To me, the "Good Game" line has always been a PC way to be an ass. If you are the looser, telling the winner that they played a good game seems kind of stupid. If you are the winner, it always comes across as condescending.
What, you've never been in a competition where the losing side did, in fact, play a good game?
Am I worthless if I look after somebody elses children? Others that are not direct biological parents have a role in society, from step parents to teachers to those that keep systems going for the benefit of society.
No, of course not, though people with simplistic views of evolution will tell you that you are. Take how evolutionary development is usually presented -- an individual organism is born with some mutation or combined trait from its parents, and this new trait gets thrown into the gauntlet of life and if the organism has some advantage in survival and reproduction then the new trait will become dominant. This is true, but it's also wrong to view as the only way things happen -- I'm guessing people gravitate towards thinking so because it reinforces the views of our individualistic society.
Consider on the other hand an organism with a new trait that helps its siblings survive and reproduce but not necessarily the organism itself. If it isn't a freak mutation, then it's the parents who (together, not individually) have the genetic ability to produce children with this sibling-protecting trait. The parent's genes, then, have been made more fit by this "dead end" child, and their children who do go on to reproduce are likely to be carrying the same genes that allow them to make more such "dead end" children to the benefit of their other children. Thus that trait has been decided by evolution to not be a dead end at all, but rather an important part of survival.
It hasn't been solely about a single organism's genetics since we started using sexual reproduction. And for social mammals like ourselves, it's not about the fitness of the individuals as much as the fitness of the group. Improving the fitness of the group as a whole is not the same as maximizing the fitness of each individual -- at least, not in the same way as if you were considering each individual solely on their own. Optimizing for individual survival may result in a group that is collectively less fit, and if the whole family gets wiped out then every one of them was a dead end. If it was the case that only your individual reproductive capacity mattered, then people who didn't do this would die out or at least be relegated to the level of a genetic disorder. Yet, this is not the case.
So if you ultimately care about more than yourself, if you care about the lineage of your family or your society, it's perfectly fine to take care of someone else's children and understand that in doing so you are anything but a "dead end". A-types may not like the idea of only achieving through helping someone else to achieve, but biology agrees that this is a very useful function and will continue to produce more like you.
So your main source of skepticism is something that you, as (I'm assuming like me) a layman, thought up a solution to in 5 seconds?
Yeah it's a short article, what's your point? You want the exact methodology they used to get that number (which if we took literally only has one significant digit), you'd have to read whatever paper they publish. "Ask them to say X, compare to what the computer says" seems a pretty reasonable assumption of how they did it though.
I know people who bought all of Loki's games, even if they didn't like some of them, because they wanted to support a new company that was catering to something they wanted. How many people threw a few dollars at Radiohead, even if they don't like Radiohead's music, just because they're one of the first big bands to do this ? When every band does it, you'll lose that factor because it's not something special anymore.
True, but Radiohead made a crapton of money. Even if you think half of what they made was from people paying them solely for the novelty of it, that's still a good story.
In short, I don't think the business model has proven itself on an industry wide scale based on Radiohead's experience (which is the optimal experience, rather than the median experience).
The median experience doesn't have to be near Radiohead's optimal experience in order for it to prove itself.
However, it is very true that it hasn't proven itself on an industry-wide scale. It's only one data point.
But here's the key point: Prior to this, there were no data points, and it was people saying it was possible vs people saying it was impossible. Well we now have a data point, showing that at least one band did it and made a boatload of cash. Obviously more data is needed before you can say exactly where and when it can be successful, and more importantly will it work for your band, but the whole idea of "people will never pay for something they can get for free" has been proven false.
And this is the case in college or university. I remember people used to photocopy entire text books because they were too cheap to buy the text book.
Too cheap to buy the text book?! Dude, textbooks are expensive! Even used, books aren't cheap. And the publishers like to try to stifle the used book market by releasing minor revisions where they'll say re-write some of the problems so that if the prof uses the problem sets from the book you'll need the latest that isn't in the used book stores.
People who are already working while going to school in order to pay tuition aren't going to want to blow another few hundred bucks a semester on books. So yeah, they'll find a cheaper way to get em. This is analogous to the problem with CDs -- is it just that people are too cheap, or is it that high school and college kids think $20 is way too freaking much for a CD? Hmm... How's iTunes doing again?
Take the Radio Head example. It's not a business model, point blank!
What's that? I can't hear you over the noise of Radiohead counting their estimated over six million dollars take. Maybe you don't think it's sustainable, or wouldn't work for other bands, or whatever, and that may be true. But you're assertion that it's not a business model "point blank" is just pissing into the wind of the practical real-world results.
They offered a product. They made a boatload of cash. They had minimal costs (figuring out exactly how awesome this was for them we'd have to know more details, but it's obviously way lower cost structure than typical). To any businessman who was just looking at the numbers, that'd spell "success". They might be concerned with how to repeat that success, but you'd have to be a real blockhead dinosaur completely devoted to the way things used to be to try to call this particular case anything less than a stellar success.
I think it's funny that you'd take the word of the guy who hasn't done anything but whore his image for thirty years over the ones who actually tried it and made it work. Sounds like sour grapes from a dinosaur complaining that the mammals will never make it, to me.
Bill Hicks put it far better than I could. "Here's the deal, folks. You do a commercial - you're off the artistic roll call, forever. End of story. Okay? You're another whore at the captialist gang bang and if you do a commercial, there's a price on your head. Everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink."
"And that goes for everyone... Except Willie Nelson".
Oh fine, I'm feeling generous, and will put slightly more effort into educating you than you would ever spend educating yourself.
The man's name was Manadel al-Jamadi, and yes, he was dead when the photo was taken. The autopsy concluded that the cause of death was a blood clot from trauma.
I'm sure you'll make some argument from ignorance about possible explanations (as in, you don't know that he wasn't flown in from Turkey already dead, so maybe that's what happened!). Try actually reading about some facts that resulted from investigating his death. That's what, you know, people who want to know things do. Trolls like to wallow in ignorance. Have fun picking.
And, even if so, all I see is a photograph at an instant in time.
Yes, all, as in you know literally nothing about Abu Ghraib except for the photo I just posted, and you're doing your amazing sleuthing work using nothing else. No wonder you find it unconvincing. And of course you're not ever going to try to burden yourself with more facts that might give you a different impression. Because as long as you know nothing, you can come to any comfortable conclusion you want! Do you even know who the woman is in that picture?
You need to actually learn something before you can say anyone is full of anything. You are full of nothing but ignorance.
I think trouble is...we all overestimated the intelligence and abilities of the Iraqi people. Most people, I guess, figured once they were rid of Saddam, that they'd jump at the chance to unite, and form a rational, somewhat freedom enbracing government. I mean, considering the dictatorship they'd endured, you'd think, eh?
Uh-huh. And the thinking that the people are going to be eternally grateful that we invaded and occupied their country... That Iraq was basically just Ohio with a cruel dictator and everyone would smile and line up to shop at Walmart once he was gone... That Iraqis would see our actions through the same rose-tinted glasses that we do... That any government formed under occupation would be seen as legitimate... That they could follow our example of "freedom embracing government" when the occupation shuts down newspapers and indefinitely imprisons people without charge? These are the thoughts of an intelligent person?
Ha, as if. Unintelligent is not knowing a damn thing about the situation in the country you're invading, and then acting surprised and blaming the locals when your delusional fantasy of what should happen doesn't come true.
