Eng. ? If so, it is weird to see it being misused - although, admittedly, I hadn't realised that this particular linguistic error is also a sign of political bias...
Affect and effect are not the same. Affect is a verb, while effect is a noun. You must affect something to have an effect. I hadn't noticed the political bias either, until now!
Well, you see, Americans have been led to believe that our military is there to protect our freedom and keep the world safe for democracy. So anytime they are fighting they are fighting for freedom. In actuality, they are the enforcement arm of big business, and a means of American empire. But putting it that way doesn't give you that warm feeling inside, so we go with the freedom thing.
Now if you had used some argument to show how "Obama" was really white, and Boehner/et al were really Black, then he would switch sides to join you immediately.
Obama's mother was white, so he is just as white as he is black. Does that help? As far a Boehner being black, I got nothing.
In 1992 Clinton ran on a platform to lower taxes. In 2004 Senator Kerry said that he would repeal the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes over $200,000, but not the middle-class tax cuts, which he would make permanent. He also proposed a new refundable tax credit for higher education expenses, and changes to the estate tax. On balance, these provisions would reduce federal revenues by at least $425 billion over ten years. For businesses, Senator Kerry proposed a 5 percent (1.75 percentage point) reduction in corporate tax rates, financed by increasing the tax on US corporations that produce goods and services overseas for third-country markets and by the elimination of corporate tax loopholes. From http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/1000634_KerryPlan.pdf
So it's not quite a stark as you seem to think, but your knee reflex is working just fine.
The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.
It's not clear whether Connell testified that the vote shift happened, or it was determined some other way.
Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?
All it takes is looking at your paycheck and seeing how much is taken out by the government and most people think twice about electing someone who promises to raise taxes.
Yeah, I'm sure that's it. Because that was Kerry's platform after all...
Computerized election security is atrocious, and has always been atrocious. This whole argument is "it could have happened, therefore it happened." Exit polls don't mean squat.
Except that, until recently, the exit polls pretty much matched up with the election results. When they began to diverge, the reaction was, "Gosh, why are the exit polls so far off?" Hint: It wasn't the exit polls that were off.
RTFA, this issue goes way beyond "It could have happened, therefore it did". It has been shown to have happened. Additionally, this is a non-partisan issue. Stephen Spoonamore, one of the most outspoken and credible critics of electronic voting, is a Republican.
Spoonamore also swore that "...the architecture further confirms how this election was stolen. The computer system and SmarTech had the correct placement, connectivity, and computer experts necessary to change the election in any manner desired by the controllers of the SmarTech computers."
The 2004 election was stolen the new fashioned way. If people haven't they should really Google Stephen Spoonamore. He has this shit down.
I'm not sure they haven't. I have been following this story for years, since I learned there were shenanigans going on with the electronic voting. Back before the 2008 election, Hillary pulled a surprise victory in the New Hampshire primary, defying exit polling. After what went on in 2000 and 2004, it caught my notice. If you accept the theory that there is a power elite that stands behind the government, these rigged voting machines could be used to swing elections in any number of ways.
So the US government is the only government killing innocent people every day? Not that it makes any of it right, but you seem to want to paint a picture where it's only the US doing this. Truth is, the US is even close to being number one in this category by a long shot.
I never said anything about that. All I said was that people seem to get upset that someone might be killed if information about US foreign adventures is released, but don't seem to be upset that many more people are killed by those very adventures. It's a matter of priorities.
I don't see how you got that from my post. My point is that we should be more concerned about the effects of US foreign policy than about whether releasing information about that policy and its effects would lead to someone's harm.
Well first of all, most of what you would consider to be corruptions is probably more political ideology then actual corruption. (meaning it's in your head)
Seriously? Have you seen the way campaigns are financed in this country?
There may be, but the problem is that the only way to actually stand up for your rights is to do it in court. A police officer has a badge and a club and a gun, good luck exercising anything with those guys. But to go to court you need a lawyer, hopefully a good one. That means money, maybe a lot of it. So you see, we can only defend our rights if we have money; just like everything else in this country.
Unfortunately, it's not an unconstitutional search. If government agents have your permission to search you and your stuff then they don't need a warrant or probable cause, and the fact is that when you fly you're voluntarily submitting to that search. Of course, if you don't submit you can't fly, but the courts are of the opinion that while you have a right to travel you don't have a right to travel via a particular mode of transportation. Unless we can get the courts to decide that flying is a right which cannot be denied by the government they can continue to consider your decision to fly as voluntary acceptance of the search.
