"I disagree with that point. You are free to work to thwart my efforts, but carrying on this fight is exactly what I should be doing."
I'm not going to lift a finger to thwart your efforts. Its a free country as long as you don't hurt anyone but yourself. I'm justing pointing out you are engaged in an exercise in futility just as much as the people on the other side of the issue.
Only thing I pointed out when this B.S. started is that you managed to help elect and inflict an incompetent President on the rest of us, and the rest of the world, because you are so obsessed with two issues you didn't do your civic duty and weigh all the issues. The Republicans are playing you like a fiddle, sucker, and for helping subject us to 8 years of that nitwit you truly should burn in hell.
"Firearms were more lethal in the past."
Excepting of course you couldn't put them in to semiautomatic or automatic mode and squeeze of 20 rounds in a few seconds. Your lethality arguement is absurd. How long does it take to reload a muzzle loading rifle with one shot versus changing a 20 round magazine on an assault rifle. You can kill a whole lot more people with an assault rifle than you ever will a muzzle loader. I'm pretty sure the main gun on an M1 tank far exceeds a muzzle loader in lethality and it is just a big gun right, or is there some magic dividing line you do recognize that would suggest a private citizen probably shouldn't own a 120 mm tank gun with high explosive shells.
"I guess that you miss the irony of that statement. You are attempting to inflict your beliefs of what issues are important on people who try to inflict their beliefs on others."
No I'm just pointing out that you and those like you on both sides of both these issues are NEVER going to win, if your side wins on abortion, the other half of the country is just going to start a never ending battle to win it back. Bottomline is whether there is or isn't abortion in this country doesn't have anything to do with whether we have jobs, or can make a good living, or are being sent in to a war to kill and be killed. Maybe if you and those like you were voting on economic issues you might have a better paying job.
I'm also at a loss how you can be so completely obsessed with the killing of a less than completely sentient fetus, and not care in the least about a war in Iraq that is killing and maiming fully sentient human beings everyday.
But at this point its time to say later dude. Its an age old rule, never argue with a fanatic about abortion, whether they are for or against. Its a complete waste of time because they will never change their mind or even admit their obsession with the subject is less than healthy.
"It's called a principle. We believe that they are killing children."
Here is the part you are missing. It is YOUR principle and YOUR belief. Half the country doesn't share your belief system. The whole point is you should stop trying to inflict your belief system on them while in the case of abortion they aren't even trying to inflict there belief system on you. All grant on gun control I think you should be able to own all the guns you want and fact is you probably already do. Just dont shoot anyone else with them. If you want to use them on yourself go ahead.
"Aside from it being our right, I don't have to give any explanation."
Didn't think you could explain why you think its everyones right to own a machine gun.
I think at the time that amendment was written guns tended to be breech loaders with ball and powder and they were pretty essential for hunting and putting food on the table. Times have changed and unfortunately guns are both far more lethal and far more abused in committing crimes though you are not gonna change. There is nothing stopping you from buying a hunting rifle if you need it to put food on the table which you probably don't.
Where exactly do you draw the line. By your argument I'm assuming you think you should be able to own a howitzer or maybe an Abrams tank. After all they are just guns.
But all in all the key point here is it is completely pointless to argue about gun control or abortion. People simply DON'T change their opinions on the subject and the country is pretty much evenly divided on both. All I wish is the people trying to inflict their belief system on people who don't share it would stop and focus on issues that matter like wars and the economy, how about you can own all the guns you want as long as you stop trying to prevent a woman you don't know from ending an unwanted pregnancy. In other words everyone leave everone else alone.
It appears its a lost cause and this country is going to spiral in to a very deep hole while it sits and argues wedge issues, and elects incompetent leaders solely based on issues which are never going to be resolved. Meanwhile things that do matter like the deficit and the value of the dollar go to hell and pretty soon we will deeply regret our stupidity.
Sorry I lost track of which issues were the two you cared about in this context, there were four at various times, guns, gays, taxes and abortion.
"I was asking why the Democrats won't give in on the issues that I (and millions of others) vote on"
Because there are people exactly like you who are just as stupid as you are except in the opposite direction. It makes pretty much no sense to have a nation self destruct over a wedge issue, abortion, which neither side is going to give in on. As far as gun control goes what is there for the Democrats to give in on. Unless they filibuster the Republicans can do what ever they want on gun control and have, they let the assault weapon ban lapse, though I doubt you can give me any rational explanation as to why the average American needs an assault rifle, its going to do noting but harm.