But, it turned out not to be the case. Apparently they are pretty much all fscked in the head over there....can't get past racial/religious differences (and for God's sake how can even they tell the difference between suni and shiite?, they really do all look like one people on tv)....so, they constantly bicker and have apparently NO leaders in the group that the country can rally around.
Did you know that under Saddam, and despite his favoritism, Sunnis and Shiites lived together, worked together, even got married and raised families together, without any problems? Did you know that it is only within the last two years, in particular since Feb 2006's bombing of the Shiite mosque that sectarian killing has become rampant? Did you know that it is only since that time that people have been afraid to be the minority in their neighborhood and thus moved and segregated neighborhoods? And even then, Sunnis and Shiites would peacefully exchange deeds to their homes in order to keep both their families safe? Did you know that our oh-so-intelligent idea to fix this was to build walls and even further isolate the two groups?
It has become a convenient refrain for people to act as though the sectarian reprisal killings have been a constant feature of Iraq and that the sectarian violence was unavoidable. This is truly ignorant, and just a way to cover up for the fact that the U.S. dropped the ball on securing the peace and gave al Qaeda an opportunity to create chaos in Iraq.
If you truly think this is something unique to these unintelligent people... Imagine what would happen if, today, someone blew up a major Catholic church in Ulster. Clearly peace is possible in Ireland... but something like that could set off the violence again.
Given this, I really don't hold up much hope for them to get their act together no matter how long we stay and support them. I think at some point, we're gonna have to withdraw...step back, throw a couple of knives in the center....and then, after it is over with...we just have to deal with the 'winner'....
Certainly when we withdraw the flimsy edifice we've constructed will crumble. Certainly given the current situation -- a situation unlikely to change any time soon -- the results will not be pretty. This is all true. Your big mistake is thinking this was all inevitable. If we had gone into the situation realistically, instead of full of ourselves and fanciful lies of how great we are, then the situation might be dramatically better.
It takes a lot of balls to look at this invasion and say that Iraqis are dumb. Sadly, that seems to be all we've got left.
Many times over the years when I'd talk with people about his experiences, they would reassure me that such a thing wouldn't happen in a healthy constitutional democracy like the US. The cruelty and Kafkaesque behavior of his captors was relegated to the sickness of communism to be sure.
Yeah, that's what they told me in grade school, too... that we were better than the Communists because we didn't do that kind of thing.
Now they're saying that we're better than the Communists (or the terrorists or whatever) which is why it's okay that we do that kind of thing.
It went from "we're better because we act better", to "we're better... because we just are. So it doesn't matter how we act."
Of course... I had to take it easy on him, otherwise he'd get mad and stop playing.:)
Haha. When I was very young, I remember going to arcades with my dad who was pretty good at Pac-Man and Tron. Actually he was very good at Tron, he could get far enough that it started to seem more like Wario Ware with each mini-game lasting roughly 5 seconds.
But he pretty much stopped playing games at all for some reason. By the time I got my NES he was so out of practice it wasn't funny any more. He tried to play video games with me, but his heart just wasn't in it. I think the third time in a row that he got killed by the very first Goomba in Super Mario Brothers he gave up and never played again.:P
It is a lot of pages but so far this text seems to be pretty standard procedure for dealing with what the US claims are highly dangerous people. If the guidelines in this document are followed it is hard to see evidence of torture. Then again I thought abu ghraib was pathetic. If muslims talk just because a dog is barking at them, well, it is just pathetic. Read up on some real torture sessions, done against women and childeren and then come back. Being put into humiliating postions? Flushing a book? Oh yeah, that compares to electro shock, being beaten to death and seeing your fellows executed.
You don't know jack shit about Abu Ghraib. Men were beaten with table legs, and raped up the ass with broomsticks and chemical lights. Women were raped by guards. A man had his legs held open while an officer repeatedly kicked him in the crotch. You think it was pathetic because you don't know a damn thing about it. You only saw a couple photos of a guy with a hood on his head and thought "Oh that's nothing" and moved on with your life, even though you were told that there were even more pictures that were, and I quote, "much worse". Guess what? You bought into the media spin.
Do you think this guy was humilitated to death you dipshit?
A good place to start with actually informing yourself would be to google up the Taguba Report for a beginning of what went on.
Skimming the rest of your post, you make some decent points, I just get really pissed when people blow off Abu Ghraib because they think it's all just barking dogs and panties-hats. Well you're wrong. It was honest-to-god torture. People died from it. You don't die from dog barks.
First of all, the 650 thousand number you claim is discredited.
Just because whatever talking head you listen to said so doesn't make it true. The Lancet Medical Journal in which the survey was published is a highly respected peer-reviewed journal. It's going to take more to discredit the study than your sincere wish that it wasn't true.
No matter what the ideological slant you may take, I strongly suspect that the truth is going to be a lot more mundane - again, assuming this thing is not a fabrication in either one direction or the other.
Oh, I'm sure of that. It is a manual after all. It may reveal something about the nature of how detainees are treated, and it may even include things that walk that (apparently) narrow line between "aggressive interrogation" and "torture".
The problem is the things that aren't in the manual, but that they do anyway on "high value targets" because of pressure to get results. I don't think there's a manual that says wrap a guy up in a carpet and sit on him until he almost -- or in some cases fatally -- asphyxiates, but that's basically what happened under CIA interrogators in Afghanistan.
That's much more difficult to discover. We only have hints -- there are "secret" CIA prisons around the world, but damned if we know what goes on there. In most cases, it probably is boring and mundane.
(speakin' of which, how do you tell for certain that it's not just a fabrication, either for or against? It's something I've always wondered when it comes to public wikis - unless you can verify who submitted it --or it can be independently verified-- you'll never be quite sure of its veracity.)
How can you ever tell that a leaked document is the actual document? I fully agree the problem of trust is ten times worse with a wiki. The best way to verify a leak in any case though is to hope that someone who didn't want the document to leak will somehow verify it. For example, how do we know that the documents at xenu.net are really the Scientology secret teachings? Well, because the Church O' Elron sued the owner for copyright infringment. What about leaked copies of Iraq progress reports? Well, the Admin started putting spin control on the contents, not it's authenticity.
It's not reliable, but option B is to pretty much go investigate yourself and get a copy of the document yourself, in which case, why should anyone believe you if you post it on wikileaks?
Well....pardon & commutation ARE different. Look it up please.
Yes I know I just told you exactly what the difference is. One is the President doing a favor for one of his buddies and undoing the conviction, the other is the President doing a favor for one of his buddies and stopping them from going to jail. The key element -- the President doing a favor for one of his buddies to stop him from facing the punishment for his crime -- is the same.
So your comment that he wasn't pardoned -- without mentioning that the key element of Presidential favors that eliminate jail time still existed -- was simply disingenuous. Or maybe it's just you who should have looked up commutation? Either way, your weaseling is irrelevant to my point. Presidential favors for cronies are relevant to my point.
To counter your "point": The commuted sentence--no jail time--perfectly fits his crime.
In your opinion. Not in the opinion of the judge and jury. Libby was convicted and sentenced to jail time. Then, exactly like I was saying, the President came in and used his Presidential powers to prevent his loyal minion from serving the sentence the court had handed down.
Again, Libby did not leak anyone's name. Libby was not convicted for leaking anyone's name. The person who did reveal Plame's name has never even been charged with anything and is sitting comfortably at home in front of his television.
First, I never said Libby leaked anything, now did I? That's not a counter to anything I'm saying at all.