You are correct, but I just wanted to register that that is complete bullshit. We are coerced into submitting in order to use modern transportation. Despite what the Supreme Court says, I do not have a choice but to fly in many instances.
I recently had to travel across the country on business on a tight schedule (New York to LA and back again, spending 12 hours in LA). Driving or rail was not an option; they are not fast enough. What was I supposed to do, tell my boss I wouldn't fly because I didn't want to submit to a search? Quit my job? Those just aren't realistic options for your average wage slave. So the ruling that flying is a choice and if I don't like it I can just travel another way is not realistic and is therefore bullshit.
At this point, airplane hijacking or bombing has become a crappy attack vector, and it has nothing to do with increased security, as the shoe-bomber and underwear-bomber found out. Passengers will no longer let it happen. Therefore, the scanners have little to do with airline security. Besides, my rights are always more important than my security.
I know you're AC, but seriously, the US government kills innocent people every day of the week. And yet people are concerned about whether the release of a given set of information (perhaps about said killing) will get one person killed. Can I get a re-working of priorities up in here?
Are you implying that these people go to the airport NOT expecting to be scanned or searched? This is hardly the same as walking up to a stranger on the street and they randomly grope you.
Considering they use the back of their hands, I wouldn't call it 'groping'.;-)
Here's the thing, it wasn't tax cuts that were the problem. Rather it was government organizations like Freddie and Fannie who were lending to poor prospects, and the feds forcing the banks to do the same. The initial implosion of the housing market created the ripple. And until the US has it's financial straights in order(such as not lending to people who can't afford it), you'll continue to repeat this massive fuck-up.
I see, so if we tax them more, they just take more for themselves and screw the rest of us. If we tax them less, they take more for themselves and screw the rest of us. I'm starting to see a pattern...
Slashdot Mirror
Well, from what I've been told, George Lucas' old wife helped touch up a lot of the original scripts (she actually won numerous awards for her work). Star Wars episode I was long after they were divorced, and she wasn't there to fix a lot of his mistakes.
I see. So she was the one who could write dialogue?
A minor point, but aren't "affect" and "effect" the same in Am. Eng. ? If so, it is weird to see it being misused - although, admittedly, I hadn't realised that this particular linguistic error is also a sign of political bias...
Affect and effect are not the same. Affect is a verb, while effect is a noun. You must affect something to have an effect. I hadn't noticed the political bias either, until now!
Well, you see, Americans have been led to believe that our military is there to protect our freedom and keep the world safe for democracy. So anytime they are fighting they are fighting for freedom. In actuality, they are the enforcement arm of big business, and a means of American empire. But putting it that way doesn't give you that warm feeling inside, so we go with the freedom thing.
Now if you had used some argument to show how "Obama" was really white, and Boehner/et al were really Black, then he would switch sides to join you immediately.
Obama's mother was white, so he is just as white as he is black. Does that help? As far a Boehner being black, I got nothing.
In 1992 Clinton ran on a platform to lower taxes. In 2004 Senator Kerry said that he would repeal the Bush tax cuts for households with incomes over $200,000, but not the middle-class tax cuts, which he would make permanent. He also proposed a new refundable tax credit for higher education expenses, and changes to the estate tax. On balance, these provisions would reduce federal revenues by at least $425 billion over ten years. For businesses, Senator Kerry proposed a 5 percent (1.75 percentage point) reduction in corporate tax rates, financed by increasing the tax on US corporations that produce goods and services overseas for third-country markets and by the elimination of corporate tax loopholes. From http://www.urban.org/uploadedpdf/1000634_KerryPlan.pdf
So it's not quite a stark as you seem to think, but your knee reflex is working just fine.
It's not clear whether Connell testified that the vote shift happened, or it was determined some other way.
Hmm, could that sudden shift have been caused by people getting off of work and then voting?
All it takes is looking at your paycheck and seeing how much is taken out by the government and most people think twice about electing someone who promises to raise taxes.
Yeah, I'm sure that's it. Because that was Kerry's platform after all...
Computerized election security is atrocious, and has always been atrocious. This whole argument is "it could have happened, therefore it happened." Exit polls don't mean squat.
Except that, until recently, the exit polls pretty much matched up with the election results. When they began to diverge, the reaction was, "Gosh, why are the exit polls so far off?" Hint: It wasn't the exit polls that were off.
RTFA, this issue goes way beyond "It could have happened, therefore it did". It has been shown to have happened. Additionally, this is a non-partisan issue. Stephen Spoonamore, one of the most outspoken and credible critics of electronic voting, is a Republican.