As I recall you don't care what I or anyone else does to get an orgasm. Why exactly is it any more your business if a woman you don't know chooses to not spend 9 hard months bringing to term an unwanted product of that orgasm, and then either puts the kid up for adoption, or raises him when she can't support him, and maybe doesn't want him, and maybe in a life of poverty. This world really isn't short of people, overpopulation is going to eventually destroy this planet. Religious fundamentalists like you are just helping to hasten the demise of our planet and species everytime you oppose birth control in whatever form. What exactly is the rational for the Pope refusing to endorse the use of condoms, and instead helping encourage AIDS to spread like wildfire around the globe, because he wants more Catholics to make his flock bigger. Thats why all religions at their root oppose all forms of birth control because winning in the relgion game is determined by how many warm bodies you can claim.
Where there is an issue where people are evenly divided and dead set the only solution is you live your life and stop telling other people how to live theirs. Its NONE of your business to compel a women you don't know to have a child she doesn't want. Its been tried and women use coat hangers or go down dark allys and lots of them die along with the fetus. If you are opposed to abortion, fine don't abort any of your children. If you do odds are you will eventually outbreed the liberals and you win, or maybe you already have.
Get it. I'm sure you don't. Bottomline for right and left wingers. Butt out of other peoples lives unless they are stepping on yours.
"If they don't count for much, why then won't the Democrats give in on them?"
Kind of shows how clueless you are about politics. The Democrats have backed everyone of the tax cuts for people in your income bracket and then some. The only tax cuts they oppose are for the people in the top income bracket because that is where the lion's share of the money is going, and where the deficits are coming from, and its to people that don't need the money, while people in your bracket do.
Someone ought to give you and all Americans like you a Politics 101. The Republican's are the party of employers, shareholders and the wealthy. They are indifferent to or openly hostile to working people and always have been.
They've just hit on strategy where they can sucker working people like you in to voting for them using wedge issues like abortion, gun control, gays and race. Like dutiful little dumbasses millions of working Americans do vote for Republicans solely on these issues which in there day to day lives count for anything. You are voting against their own economic interest. You are voting for the party that 100% of the time favors your employer over you.
Can't say that the Democrats are going to take much better care of you since they've been pulled so far to the center but at least you aren't voting against your own economic interest which is what you are doing now. Exactly how does it matter to you if someone you don't know gets an abortion. If you are opposed to it fine, then don't get one, oh wait its not even your decision to make its your wife's. Exactly how important is it to your day to day life that you are or aren't allowed to own an assault rifle. Its unlikely the Republicans are going to succeed in outlawing abortion or the Democrats are going succeed in outlawing hand guns and hunting rifles.
Wake up and get a clue. Start voting on issues that actually matter.
My compliments on your wife's common sense and good taste. Wonder if she couldn't stand being married to someone stupid enough to vote for a President solely on the basis of two wedge issues that, compared to waging wars based on lies and screwing up the economy don't count for much. Coincidence you separated in 2000, I think not.
You are the Republican's wet dream and there are millions of you. They can COUNT on you to vote for them because of these two wedge issues. They can completely screw you, the nation, and the world on every other front and you will STILL vote for them.
I hate to break it to you but they gave you chump change in tax cuts and you are grateful for the peanuts. They don't give a rats ass about anyone in your income bracket. All they want out of you is that you be stupid enough to vote for them while they either offshore your job to China or drive down your wages until you starve.
"I never once saw nor heard President Bush bash gays."
He got elected for doing it rhetoricly whether you choose to admit it or not. You yourself said... let me see...
"advantage of society's revulsion at that."
In most people's book applying the word "revulsion" to their sexual preference would be considered bashing. Could you just admit it, you and George are bigots. I'm not sure George W. is a bigot on the subject at heart, Cheney sure isn't, but they sure exploited bigotry to get elected and than is maybe worse. At least you are honest and open that you hate gays.
"Democrats. This is the kind of thing I was talking about."
Uh, I'm not a Democrat so where does that leave your stereotype. Perhaps prick was a bad choice of words, I think "intolerant" sure does fit you and George. What noun would you suggest for people who vote based on their intolerance and with disregard for issues that count.
"You can lose a security clearance..."
Interesting how you focused on this and glossed over the fact that they were either going to imprison him, or chemicly castrate him simply for being gay, and in the process drove him to suicide. Don't think the security clearance was really central to the issue, sorry I brought it up, nice duck though.