Second, the person we know did reveal Plame's name wasn't charged because he claimed that it was a mere slip of the tongue that accidentally gave up the name of a undercover CIA agent. What with all the actual evidence being conveniently (but according to the administration, once again accidentally) destroyed, the prosecutor couldn't prove that it wasn't accidental. So unlikely as that is, he couldn't charge anyone with leaking her name. However he could prove that Libby lied to the special prosecutor, so he was nailed for that, and rightfully so.
So again, what's your point?
Sure, I'll repeat it again for you: It's hard to get significant penalties to stick to admin officials who commit crimes, because we know the President will just swoop in and stop them from going to jail -- exactly what happened here, your weaseling notwithstanding. However, as we can see, Libby's conviction was damaging not just to him but to the administration in general, and thus the prosecution did serve a useful purpose in punishing lawbreakers.
p.p.s. What conspiracy?
The one where high-level government officials lied in order to cover up what may have been an illegal and politically motivated outing of an undercover CIA agent. We know that at least one government official lied about the issue, and we know the white house has destroyed communications that under law should have been retained. Sure, a credulous weasel like you may be willing to go along with this all being just a happy coincidence for the Bush administration, but the linchpin here is the lying official who had no reason to lie if the proposed version of events is actually true. Even if they are true, he still lied to cover it up, which is illegal.
But I suppose you also believe that Al Capone wasn't really a mobster, he was just a normal businessman who was harshly convicted of the minor crime of tax evasion.
Either way it can't be proven -- again how convenient all the evidence was "accidentally" erased -- but that isn't my point. My point is, to the extent that government malfeasance has been proven, the President was still able to erase the penalties for that crime, but nevertheless the seemingly futile prosecution in fact had a significant political effect.
a) Scooter Libby didn't leak Plame's name to anyone. b) Anybody without BDS knows that Richard Armitage "leaked" her name to Novak. I'll even give you a CNN link:
Duh, it's the conspiracy to cover up the leak that's more interesting than the leak itself. It's this administration's incredible desire for secrecy in all things -- especially regarding their fuck-ups -- that is why issues like this email retention policy are so important.
p.s. Oh yeah: c) Libby wasn't pardoned.
No, his sentence was only commuted by President Bush. Nice weaseling there; he's still not going to jail like I was saying. So the conviction still stands -- that's the 'ruined political careers' thing I was talking about. That's about all we can hope for these days. Bush was considering a full pardon until he realized what the political fallout would be for him. Libby was in either case ruined as a political figure.
What I find funny is how Scooter was convicted basically of lying, and you're satisfied with the explanation that it was just an accidental slip of the tongue that was coincidentally politically expedient to discredit a detractor and confirmed by Karl Rove who mysteriously knew about all this. Even though we know that not all the facts are available since they were, again accidentally and again conveniently, deleted. And then you're splitting hairs over a pardon, versus not suffering the full penalty of the law due to the personal intervention of Pres. Bush. Oh yeah, that's totally different, and definitely not just a political compromise.
I'm finding it hard to figure out what your point was. My point I hope was clear: That these kinds of cases, even if they don't result in jail time because the President's friends are immune to that, are at least politically damaging and thus worth pursuing. Scooter is a perfect example.
Uh... no idea about Pataki, but I do hope you realize I was being sarcastic there. My whole point is that the big "urban" states also have large swaths of rural, whose voices are shut out by virtue of the electoral college.
Yes, the Constitution gives Congress the power to create and fund the executive agencies. The Constitution gives the President the power to run the executive agencies.
Yes, run them within the guidelines that Congress has given. Congress doesn't just create the agency and then let the President decide what it does, they create them and define exactly what that agency is for, what jurisdictions it is allowed to operate in, and even what the defined functions of its officers are. Here's the section that covers the Attorney General. Note first that it is fairly specific as to what the duties of that office actually are, meaning the President can't just decide that the Attorney General is in charge of railroads and national holidays, and second note that the only thing in there regarding the AG's opinion on law is as an adviser or prosecutor.
Yes, because the CONSTITUTION gives the the power to create cabinet-level agencies, and gives the Senate the power to confirm the nominees to cabinet-level positions.
Yes, the CONSTITUTION gives Congress powers that allow it some control over the Executive branch. I'm glad you've finally admitted this plainly obvious fact.
The Court only has jurisdiction only over its cases.
And this is a court case, to which the Executive Branch is a party, and therefore the Court's decisions are binding on the Executive Branch, including orders to not destroy evidence.
Like I keep saying, the Court's power to decide matters of law does in fact only occur within the auspices of a court case. However once this occurs, those decisions are in fact binding across all branches.
The opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel is binding on all the executive agencies, in no greater or lessor way than the opinion of the Supreme Court is binding on the inferior courts.
I refer you once again to the actual legal code of the U.S., where there is no mention of the AG ever making a binding legal decision. You're basically just making that up, but it holds no water.
And more to the point, if I get called into the AG's office, and he says I'm breaking the law, I can laugh in his face and walk out. If I get called into court, and the Judge says I'm breaking the law, the bailiff will take me away. In fact the only way the AG could stop me from laughing in his face and walking out is if he first goes to a judge and asks permission to hold me. Because, as is obvious to anyone who knows anything, the AG can't issue binding legal decisions but the courts can.
On the contrary, under your theory, the courts could direct the actions of the entire government.
If lawsuits are brought against the court for every such action and the court decides the plaintiffs have standing and the court has jurisdiction in every such action, and the court rules against the government in every such action... Then yes. That's how the government works. You've certainly seen it in action, so I don't know how you can keep denying it.
Why does this not result in rule by judiciary? Because the judiciary must in fact see each of these cases! But once they do see the case, and issue a ruling, absolutely can that ruling direct the actions of the government.
Whereas if they could not do this, then the Executive would be free to ignore any law passed by Congress because any ruling made by the judiciary regarding that law would be non-binding.
Good thing the Founders were smarter than you, and understand that having separate branches that can hold influence over the others and thus keep each other in "check" is much better than one in which no branch can ever hold influence over the others, and thus each branch is free to do absolutely whatever it wants. I mean... you really don't understand this?
The electoral college is designed to punish candidates who appeal to a limited geographic region.
Is this a good system? I think so. It doesn't ignore "the voice of the people" - you elect the electors, and the system forces candidates to represent the entire country instead of just the East.
Because Lord knows there's no such thing as Rural New York. Or Rural California for that matter. And clearly the choice of President made by the state of Michigan should be dominated by Detroit and the few other metro areas*.
Is geographic region -- as defined by states boundaries, which especially west of the Mississippi has not a lot to do with geography -- really the best metric by which to decide what groups are important? Are the concerns of rural Californians really that different than those in Wyoming? Any more so than, say, South California? Wouldn't the combined voting power of people from rural California and New York and Wyoming give them overall more power than giving Wyoming slightly more power, while summarily ignoring the rural portions of populous states? It's not like Wyoming has much in the way of importance even with the electoral college, so I don't see how it's helping.
If the idea is that people from sparsely populated areas have different concerns than those in the big cities do, and the point of the electoral college is to prevent candidates from being able to solely appeal to the big cities, then how does it makes sense that some sparsely populated areas get counted, but others don't simply because they're inside the same arbitrary border as some metropolis that thinks differently? That seems to defeat the whole purpose while in the meantime making it so that certain people's votes have zero impact at all on the actual presidential election. Which is exactly what it is -- a state that's 40% Democrat and 60% Republican gets represented at the national level as 100% Republican, and same for states that are vice versa. That 40% -- possibly a large number of people -- ends up having no say in the vote that matters.