Spoonamore also swore that "...the architecture further confirms how this election was stolen. The computer system and SmarTech had the correct placement, connectivity, and computer experts necessary to change the election in any manner desired by the controllers of the SmarTech computers."
The 2004 election was stolen the new fashioned way. If people haven't they should really Google Stephen Spoonamore. He has this shit down.
I'm not sure they haven't. I have been following this story for years, since I learned there were shenanigans going on with the electronic voting. Back before the 2008 election, Hillary pulled a surprise victory in the New Hampshire primary, defying exit polling. After what went on in 2000 and 2004, it caught my notice. If you accept the theory that there is a power elite that stands behind the government, these rigged voting machines could be used to swing elections in any number of ways.
So the US government is the only government killing innocent people every day? Not that it makes any of it right, but you seem to want to paint a picture where it's only the US doing this. Truth is, the US is even close to being number one in this category by a long shot.
I never said anything about that. All I said was that people seem to get upset that someone might be killed if information about US foreign adventures is released, but don't seem to be upset that many more people are killed by those very adventures. It's a matter of priorities.
I don't see how you got that from my post. My point is that we should be more concerned about the effects of US foreign policy than about whether releasing information about that policy and its effects would lead to someone's harm.
Well first of all, most of what you would consider to be corruptions is probably more political ideology then actual corruption. (meaning it's in your head)
Seriously? Have you seen the way campaigns are financed in this country?
Considering what can be done with electronic voting machines, that's not really true.
There may be, but the problem is that the only way to actually stand up for your rights is to do it in court. A police officer has a badge and a club and a gun, good luck exercising anything with those guys. But to go to court you need a lawyer, hopefully a good one. That means money, maybe a lot of it. So you see, we can only defend our rights if we have money; just like everything else in this country.
Unfortunately, it's not an unconstitutional search. If government agents have your permission to search you and your stuff then they don't need a warrant or probable cause, and the fact is that when you fly you're voluntarily submitting to that search. Of course, if you don't submit you can't fly, but the courts are of the opinion that while you have a right to travel you don't have a right to travel via a particular mode of transportation. Unless we can get the courts to decide that flying is a right which cannot be denied by the government they can continue to consider your decision to fly as voluntary acceptance of the search.
You are correct, but I just wanted to register that that is complete bullshit. We are coerced into submitting in order to use modern transportation. Despite what the Supreme Court says, I do not have a choice but to fly in many instances.
I recently had to travel across the country on business on a tight schedule (New York to LA and back again, spending 12 hours in LA). Driving or rail was not an option; they are not fast enough. What was I supposed to do, tell my boss I wouldn't fly because I didn't want to submit to a search? Quit my job? Those just aren't realistic options for your average wage slave. So the ruling that flying is a choice and if I don't like it I can just travel another way is not realistic and is therefore bullshit.
At this point, airplane hijacking or bombing has become a crappy attack vector, and it has nothing to do with increased security, as the shoe-bomber and underwear-bomber found out. Passengers will no longer let it happen. Therefore, the scanners have little to do with airline security. Besides, my rights are always more important than my security.
Captain Hook, I'd like to buy your stone necklace!
I know you're AC, but seriously, the US government kills innocent people every day of the week. And yet people are concerned about whether the release of a given set of information (perhaps about said killing) will get one person killed. Can I get a re-working of priorities up in here?
No, it works if you work on Wall Street too.
Trial? I see no trial here.
Are you implying that these people go to the airport NOT expecting to be scanned or searched? This is hardly the same as walking up to a stranger on the street and they randomly grope you.
Considering they use the back of their hands, I wouldn't call it 'groping'. ;-)
Here's the thing, it wasn't tax cuts that were the problem. Rather it was government organizations like Freddie and Fannie who were lending to poor prospects, and the feds forcing the banks to do the same. The initial implosion of the housing market created the ripple. And until the US has it's financial straights in order(such as not lending to people who can't afford it), you'll continue to repeat this massive fuck-up.
Oh God, this crap again. Fannie and Freddie did not cause the crisis, and the feds did not force bank to do anything. See http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/09/fannie-freddie-acquitted/
I see, so if we tax them more, they just take more for themselves and screw the rest of us. If we tax them less, they take more for themselves and screw the rest of us. I'm starting to see a pattern...
Why is having sex with other people different from other activies, like for example mount climbing?
If you can't see why sex is different from mountain climbing, you're either doing it wrong or I simply must start mountain climbing with you.