"The Democrats are "pro choice" and pro gun control. I can never vote for any candidate who is against me on those two issues."
So you are saying as long as a candidate is pro life and anti gun control he can completely screw up the country and screw you on every other issue and you will still vote for him. Well once again you have explained to the world why America voted for an incompetent President. As long as he is prolife and progun you could careless if he is competent for the job and I'm sure you are not alone which is why we are in the predicament we are in.
"Tax cuts never have to be "paid for"
Bingo, we understand why you can vote for a President who is running half trillion deficits. Its true they don't have to be paid for, but the government DOES eventually have to pay its bills, so you if you are going to cut taxes you have to cut spending to match, or pray for Reaganomics to kick in and make up the difference with revenue which so far it hasn't and isn't likely to.
I'm all for tax cuts, I'd be delighted if I didn't have to pay any. The only catch is the government is going to have to stop spending too. That is where you and George W. are so full of shit it just boggles the mind. George W. has increased spending by 25% in 3 years while cutting taxes. It is setting the foundation for an economic disaster some time down the road, unfortunately probably after he is out of office so he wont get blamed for what he has wrought. Though at the rate the dollar is tanking it may well be during his term and if it happens I really hope you regret your, "I vote on two issue stupidity".
"He kept the promises that were important to me. Moreover, the two issues that are most important to me are not taken seriously by the opposition."
Just curious what two issues are those just so we we can better understand the mind of a Bush supporter who apparently disregarded everyting he's done wrong in the last 4 years. I'm guessing one is you hate gays but you haven't had the guts to actually say it.
Whats the other, tax cuts? You must be rich then because if you re middle class they are so small as to be irrelevant.
I sure hope I'm wrong about George W. for America's sake. My hunch is if he continues down the same road he took in the previous 4 years he is going to lay the foundation for devastating the U.S. economy and push the U.S. into complete isolation in foreign affairs.
The U.S. simply can't sustain the staggering trade and budget deficits without something giving way and it appears the dollar is that something and it is probably already going.
If he keeps shooting first, and not asking questions later its a matter of time before the EU, China, India, Russia and every civilized nation on the globe unites in an alliance against the U.S. Wouldn't there just be so much irony if the world were to impose economic sanctions on the U.S.?
Not wanting to delve in to the hypocrisy of SUN, but I think it is entirely a company's prerogative to decide what platforms they support with their software. It costs money to do ports, but worse it costs a lot of money to test and support a platform, every release, and its pretty much impossible to support every little niche platform under the Sun, heh, so every software developer makes their choices on what platforms are worth it them.
If your platform's market share is dwindling and isn't perceived as having a future, and is viewed as a competitor by the software developer, I don't think ranting about it in public, is exactly what a grown up would do. If you don't like it the one and only option you have in a free market is to develop your own software that does the same thing.
I liked some of the stuff Jonathan said when he first became SUN's new mouth, but lately most of what he says tends to indicate that he has no clue about the realities of running a large corporation in a competitive environment, hint the dynamics are not the same as those for an open source fan in a share and share a like world.
One of IBM's long running goals is, no doubt, to put SUN out of business, not to help them succeed, maybe someone should brief Jonathan.
"Democrats were beating the drum of "gay rights" and the Republicans took advantage of society's revulsion at that."
Since it appears you were one of the millions of American's who voted for Bush at least in part because he was willing to bash gays, and apparently didn't vote based on issues that count, I'm thinking I should share a little anecdote with you. I should also say I sure hope you aren't in the computer field, because there are a lot of gays in the computer business and they shouldn't be subjected to working with intolerant pricks. Me I'm not gay but I'm of the live and let live school, and believe that people should be able to choose their own way life as long as they don't hurt someone else. I am in the computer business and most of us geeks do march to a different drummer in one way or another so the enlightened among us at least, reject intolerance and prejudice because most of us experience it one way or another because we are different. That is a reason why places like Massachusetts and San Francisco trend both liberal and tolerant of homosexuality, lots of highly educated, high technology workers who are enlightened and tolerant. They aren't the ones, for the most part, who are putting the Republicans in power. Those tend to be rural Americans and Southerner's who aren't enlightened, are intolerant and unfortunately vote with their sexual insecurity instead of their brain.
I'm thinking every gay basher in the computer business should probably pick up a biography of Alan Turing. You see he is the closest thing we have to a founding father of computing. He wrote some of the first and seminal papers in the field especially on the concept of the Turing Machine and also helped pioneer the field of AI.