And look at the actual consequences. As noted, the lowest population states are still not important. Same with most other states, since due to one party having at least a 20% advantage over the other are almost guaranteed to go that way. Which states matter? The ones where the population is closely divided, the so called "Swing States" which are where the most important campaigning gets done. So while we were trying to empower the rural states and sparsely populated areas, what we've really done is empower Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and a couple others to basically decide the President for us.
Then there's the two party lock-in factor. Politics in this country may work that way, but the electoral college makes it essentially impossible for any third party to make significant headway. Look at Ross Perot. In his first run for President, he enjoyed 15% of the popular vote. That's a huge amount for a third party, and should have immediately established his party as a political force. Instead, because those votes were split up among various states he got zero electoral votes, making a joke of the entire concept of 3rd parties running for President. As if having all his supporters concentrated in one state, and thus causing him to show up on the final tally, would indicate that he better represents the country as a whole! And how can we say that the electoral college is good for democracy when you can't even recommend someone vote for someone outside the main 2 parties, not just because of party politics but because the very mechanics of the election make it nigh impossible to even gain a single electoral vote?!
Maybe I'm just bitter because I moved from a Swing State to a Solid Color State, where between the Electoral College and district gerrymandering, my vote doesn't mean a god-damn thing outside of city elections. Well, okay, I am bitter. But that's why you can't just sit there and tell me the electoral college i
It is entirely unclear how you mean those two statements to mean different things.
In the one case -- the wrong case -- it means that each branch is completely immune to interference by the other, and wields all government power within their own organization. In the other case -- the correct case -- each branch wields a distinct set of powers that apply fully to the other branches, and by creating a network of such powers we create what is called "Checks and Balances" -- one branch wielding power against another and vice versa so that neither may exercise complete power within their branch or otherwise.
If you knew what "Checks and balances" actually meant then this wouldn't be that hard to grasp.
If the founders had given the legislature the power to control executive behavior, they would have completely failed at providing a check against the legislature and preventing a legislative tyranny, which was one of their greatest fears.
But... they did. Congress controls the purse strings, they control what agencies the Executive Branch creates, they control the jurisdictions of the various law enforcement agencies that operate under the President, they control when the President is able to put on his Commander in Chief hat and engage in war with other countries. You don't know anything at all if you think the legislative branch can't control executive behavior, because basically every aspect of the executive branch's apparatus is defined by the legislature.
The Executive Branch's power that checks this one is the veto. Also, he is free to operate his branch as he sees fit within the confines of the law created by Congress.
No! Cabinet-level positions must be confirmed by the Senate because the CONSTITUTION gives them that power, not because they gave themselves that power.
Go ahead and look for the Department of Justice and the Attorney General in the Constitution. These organizations, and the financing they receive, were created by Congress.
You are making Thomas Jefferson spin in his grave. The OPINIONS of the Supreme Court have weight only for the Supreme Court and their inferior courts. The only legal opinion that matters or carries any weight in the exercise of executive power, is the opinion of the AG, or by extension the Office of Legal Counsel. Thomas Jefferson is on record making emotional tirades against those who share your opinion of a super-court that lords over the elected government.
Oh, this idiotic theory again. No, the opinions of the Supreme Court are only issued in binding fashion within the confines of the Supreme Court, but once issued they carry weight everywhere that is under U.S. law! Or do you seriously believe that when the Court rules on something, the parties involved in the case must only comply with that decision so long as they stand before the Court? That as soon as they walk out, the "opinion"(aka decision) of the Supreme Court no longer matters? That's so clearly not true it goes against the most basic of knowledge of how the judiciary works. Yes, they only rule on matters of law when a case is brought before them, but YES that ruling is binding across all branches of government.
In contrast, the Attorney General can never, ever issue a binding decision on a matter of law. The Attorney General's opinion is never, ever anything more than an opinion. Even within the Legislative Branch his opinion is nothing more than that; nobody except the AG's employees need respect anything the AG says and then only because they'd be fired, not because it would carry any legal consequence. Bush himself has ignored the opinion of his AG several times so I don't know why you think the AG's opinion is ever binding.
What's funny is that Jefferson railed just as much against an untouchable executive who was free to wield power without restraint. And under your theory of Constitutional Law that's exactly what we'd have, since no law passed by Congress
As the GP said, the A-Bombs probably saved more Japanese lives than they killed (considering the alternative was a land invasion).
Although there was a plan for an invasion, the fact is that it was not the only alternative, and in fact was not the most seriously considered alternatives. The choices on the table were:
1) Drop atom bombs on targets on the Japanese mainland. 2) Detonate atom bombs off the shore as a demonstration of the bomb's power. 3) Accept a conditional surrender offered by the Japanese. 4) Wait for Russia to enter the war against Japan, which it was strongly believed would compel Japan to surrender. 5) Land invasion by Allied forces.
1 is what we actually did.
2 has the most obvious practical/tactical problems. While you can show someone a blast like they or precious few others have ever seen, and tell them that this can level a city, they might not really believe it and then there aren't any bombs left to carry out the threat. Actually annihilate a city, and you've made your point in an undeniable fashion. Plus it makes no sense to waste such an expensive weapon.
3 is very interesting. There was actually a point not long before the bombing where the Japanese did offer a conditional surrender. While there was little in the way of engagement from our side to determine exactly what that meant, their primary request appeared to be to maintain a role for their emperor. Now we were against conditional surrender for a variety of reasons, such as it not seeming an appropriate end to the war they started, and we certainly didn't want the emperor to maintain power and be able to continue the imperialistic tradition. What it seems they really wanted, though, was more of a face-saving gesture for the nation in the form of maintaining the Emperor as a symbolic and ceremonial leader. What I find especially interesting about this option is that, ultimately, this is what General McArthur gave them.
The problem from 4 from the position of Truman's cabinet had nothing to do with Japan who they were sure would surrender as soon as the Russian army was fully brought to bear in addition to the other Allies. The problem was that this would necessarily entail Japan surrendering in part to Russia, and we didn't want Russia to have any say in the matter. Already we were maneuvering against our so-called Ally. The Cold War began before WWII ended.
5, the land invasion, was actually considered behind these other options for the very reason that it was going to be so costly and do little more than leave the nation of Japan in ruins. There was of course a plan established just like there is for any military eventuality, but Truman strongly disfavored this over every other choice.
There are some really good links out there that I should dredge up that includes statements from Truman and his cabinet members regarding these things; it's really fascinating.
Also let me point out that it is not my belief that the choice to use the bomb was "wrong". For one I would not ever want to put myself in Truman's shoes, and for two what we did had some strategic advantages, including one they probably never considered which is that we now live in a world in which the actual use of nukes against cities is not just a theory but actual history, so we're all much more aware of the real consequences of using nukes than we would have been otherwise.
The only thing I really object to is the way the decision is sold by saying "our only other option was a land invasion that would have killed so many more!". This allows us to apply a simple moral calculus to the decision and assure ourselves that we were morally correct when the situation and the decision were much more complex than that.
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To me, the "Good Game" line has always been a PC way to be an ass. If you are the looser, telling the winner that they played a good game seems kind of stupid. If you are the winner, it always comes across as condescending.
What, you've never been in a competition where the losing side did, in fact, play a good game?