He was also pivotal to the Allied code breaking efforts in World War II, especially in applying electronic computing to code breaking. Its hard to weigh these things but its likely the Allies wouldn't have broken some of the German and Japanese codes they did in World War II without his work. If they hadn't its also quite possible World War II might have turned out differently. The victory at Midway was almost entirely due to electronic code breaking, depriving the Japanese of the element of surprise. Again its impossible to judge the contribution of one man in a World War but its certainly a possibility the Allies might not have won the war were it not for his contributions. Its a certainty he saved many Allied lives by helping locate German U boats and revealing war plans.
How did Great Britain reward him, for his contribution to the war effort, for saving Allied lives, and for his contribution to computing? They arrested him for being a homosexual when he reported a burglary by a friend of a lover. They revoked his security clearance and forced him to choose between chemical castration (injections with estrogen) or prison. He choose chemical castration. The humiliation and the effects of the castration pushed him to commit suicide at the age of 41. You have to wonder how many more papers he would have written or breakthroughs in computing he might have pioneered if he lived a full life. Well he didn't because of intolerant pricks in government.
So next time you think its OK to vote for politicians to bash gays,a nd be intolerant pricks, just stop and think about Alan Turing and the millions like him who make priceless contributions to our world, and are rewarded by intolerant pricks who put them in prison, fire them, kill them or castrate them for being different.
"No. I didn't watch either convention. My decision was made in 2000. When Bush won the 2000 election, I knew I'd be voting for him again in 2004."
That sure makes sense. You obviously haven't been paying attention to his rhetoric or his record for 4 years, and I can see how that would be about the only way you COULD justify voting for him again. The plurality of Americans, in a fit of ignorance is bliss, reelected an incompetent President apparently for the same reason, they haven't been paying attention. Unless you DO pay attention and you watch your candidates convention speeches, laced with scare mongering that they were, you really shouldn't be voting. You aren't doing your civic duty if you vote against the Democrats and fail to assess the actual performance of the person you are voting for.
"After vilifying Bush's tax cut for 3 years, they couldn't then claim to want tax cuts."
Uh, the Democrats are the ones that compelled Bush and Co. to dole out the insignificant tax cuts to the middle class. The Democrats aren't opposed to tax cuts they are just opposed to huge tax to the richest people who need them the least, and which the Federal government can't pay for.
You see true political conservatives do favor tax cuts, but they also insist that they be PAID FOR, by cutting spending to match. The fact that Bush INCREASED spending by 25% over three years while cutting taxes is a key reason we have a half trillion a year deficit, and the dollar is tanking and I read yesterday more central banks around the world are starting another round of dumping dollars for Euro's that will push it even lower. Its just a matter of time before OPEC nations dump the dollar for the Euro which will push the dollar even lower and push up oil prices in the U.S. It is fiscal insanity and it is entirely thanks to your ignorant hero. I just hope when the U.S. economy craters from this fiscal insanity you just stop and remember that why you voted for the guy, because he was willing to bash gays and he knew he could get ignorant people to vote for him if he did.
"rest of their platform is so repugnant to me that I can never support them in a presidential election."
How do you know? You apparently stopped paying attention in 2000. Its ridiculous to assert that the Democratic party has move to the left. If there is a group thats been abandoned in this country its progressives. The Democrats completely shun them in reality. Kerry pandered to the left some to get the nomination but, the Democrats always rush to the center as soon as they get the nomination or are in office.
You might recall all of Bush's rhetoric about uniter, not a divider and compassionate conservative. He sure implied he would rule from the center in 200. Did he? No he is further right socially and militarily than any President in memory. I'll agree that he isn't even remotely politicly conservative. Outside of tax cuts, unpaid for, he hasn't got a politicly conservative bone in his body. As nearly as I can tell he is an authoritarian socialist which on the 2D chart of politics puts him squarely in the Fascist corner.
Your assertion that the Republican's welcome the center is ridiculous. They SCARE the center in to voting for them and then once they get elected return to authoritarian socialism (a.k.a. Fascism).
Why don't you read the post before you starting running off at the mouth. If you read the post you might see the section where it says there is a whole section in the Geneva conventions, to which the U.S. is a signatory, on treatment of the civilian population in an occupied country. That is exactly what Iraq is and occupied country because the U.S. invaded it. This section has nothing to do with combatants uniformed or otherwise. It explicitly forbids degrading and humiliating civilians. Most of the people held in Abu Ghraib were civilians, being held on civil crimes, looting in particular and were not combatants uniformed or not. They were entitled to all the protections of the Geneva conventions on civilians in occupied countries.
Even if they weren't protected it just basic human decency to not torture and humiliate people for sport.
It just amazes me how ignorant Americans are or how desperate they are to engage in denial that their country does bad things and it isn't the towering pillar of perfection they think it is. Grow up.
The filibuster isn't an explicit constitutional check or balance. But it is a long running historical tradition in the Senate. As I've read it tonight the Senate orginally allowed a single senator to filibuster and there was no way to stop it until Rule XXII was passed in 1917 that allowed a supermajority to vote cloture and stop a filibuster which sure seems reasonable to me.
Though it wasn't a constitutionally created check and balance the filibuster become a priceless defacto check and balance which is no doubt why wiser Senators than the ones we have today kept it, though the moderated it.
You have to look no further than the House to see that what you get when you have a body where a simple majority rules, the minority party is powerless as long as the majority party can hold a party line vote. There is really very little reason for them to even show up today. The Republican largely exclude them from conference committees on important legislation. They are powerless except on baubles.
If you allow a simple majority to vote cloture and end a filibuster the Senate will end up exactly like the House, the Republicans will dominate everything as long as they hold their party in line. As it is now the Republicans have to at least be civil to the Democrats and it induces some moderation. With the filibuster the Senate retains at least a little civility and cooperation versus the open rancor that is Tom DeLay's house.
Unfortunately the Constitution is hopelessly weak in a situation where the White House, the House and the Senate are controlled by one party and it gets even worse if that party holds power long enough to pack the courts. At that point the checks and balances are mostly erased. It was bad when the Democrats dominated all branches its even worse now that the Republicans dominate all branches.
The filibuster is the one saving grace. As nearly as I can tell the Senate has had it all our history. It started out there was no cloture, then it was 2/3rds and now its 60%. If the Republicans press ahead with changing cloture to a simple majority our nation will be in a place its never been, where a party with a simple majority can dictate the passage of laws and the appointment of judges while the minority party is powerless to stop it.
To me that makes the filibuster and the current Rule XXII on cloture our most precious check and balance whether its in the constitution or not. The problem is its not in the constitution which is why the Republicans can destroy it.
If you will recall in 2000 the majority of the American people voted for the Democrat. The Senate was dead even and swung one way and then the other based on the decision of one independent.
It was only by several cruel twists of fate, the electoral college, and an aggressive Republican strategy, with the help of the Presiden'ts brother, to block a recount in Florida that they siezed the White House. Subsequent studies indicate Florida was a dead heat, 4-5 recount methodologies went to Gore, 4-5 went to Bush. In a state with a dead heat, and an electoral deadlock, I'd say the tie breaker should go to the winner of the popular vote.
You didn't have "huge numbers" then, don't think you have them now.
Fast forward to 2004, well Bush did win by 3 million votes but he won by what, 60-100 thousand votes in Ohio, with numeerous irregularities, or he would have lost. The Democrats were trounced in the House and Senate granted.
But there were two things that happened that had nothing to do with the Democrats embracing or not embracing the people on the center/right.
One was 9/11. The Republicans played this issue to the hilt, they mercilessly exploited a tragedy at every turn to paint themselves as America's only competent defenders and the Democrats as weak and defenseless. It has nothing to do with people embracing the Republicans. They scared the pants off of everyone gullible enough to fall for it. Lots of people did. Remember the rhetoric at the Republican convention.
The other was gay marriage. Again it was an issue ruthlessly exploited by the Republicans to paint a picture that if the Democrats had their way gays would be wedding across the nation. What was the reality, Democrats mostly favored civil uniions to give gay couples basic legal protections and that states should decide the issue otherwise so liberal states could decide one way and conservative another. Bush demanded a constitutional amendment banning it across the nation and made it it in to a life or death wedge issue. Whats happened since, Bush has largely dropped the issue, the Republicans and Democrats are in fact pretty much at the same place, favoring civil unions and letting states decide. You see the election is over and Bush doesn't need this wedge issue any more to drive voters in to his column. It worked great last year when he need it though. By getting it on the ballot in 11-12 states they also drove large numbers of socially conservative voters out to vote and they probably voted Republican after they voted no on Gay Marriage. It was a brilliant strategy.
I really doubt the elections had anything to do with the realities of the electoral landscape, of the center and right turning on the lefties. It was an exercise in ruthless, brilliant campaigners crushing an inept Democratic party.