Am I worthless if I look after somebody elses children? Others that are not direct biological parents have a role in society, from step parents to teachers to those that keep systems going for the benefit of society.
No, of course not, though people with simplistic views of evolution will tell you that you are. Take how evolutionary development is usually presented -- an individual organism is born with some mutation or combined trait from its parents, and this new trait gets thrown into the gauntlet of life and if the organism has some advantage in survival and reproduction then the new trait will become dominant. This is true, but it's also wrong to view as the only way things happen -- I'm guessing people gravitate towards thinking so because it reinforces the views of our individualistic society.
Consider on the other hand an organism with a new trait that helps its siblings survive and reproduce but not necessarily the organism itself. If it isn't a freak mutation, then it's the parents who (together, not individually) have the genetic ability to produce children with this sibling-protecting trait. The parent's genes, then, have been made more fit by this "dead end" child, and their children who do go on to reproduce are likely to be carrying the same genes that allow them to make more such "dead end" children to the benefit of their other children. Thus that trait has been decided by evolution to not be a dead end at all, but rather an important part of survival.
It hasn't been solely about a single organism's genetics since we started using sexual reproduction. And for social mammals like ourselves, it's not about the fitness of the individuals as much as the fitness of the group. Improving the fitness of the group as a whole is not the same as maximizing the fitness of each individual -- at least, not in the same way as if you were considering each individual solely on their own. Optimizing for individual survival may result in a group that is collectively less fit, and if the whole family gets wiped out then every one of them was a dead end. If it was the case that only your individual reproductive capacity mattered, then people who didn't do this would die out or at least be relegated to the level of a genetic disorder. Yet, this is not the case.
So if you ultimately care about more than yourself, if you care about the lineage of your family or your society, it's perfectly fine to take care of someone else's children and understand that in doing so you are anything but a "dead end". A-types may not like the idea of only achieving through helping someone else to achieve, but biology agrees that this is a very useful function and will continue to produce more like you.
Once we've accomplished the first part, he'll take care of the second on his own.
Be fearful!
So your main source of skepticism is something that you, as (I'm assuming like me) a layman, thought up a solution to in 5 seconds?
Yeah it's a short article, what's your point? You want the exact methodology they used to get that number (which if we took literally only has one significant digit), you'd have to read whatever paper they publish. "Ask them to say X, compare to what the computer says" seems a pretty reasonable assumption of how they did it though.
I know people who bought all of Loki's games, even if they didn't like some of them, because they wanted to support a new company that was catering to something they wanted. How many people threw a few dollars at Radiohead, even if they don't like Radiohead's music, just because they're one of the first big bands to do this ? When every band does it, you'll lose that factor because it's not something special anymore.
True, but Radiohead made a crapton of money. Even if you think half of what they made was from people paying them solely for the novelty of it, that's still a good story.
In short, I don't think the business model has proven itself on an industry wide scale based on Radiohead's experience (which is the optimal experience, rather than the median experience).
The median experience doesn't have to be near Radiohead's optimal experience in order for it to prove itself.
However, it is very true that it hasn't proven itself on an industry-wide scale. It's only one data point.
But here's the key point: Prior to this, there were no data points, and it was people saying it was possible vs people saying it was impossible. Well we now have a data point, showing that at least one band did it and made a boatload of cash. Obviously more data is needed before you can say exactly where and when it can be successful, and more importantly will it work for your band, but the whole idea of "people will never pay for something they can get for free" has been proven false.
And this is the case in college or university. I remember people used to photocopy entire text books because they were too cheap to buy the text book.
Too cheap to buy the text book?! Dude, textbooks are expensive! Even used, books aren't cheap. And the publishers like to try to stifle the used book market by releasing minor revisions where they'll say re-write some of the problems so that if the prof uses the problem sets from the book you'll need the latest that isn't in the used book stores.
People who are already working while going to school in order to pay tuition aren't going to want to blow another few hundred bucks a semester on books. So yeah, they'll find a cheaper way to get em. This is analogous to the problem with CDs -- is it just that people are too cheap, or is it that high school and college kids think $20 is way too freaking much for a CD? Hmm... How's iTunes doing again?
Take the Radio Head example. It's not a business model, point blank!
What's that? I can't hear you over the noise of Radiohead counting their estimated over six million dollars take. Maybe you don't think it's sustainable, or wouldn't work for other bands, or whatever, and that may be true. But you're assertion that it's not a business model "point blank" is just pissing into the wind of the practical real-world results.
They offered a product. They made a boatload of cash. They had minimal costs (figuring out exactly how awesome this was for them we'd have to know more details, but it's obviously way lower cost structure than typical). To any businessman who was just looking at the numbers, that'd spell "success". They might be concerned with how to repeat that success, but you'd have to be a real blockhead dinosaur completely devoted to the way things used to be to try to call this particular case anything less than a stellar success.
I think it's funny that you'd take the word of the guy who hasn't done anything but whore his image for thirty years over the ones who actually tried it and made it work. Sounds like sour grapes from a dinosaur complaining that the mammals will never make it, to me.
Bill Hicks put it far better than I could. "Here's the deal, folks. You do a commercial - you're off the artistic roll call, forever. End of story. Okay? You're another whore at the captialist gang bang and if you do a commercial, there's a price on your head. Everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink."
"And that goes for everyone... Except Willie Nelson".
Hehe.
Hmmmm. Maybe it's not even a corpse.
Oh fine, I'm feeling generous, and will put slightly more effort into educating you than you would ever spend educating yourself.
The man's name was Manadel al-Jamadi, and yes, he was dead when the photo was taken. The autopsy concluded that the cause of death was a blood clot from trauma.
I'm sure you'll make some argument from ignorance about possible explanations (as in, you don't know that he wasn't flown in from Turkey already dead, so maybe that's what happened!). Try actually reading about some facts that resulted from investigating his death. That's what, you know, people who want to know things do. Trolls like to wallow in ignorance. Have fun picking.
And, even if so, all I see is a photograph at an instant in time.
Yes, all, as in you know literally nothing about Abu Ghraib except for the photo I just posted, and you're doing your amazing sleuthing work using nothing else. No wonder you find it unconvincing. And of course you're not ever going to try to burden yourself with more facts that might give you a different impression. Because as long as you know nothing, you can come to any comfortable conclusion you want! Do you even know who the woman is in that picture?
You need to actually learn something before you can say anyone is full of anything. You are full of nothing but ignorance.
I think trouble is...we all overestimated the intelligence and abilities of the Iraqi people. Most people, I guess, figured once they were rid of Saddam, that they'd jump at the chance to unite, and form a rational, somewhat freedom enbracing government. I mean, considering the dictatorship they'd endured, you'd think, eh?
Uh-huh. And the thinking that the people are going to be eternally grateful that we invaded and occupied their country... That Iraq was basically just Ohio with a cruel dictator and everyone would smile and line up to shop at Walmart once he was gone... That Iraqis would see our actions through the same rose-tinted glasses that we do... That any government formed under occupation would be seen as legitimate... That they could follow our example of "freedom embracing government" when the occupation shuts down newspapers and indefinitely imprisons people without charge? These are the thoughts of an intelligent person?
Ha, as if. Unintelligent is not knowing a damn thing about the situation in the country you're invading, and then acting surprised and
blaming the locals when your delusional fantasy of what should happen doesn't come true.