Oh and the other factor is, the Democratic party is just fielding really bad candidates with really bad strategy backing them up. Dean was the only candidate with a strategy and he both stuck his foot in his mouth a couple times and was destroyed by the media. Wont really get me to defend the Democrats, they are pathetic and getting more so everyday.
The Democrats helped approve 204 of Bush's nominations last year. They blocked 10. Bush appointed the worst, Thomas Pickering, temporarily using a recess appointment. The Republicans blocked 60 of Clinton's nominees over eight years. The Republicans have no moral high ground to stand on here though they sure act like they do.
Here and Here are a pretty good reference on the threat by the Republican's to change the rules on filibustering judicial nominees, or Here.
Senator Hatch, right wing extremist that he is and former chair of the Judiciary is the one whose been pushing the "Nuclear Option" which is for the Senate to change this rule so judicial nominees can't be filibustered, or actually so that a filibuster could be ended with a cloture vote requiring a simple majority instead of the current 60%.
According to one reference there is a window at the start of the year where this rule can be voted out with a straight majority vote. For a party to do it they need to control the White House (Check), and have a majority in the Senate(Check). The VP, Dick Cheney, can "rule that filibustering violates the body's constitutional duty of advice and consent to judicial nominations.". Then he gets a majority vote and the rule is history. I'm not sure that the Republican's couldn't use various other tacks to strike it down at any time with a majority vote and let the courts work it out though.
Rule XXII on cloture was enacted in 1917. As nearly as I can tell prior to its enactment any senator could fillibuster the Senate single handedly. It created a rule that 2/3rds initially and now 60% of the Senate can block a fillibuster by voting cloture. I'm not sure but I don't think the Senate has, ever in its history, allowed a simple majority to vote cloture. It would destroy the very fabric of the Senate as a moderator on extremism and unchecked majority.
Senator Frist, the Republican Majority leader, has asfar as I can tell declined to change the rule to date but he us still both waffling and threatening. I assume some Republicans are realizing that if they make this change it will appear like they are attempting a power grab and are demuring.
If you hear on the news that the Repulicans have overturned Senate Rule XXII on cloture be aware that this means the Republicans have rendered the Democrats completely powerless, have essentially siezed power and you are for all intents and purposes in a one party state as long as one party has control of the White House and has simple majorities in the House and Senate. I think it would be unprecedented in American history.
Not a problem at a Federal level if they dismantle the Senate filibuster as is their plan. Or if they gain a few more Senate seats in 2 years. The Democrats are in such a state of collapse they may well have a fillibuster proof majority in two years. They are already completely powerless in the House, I dont know why they even show up.
They Republicans have already taken to disappearing in to Republican only conference committees with Dick Cheney where they rewrite legislation to suit them and throw aside every compromise reached on the floor of the senate and house, then they shove the legislation through on a party line vote usually before anyone has actually read it. They are intentionally rushing through legislation authored in secret before anyone can read it or opposition can build. Writing the laws has already been largely hijacked by the New Republican Party.
A sterling example is someone snuck in a clause in the intelligence bill giving several Republican committee chairs unrestrained power to look at the tax records of anyone they choose, which has been used in the past to dredge up dirt on political opponents and dissidents, most recently in the Nixon administration. It was caught at the last minute and I think it was never discovered who put it in the bill. Is that how you think laws should be written in a Democracy?
"They need the support of juries (that is the population"
There aren't any juries in the appealate and Supreme Court where the decisions that ultimately count are decided.
The White House has already bestowed upon itself the right to arrest American citizens and citizens of any nation, without charge and without trial which, means without judge and jury, and deny them access to a lawyer or their families indefinitely. Jose Padilla is the most visible case of an American citizen, there are prisons around the globe filled with detainees from many nations who have no prayer of every seeing a jury. The Supreme court gutlessly punted the Padilla case on a technicality when it reached them last year. Once again if you have 4 extremists on the court they may well bless this shredding of the Constitution and the destuctions of the rule of law in America and around the world. You wont need juries after that. Maybe they can drum up a military tribunal for you for show and still be confident of the outcome.
"They need the support of judges"
As I said, this is at the top of the New Republican party's agenda for the next four years. A check and balance is that Federal judges have life terms so its hard to pack them in 4 or 8 years. The problem is ultimate power rests with the Supreme court. Even if the Bush administration loses in a lower court they can push most issues to the Supreme court especially if they have a sympathetic court.
The Supreme court has a reasonably healthy balance at the moment but its expected 3 moderates will retire in Bush's second term. Scalia or Thomas, the two rabid young right wingers may well get Chief Justice this year when Rehnquist steps down due to the thyroid cancer.
After Rehnquist Bush just needs to replace one more of the left to moderate justices and he will have a very right leaning court. One more after that which is likely in Bush's term and the have the court that counts packed. If the Senate has changed the rules on the filibuster of judicial nominees, Bush can appoint any extremist he feels like, as long as he holds his party together in the Senate.
"The American system is really well designed to stop dictatorship."
Yes it is, in particular because the founding fathers thouroughly expected it to happen, and as I recall many of them expected it to happen despite their best efforts. The one thing they couldn't do anything about is that the American people would shirk their civic duty and allow it happen, or in fact vote it in which they seem to be doing. Americans have for the most part abandoned their sense of civic duty, t
It is sad that the right wing, fundementalist Christian, fanatics in power have stolen and trashed the conservative label since they quite obviously don't have the first clue what political conservatism stands for, balanced budgets, small government, no intrusion in our private lives, no trade deficits, no foreign adventures, etc. Government spending under the Bush regime has exploded by 25% in the last three years, not to mention half trillion budget and trade deficits, optional wars abroad, the Patriot Act, etc.
I assure you the Bush administration and the new Republican party has noticed this little problem with these politicly conservative judges blocking government intrusion and invasion of our lives and they are going to fix it in the next four years.
You can be sure judges nominated by the Bush administration are going to be right wing, social conservatives, not political conservatives, and probably fundementalist Christian to boot, as their litmus test. The other litmust test will be their willingness to allow the state to use law to impose its view of morality and security by force, at the expense of the Constitution and our civil liberties.
Of course our great nation of laws was designed for the possibility that an extremist party might gain power and attempt to stack the courts with extremist judges. Thats why their is a filibuster in the Senate so a supermajority is required to approve controversial laws or judges. It prevents a majority party in power from going off the deep end, in law or judicial appointments, and is a critical element of checks and balances.
Unfortunately the Republican's are already talking about changing the Senate rules this year to do away with the filibuster on judicial nominees and require only a simple majority. If that happens they can nominate truly extreme judges, including to the Supreme Court, and as long as they can hold a party line vote they will be be approved. An essential check and balance, the filibuster, will be gone and another will be in imminent danger.
If the Republican's succeed in this rule change it is time to start marching in the streets because it means these extremists will have stolen your government from you. After four years of packing the courts, especially the Supreme court, they will have erased one more of the crucial checks and balances. The courts are an essential check on an extremist legislature and President who seek to pass laws in contravention of the Constitution and our precious civil liberties, civil liberties we have taken for granted and are about to lose.
If the New Republican Party succeeds in eliminating the filibuster for judicial nominations its just a matter of time before they eliminate it in the Senate all together. At that point the Democrats may as well not even bother showing up because they will be impotent and powerless. We will be effectively living in a one party state, and one party states are synonymous with dictatorship. The Republican's will be able to pass any law they can hold a party line vote on, and if they've packed the courts it wont be overturned in the courts.
There is irony when the right wing talks so much about all the blood that's been shed by soldiers over the last two centuries, blood shed protecting our freedom and civil liberties. The irony is they appear to be the ones seeking to dismantle those same freedoms through subterfuge and political trickery. The burning question, are their any great patriots still alive today willing to stand up and defend the world's first great experiment in Democracy in the hour of its greatest peril. These patriots will have a far harder job than their forefathers did when they joined an Army and carried a gun in to a war. They will have a job as hard as the founding fathers did when they stood up in rebellion against a tyrannical King. They will have to stand against their own government, their own neighbors and risk being branded as a traitor. They will face prison where the rule of law can apparently no longer can be counted upon, and torture has become acceptable practice. Are their any people left in this once great nation with the fortitude, and the greatness, to save it from itself?
My sig isn't one of "Moore's lies". Its a verbatim quote of George W. Bush from video tape. Your only defense is its out of context and that is a weak defense.
When you are a President, of a supposed Democracy, with a reputation for pandering to the rich saying it, even if its supposed to be a joke, is the height of bad taste and is just pouring gasoline on a fire.
Its right up there with his other attempt at comedy where he showed pictures of himself looking under a table in the oval office for the "missing WMD's" in Iraq. When you've lied a country in to a war thats killed thousands of people, destroyed what was left of America's reputation around the world, and is going to cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars, making a joke out of it indicates kinda poor judgement.