But, it turned out not to be the case. Apparently they are pretty much all fscked in the head over there....can't get past racial/religious differences (and for God's sake how can even they tell the difference between suni and shiite?, they really do all look like one people on tv)....so, they constantly bicker and have apparently NO leaders in the group that the country can rally around.
Did you know that under Saddam, and despite his favoritism, Sunnis and Shiites lived together, worked together, even got married and raised families together, without any problems? Did you know that it is only within the last two years, in particular since Feb 2006's bombing of the Shiite mosque that sectarian killing has become rampant? Did you know that it is only since that time that people have been afraid to be the minority in their neighborhood and thus moved and segregated neighborhoods? And even then, Sunnis and Shiites would peacefully exchange deeds to their homes in order to keep both their families safe? Did you know that our oh-so-intelligent idea to fix this was to build walls and even further isolate the two groups?
It has become a convenient refrain for people to act as though the sectarian reprisal killings have been a constant feature of Iraq and that the sectarian violence was unavoidable. This is truly ignorant, and just a way to cover up for the fact that the U.S. dropped the ball on securing the peace and gave al Qaeda an opportunity to create chaos in Iraq.
If you truly think this is something unique to these unintelligent people... Imagine what would happen if, today, someone blew up a major Catholic church in Ulster. Clearly peace is possible in Ireland... but something like that could set off the violence again.
Given this, I really don't hold up much hope for them to get their act together no matter how long we stay and support them. I think at some point, we're gonna have to withdraw...step back, throw a couple of knives in the center....and then, after it is over with...we just have to deal with the 'winner'....
Certainly when we withdraw the flimsy edifice we've constructed will crumble. Certainly given the current situation -- a situation unlikely to change any time soon -- the results will not be pretty. This is all true. Your big mistake is thinking this was all inevitable. If we had gone into the situation realistically, instead of full of ourselves and fanciful lies of how great we are, then the situation might be dramatically better.
It takes a lot of balls to look at this invasion and say that Iraqis are dumb. Sadly, that seems to be all we've got left.
Many times over the years when I'd talk with people about his experiences, they would reassure me that such a thing wouldn't happen in a healthy constitutional democracy like the US. The cruelty and Kafkaesque behavior of his captors was relegated to the sickness of communism to be sure.
:(
Yeah, that's what they told me in grade school, too... that we were better than the Communists because we didn't do that kind of thing.
Now they're saying that we're better than the Communists (or the terrorists or whatever) which is why it's okay that we do that kind of thing.
It went from "we're better because we act better", to "we're better... because we just are. So it doesn't matter how we act."
It makes me very sad too.
Of course... I had to take it easy on him, otherwise he'd get mad and stop playing. :)
:P
Haha. When I was very young, I remember going to arcades with my dad who was pretty good at Pac-Man and Tron. Actually he was very good at Tron, he could get far enough that it started to seem more like Wario Ware with each mini-game lasting roughly 5 seconds.
But he pretty much stopped playing games at all for some reason. By the time I got my NES he was so out of practice it wasn't funny any more. He tried to play video games with me, but his heart just wasn't in it. I think the third time in a row that he got killed by the very first Goomba in Super Mario Brothers he gave up and never played again.
It is a lot of pages but so far this text seems to be pretty standard procedure for dealing with what the US claims are highly dangerous people. If the guidelines in this document are followed it is hard to see evidence of torture. Then again I thought abu ghraib was pathetic. If muslims talk just because a dog is barking at them, well, it is just pathetic. Read up on some real torture sessions, done against women and childeren and then come back. Being put into humiliating postions? Flushing a book? Oh yeah, that compares to electro shock, being beaten to death and seeing your fellows executed.
You don't know jack shit about Abu Ghraib. Men were beaten with table legs, and raped up the ass with broomsticks and chemical lights. Women were raped by guards. A man had his legs held open while an officer repeatedly kicked him in the crotch. You think it was pathetic because you don't know a damn thing about it. You only saw a couple photos of a guy with a hood on his head and thought "Oh that's nothing" and moved on with your life, even though you were told that there were even more pictures that were, and I quote, "much worse". Guess what? You bought into the media spin.
Do you think this guy was humilitated to death you dipshit?
A good place to start with actually informing yourself would be to google up the Taguba Report for a beginning of what went on.
Skimming the rest of your post, you make some decent points, I just get really pissed when people blow off Abu Ghraib because they think it's all just barking dogs and panties-hats. Well you're wrong. It was honest-to-god torture. People died from it. You don't die from dog barks.
First of all, the 650 thousand number you claim is discredited.
Just because whatever talking head you listen to said so doesn't make it true. The Lancet Medical Journal in which the survey was published is a highly respected peer-reviewed journal. It's going to take more to discredit the study than your sincere wish that it wasn't true.
No matter what the ideological slant you may take, I strongly suspect that the truth is going to be a lot more mundane - again, assuming this thing is not a fabrication in either one direction or the other.
Oh, I'm sure of that. It is a manual after all. It may reveal something about the nature of how detainees are treated, and it may even include things that walk that (apparently) narrow line between "aggressive interrogation" and "torture".
The problem is the things that aren't in the manual, but that they do anyway on "high value targets" because of pressure to get results. I don't think there's a manual that says wrap a guy up in a carpet and sit on him until he almost -- or in some cases fatally -- asphyxiates, but that's basically what happened under CIA interrogators in Afghanistan.
That's much more difficult to discover. We only have hints -- there are "secret" CIA prisons around the world, but damned if we know what goes on there. In most cases, it probably is boring and mundane.
(speakin' of which, how do you tell for certain that it's not just a fabrication, either for or against? It's something I've always wondered when it comes to public wikis - unless you can verify who submitted it --or it can be independently verified-- you'll never be quite sure of its veracity.)
How can you ever tell that a leaked document is the actual document? I fully agree the problem of trust is ten times worse with a wiki. The best way to verify a leak in any case though is to hope that someone who didn't want the document to leak will somehow verify it. For example, how do we know that the documents at xenu.net are really the Scientology secret teachings? Well, because the Church O' Elron sued the owner for copyright infringment. What about leaked copies of Iraq progress reports? Well, the Admin started putting spin control on the contents, not it's authenticity.
It's not reliable, but option B is to pretty much go investigate yourself and get a copy of the document yourself, in which case, why should anyone believe you if you post it on wikileaks?
Well....pardon & commutation ARE different. Look it up please.
Yes I know I just told you exactly what the difference is. One is the President doing a favor for one of his buddies and undoing the conviction, the other is the President doing a favor for one of his buddies and stopping them from going to jail. The key element -- the President doing a favor for one of his buddies to stop him from facing the punishment for his crime -- is the same.
So your comment that he wasn't pardoned -- without mentioning that the key element of Presidential favors that eliminate jail time still existed -- was simply disingenuous. Or maybe it's just you who should have looked up commutation? Either way, your weaseling is irrelevant to my point. Presidential favors for cronies are relevant to my point.
To counter your "point": The commuted sentence--no jail time--perfectly fits his crime.
In your opinion. Not in the opinion of the judge and jury. Libby was convicted and sentenced to jail time. Then, exactly like I was saying, the President came in and used his Presidential powers to prevent his loyal minion from serving the sentence the court had handed down.
Again, Libby did not leak anyone's name. Libby was not convicted for leaking anyone's name. The person who did reveal Plame's name has never even been charged with anything and is sitting comfortably at home in front of his television.
First, I never said Libby leaked anything, now did I? That's not a counter to anything I'm saying at all.
Second, the person we know did reveal Plame's name wasn't charged because he claimed that it was a mere slip of the tongue that accidentally gave up the name of a undercover CIA agent. What with all the actual evidence being conveniently (but according to the administration, once again accidentally) destroyed, the prosecutor couldn't prove that it wasn't accidental. So unlikely as that is, he couldn't charge anyone with leaking her name. However he could prove that Libby lied to the special prosecutor, so he was nailed for that, and rightfully so.
So again, what's your point?
Sure, I'll repeat it again for you: It's hard to get significant penalties to stick to admin officials who commit crimes, because we know the President will just swoop in and stop them from going to jail -- exactly what happened here, your weaseling notwithstanding. However, as we can see, Libby's conviction was damaging not just to him but to the administration in general, and thus the prosecution did serve a useful purpose in punishing lawbreakers.
p.p.s. What conspiracy?
The one where high-level government officials lied in order to cover up what may have been an illegal and politically motivated outing of an undercover CIA agent. We know that at least one government official lied about the issue, and we know the white house has destroyed communications that under law should have been retained. Sure, a credulous weasel like you may be willing to go along with this all being just a happy coincidence for the Bush administration, but the linchpin here is the lying official who had no reason to lie if the proposed version of events is actually true. Even if they are true, he still lied to cover it up, which is illegal.
But I suppose you also believe that Al Capone wasn't really a mobster, he was just a normal businessman who was harshly convicted of the minor crime of tax evasion.
Either way it can't be proven -- again how convenient all the evidence was "accidentally" erased -- but that isn't my point. My point is, to the extent that government malfeasance has been proven, the President was still able to erase the penalties for that crime, but nevertheless the seemingly futile prosecution in fact had a significant political effect.
Bwa ha ha! That was hilarious. Nice.
a) Scooter Libby didn't leak Plame's name to anyone.
b) Anybody without BDS knows that Richard Armitage "leaked" her name to Novak. I'll even give you a CNN link:
Duh, it's the conspiracy to cover up the leak that's more interesting than the leak itself. It's this administration's incredible desire for secrecy in all things -- especially regarding their fuck-ups -- that is why issues like this email retention policy are so important.
p.s. Oh yeah:
c) Libby wasn't pardoned.
No, his sentence was only commuted by President Bush. Nice weaseling there; he's still not going to jail like I was saying. So the conviction still stands -- that's the 'ruined political careers' thing I was talking about. That's about all we can hope for these days. Bush was considering a full pardon until he realized what the political fallout would be for him. Libby was in either case ruined as a political figure.
What I find funny is how Scooter was convicted basically of lying, and you're satisfied with the explanation that it was just an accidental slip of the tongue that was coincidentally politically expedient to discredit a detractor and confirmed by Karl Rove who mysteriously knew about all this. Even though we know that not all the facts are available since they were, again accidentally and again conveniently, deleted. And then you're splitting hairs over a pardon, versus not suffering the full penalty of the law due to the personal intervention of Pres. Bush. Oh yeah, that's totally different, and definitely not just a political compromise.
I'm finding it hard to figure out what your point was. My point I hope was clear: That these kinds of cases, even if they don't result in jail time because the President's friends are immune to that, are at least politically damaging and thus worth pursuing. Scooter is a perfect example.
Uh... no idea about Pataki, but I do hope you realize I was being sarcastic there. My whole point is that the big "urban" states also have large swaths of rural, whose voices are shut out by virtue of the electoral college.
How come no matter what button I push this damn vending machine keeps spitting out Clearasil?!
Yes, the Constitution gives Congress the power to create and fund the executive agencies. The Constitution gives the President the power to run the executive agencies.
Yes, run them within the guidelines that Congress has given. Congress doesn't just create the agency and then let the President decide what it does, they create them and define exactly what that agency is for, what jurisdictions it is allowed to operate in, and even what the defined functions of its officers are. Here's the section that covers the Attorney General. Note first that it is fairly specific as to what the duties of that office actually are, meaning the President can't just decide that the Attorney General is in charge of railroads and national holidays, and second note that the only thing in there regarding the AG's opinion on law is as an adviser or prosecutor.
Yes, because the CONSTITUTION gives the the power to create cabinet-level agencies, and gives the Senate the power to confirm the nominees to cabinet-level positions.
Yes, the CONSTITUTION gives Congress powers that allow it some control over the Executive branch. I'm glad you've finally admitted this plainly obvious fact.
The Court only has jurisdiction only over its cases.
And this is a court case, to which the Executive Branch is a party, and therefore the Court's decisions are binding on the Executive Branch, including orders to not destroy evidence.
Like I keep saying, the Court's power to decide matters of law does in fact only occur within the auspices of a court case. However once this occurs, those decisions are in fact binding across all branches.
The opinion of the Office of Legal Counsel is binding on all the executive agencies, in no greater or lessor way than the opinion of the Supreme Court is binding on the inferior courts.
I refer you once again to the actual legal code of the U.S., where there is no mention of the AG ever making a binding legal decision. You're basically just making that up, but it holds no water.
And more to the point, if I get called into the AG's office, and he says I'm breaking the law, I can laugh in his face and walk out. If I get called into court, and the Judge says I'm breaking the law, the bailiff will take me away. In fact the only way the AG could stop me from laughing in his face and walking out is if he first goes to a judge and asks permission to hold me. Because, as is obvious to anyone who knows anything, the AG can't issue binding legal decisions but the courts can.
On the contrary, under your theory, the courts could direct the actions of the entire government.
If lawsuits are brought against the court for every such action and the court decides the plaintiffs have standing and the court has jurisdiction in every such action, and the court rules against the government in every such action... Then yes. That's how the government works. You've certainly seen it in action, so I don't know how you can keep denying it.
Why does this not result in rule by judiciary? Because the judiciary must in fact see each of these cases! But once they do see the case, and issue a ruling, absolutely can that ruling direct the actions of the government.
Whereas if they could not do this, then the Executive would be free to ignore any law passed by Congress because any ruling made by the judiciary regarding that law would be non-binding.
Good thing the Founders were smarter than you, and understand that having separate branches that can hold influence over the others and thus keep each other in "check" is much better than one in which no branch can ever hold influence over the others, and thus each branch is free to do absolutely whatever it wants. I mean... you really don't understand this?
First of all, Mar
The electoral college is designed to punish candidates who appeal to a limited geographic region.
Is this a good system? I think so. It doesn't ignore "the voice of the people" - you elect the electors, and the system forces candidates to represent the entire country instead of just the East.
Because Lord knows there's no such thing as Rural New York. Or Rural California for that matter. And clearly the choice of President made by the state of Michigan should be dominated by Detroit and the few other metro areas*.
Is geographic region -- as defined by states boundaries, which especially west of the Mississippi has not a lot to do with geography -- really the best metric by which to decide what groups are important? Are the concerns of rural Californians really that different than those in Wyoming? Any more so than, say, South California? Wouldn't the combined voting power of people from rural California and New York and Wyoming give them overall more power than giving Wyoming slightly more power, while summarily ignoring the rural portions of populous states? It's not like Wyoming has much in the way of importance even with the electoral college, so I don't see how it's helping.
If the idea is that people from sparsely populated areas have different concerns than those in the big cities do, and the point of the electoral college is to prevent candidates from being able to solely appeal to the big cities, then how does it makes sense that some sparsely populated areas get counted, but others don't simply because they're inside the same arbitrary border as some metropolis that thinks differently? That seems to defeat the whole purpose while in the meantime making it so that certain people's votes have zero impact at all on the actual presidential election. Which is exactly what it is -- a state that's 40% Democrat and 60% Republican gets represented at the national level as 100% Republican, and same for states that are vice versa. That 40% -- possibly a large number of people -- ends up having no say in the vote that matters.
And look at the actual consequences. As noted, the lowest population states are still not important. Same with most other states, since due to one party having at least a 20% advantage over the other are almost guaranteed to go that way. Which states matter? The ones where the population is closely divided, the so called "Swing States" which are where the most important campaigning gets done. So while we were trying to empower the rural states and sparsely populated areas, what we've really done is empower Ohio, Florida, Michigan, and a couple others to basically decide the President for us.
Then there's the two party lock-in factor. Politics in this country may work that way, but the electoral college makes it essentially impossible for any third party to make significant headway. Look at Ross Perot. In his first run for President, he enjoyed 15% of the popular vote. That's a huge amount for a third party, and should have immediately established his party as a political force. Instead, because those votes were split up among various states he got zero electoral votes, making a joke of the entire concept of 3rd parties running for President. As if having all his supporters concentrated in one state, and thus causing him to show up on the final tally, would indicate that he better represents the country as a whole! And how can we say that the electoral college is good for democracy when you can't even recommend someone vote for someone outside the main 2 parties, not just because of party politics but because the very mechanics of the election make it nigh impossible to even gain a single electoral vote?!
Maybe I'm just bitter because I moved from a Swing State to a Solid Color State, where between the Electoral College and district gerrymandering, my vote doesn't mean a god-damn thing outside of city elections. Well, okay, I am bitter. But that's why you can't just sit there and tell me the electoral college i
It is entirely unclear how you mean those two statements to mean different things.
In the one case -- the wrong case -- it means that each branch is completely immune to interference by the other, and wields all government power within their own organization. In the other case -- the correct case -- each branch wields a distinct set of powers that apply fully to the other branches, and by creating a network of such powers we create what is called "Checks and Balances" -- one branch wielding power against another and vice versa so that neither may exercise complete power within their branch or otherwise.
If you knew what "Checks and balances" actually meant then this wouldn't be that hard to grasp.
If the founders had given the legislature the power to control executive behavior, they would have completely failed at providing a check against the legislature and preventing a legislative tyranny, which was one of their greatest fears.
But... they did. Congress controls the purse strings, they control what agencies the Executive Branch creates, they control the jurisdictions of the various law enforcement agencies that operate under the President, they control when the President is able to put on his Commander in Chief hat and engage in war with other countries. You don't know anything at all if you think the legislative branch can't control executive behavior, because basically every aspect of the executive branch's apparatus is defined by the legislature.
The Executive Branch's power that checks this one is the veto. Also, he is free to operate his branch as he sees fit within the confines of the law created by Congress.
No! Cabinet-level positions must be confirmed by the Senate because the CONSTITUTION gives them that power, not because they gave themselves that power.
Go ahead and look for the Department of Justice and the Attorney General in the Constitution. These organizations, and the financing they receive, were created by Congress.
You are making Thomas Jefferson spin in his grave. The OPINIONS of the Supreme Court have weight only for the Supreme Court and their inferior courts. The only legal opinion that matters or carries any weight in the exercise of executive power, is the opinion of the AG, or by extension the Office of Legal Counsel. Thomas Jefferson is on record making emotional tirades against those who share your opinion of a super-court that lords over the elected government.
Oh, this idiotic theory again. No, the opinions of the Supreme Court are only issued in binding fashion within the confines of the Supreme Court, but once issued they carry weight everywhere that is under U.S. law! Or do you seriously believe that when the Court rules on something, the parties involved in the case must only comply with that decision so long as they stand before the Court? That as soon as they walk out, the "opinion"(aka decision) of the Supreme Court no longer matters? That's so clearly not true it goes against the most basic of knowledge of how the judiciary works. Yes, they only rule on matters of law when a case is brought before them, but YES that ruling is binding across all branches of government.
In contrast, the Attorney General can never, ever issue a binding decision on a matter of law. The Attorney General's opinion is never, ever anything more than an opinion. Even within the Legislative Branch his opinion is nothing more than that; nobody except the AG's employees need respect anything the AG says and then only because they'd be fired, not because it would carry any legal consequence. Bush himself has ignored the opinion of his AG several times so I don't know why you think the AG's opinion is ever binding.
What's funny is that Jefferson railed just as much against an untouchable executive who was free to wield power without restraint. And under your theory of Constitutional Law that's exactly what we'd have, since no law passed by Congress
As the GP said, the A-Bombs probably saved more Japanese lives than they killed (considering the alternative was a land invasion).
Although there was a plan for an invasion, the fact is that it was not the only alternative, and in fact was not the most seriously considered alternatives. The choices on the table were:
1) Drop atom bombs on targets on the Japanese mainland.
2) Detonate atom bombs off the shore as a demonstration of the bomb's power.
3) Accept a conditional surrender offered by the Japanese.
4) Wait for Russia to enter the war against Japan, which it was strongly believed would compel Japan to surrender.
5) Land invasion by Allied forces.
1 is what we actually did.
2 has the most obvious practical/tactical problems. While you can show someone a blast like they or precious few others have ever seen, and tell them that this can level a city, they might not really believe it and then there aren't any bombs left to carry out the threat. Actually annihilate a city, and you've made your point in an undeniable fashion. Plus it makes no sense to waste such an expensive weapon.
3 is very interesting. There was actually a point not long before the bombing where the Japanese did offer a conditional surrender. While there was little in the way of engagement from our side to determine exactly what that meant, their primary request appeared to be to maintain a role for their emperor. Now we were against conditional surrender for a variety of reasons, such as it not seeming an appropriate end to the war they started, and we certainly didn't want the emperor to maintain power and be able to continue the imperialistic tradition. What it seems they really wanted, though, was more of a face-saving gesture for the nation in the form of maintaining the Emperor as a symbolic and ceremonial leader. What I find especially interesting about this option is that, ultimately, this is what General McArthur gave them.
The problem from 4 from the position of Truman's cabinet had nothing to do with Japan who they were sure would surrender as soon as the Russian army was fully brought to bear in addition to the other Allies. The problem was that this would necessarily entail Japan surrendering in part to Russia, and we didn't want Russia to have any say in the matter. Already we were maneuvering against our so-called Ally. The Cold War began before WWII ended.
5, the land invasion, was actually considered behind these other options for the very reason that it was going to be so costly and do little more than leave the nation of Japan in ruins. There was of course a plan established just like there is for any military eventuality, but Truman strongly disfavored this over every other choice.
There are some really good links out there that I should dredge up that includes statements from Truman and his cabinet members regarding these things; it's really fascinating.
Also let me point out that it is not my belief that the choice to use the bomb was "wrong". For one I would not ever want to put myself in Truman's shoes, and for two what we did had some strategic advantages, including one they probably never considered which is that we now live in a world in which the actual use of nukes against cities is not just a theory but actual history, so we're all much more aware of the real consequences of using nukes than we would have been otherwise.
The only thing I really object to is the way the decision is sold by saying "our only other option was a land invasion that would have killed so many more!". This allows us to apply a simple moral calculus to the decision and assure ourselves that we were morally correct when the situation and the decision were much more complex than that.
Oh, if only we had invested equal resources in building better cats!
God no! That's just what the cats want you to think! Trust me, they'd be much worse overlords than the mice.