Or when he said "Bring 'em on" to the insurgents in Iraq, they did, and there are American soliders dying every day because they did "Bring 'em on" is kinda bad judgement.
Want me to go on? If you want to do a head to head between lies and stupid stuff Bush says and lies and stupid stuff Moore says Bush wins hands down. Michael Moore is an insignificant buffoon grabbing his 15 minutes of fame every couple of years. He isn't running the world's most powerful country. What Bush says matters, especially when he is lieing, what Moore says doesn't. Bush's lastest lie, telling everyone Social Security is in imminent danger of bankruptcy. It will never be bankrupt, the worse thats going to happen is benefit cuts or tax hikes and those wont be necessary until the middle of the century. If Bush gets his private accounts he is in fact going to make the short fall worse and sooner, he's not fixing anything. Medicare is going to go bankrupt long before Social Security due to out of control health care costs and profiteering by big drug and health care companies
Michael Moore bashing doesn't even enter in to this, except as a tactic, a tried and true, right wing tactic, to deflect attention from their fearless leaders gaffes by launching a frontal assault on someone else.
"The final investigation found that a combination of the faulty SRB design and wind shear conditions more violent than any ever experienced were direct causes of the SRB failure. It wasn't just the ice/cold temperature that caused the loss of Challenger."
The key point you are glossing over is the O rings were made of rubber, or some synthetic equivalent, and they hardened the colder they got. The harder and colder they got the more likely they were to fail and not seal. Some of the engineers who were aware of the O-ring blow by defect, which had happened in previous missions, also knew that the risk of their failure increased the colder the rings got.
The cold weather was a definite contributor to the failure of the O ring that caused the disaster. Nor sure I understand why you are trying to dismiss it other than you are trying to salvage your position, since you've realized you can't prove the White House, fed up with previous delays, wasn't pressuring NASA to launch in time for the State of the Union speech so know you are trying to rationalize that it was OK to launch in temperatures far below the norm, and with a defect that was known to worsen in the cold.
"in some cases even smacking into the Shuttle's brittle control surfaces (as we are finding out in the Columbia investigation)."
Just to clarify another statement you are making that is at least misleading. It wasn't ice that fatally damaged Columbia, it was a piece of the foam insulation designed to prevent the ice, because yes falling ice is dangerous during a launch, always has been, always will be. The obvious point being that yes its dangerous on the ET, and they tried to prevent it with insulation, and ice is also dangerous if its shrouding the launch pad which it only did on that very cold day, it was falling all over the place. But, falling ice obviously wasn't the issue with the actual disaster, it was just something that should have caused NASA to exercise caution and postpone if they weren't under pressure to launch. Again having known defective O rings that were more likely to fail in cold weather was a known danger NASA chose to overlook much to their demise.
"Silly wabbit - you brought it up first. Which means that it is incumbent on you to back it up."
That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. As long as you say something you can't support, FIRST, you don't have to prove it. Heh. Later dude, with that satement you've established you aren't worth the time.
"Both Apollo 1 (using unsafe pure oxygen during a ground test)"
That wasn't exactly "go fever", that was a fundamental flaw in their design, though perhaps they were rushing when they made it long before, just like the O rings were. Its not the same thing as using some discretion and postponing a launch until the launch pad isn't covered in ice and everything thaws out.
"Apollo 12 (launching in a thunderstorm with lightning)"
Thunderstorms are a daily occurrence in Florida. They are a constant risk and you have to learn to launch with them in the neighborhood, or you don't launch, though obviously its desirable to not launch through them. Having large quantities of explosives sticking up in the air, at risk of a lightening strike, is a risk you have to accept having a launch pad in Florida. To put it another way, waiting for a clear day in Florida is nearly an exercise in futility. On the other hand postponing a launch due to ice on the launch pad is something you will have to do once in a blue moon in Florida so you probably should.
"Again, you've provided no proof that there was political pressure of any kind involved in the decision to launch."
And you CAN'T prove there wasn't. I was mostly objecting to the fact that you were stating it as fact there was no pressure, which you can't prove either. At least I was couching my counterpoint as a possibility, not as a fact which was your mistake. Circumstantial evidence suggests something was pushing NASA to launch on a day they shouldn't have. Pressure from the White House is one possibility. Unless you get the people in NASA who made the launch decision on a lie detector you will probably never know.
So why don't you stop stating as fact something you can't prove and slamming me for stating something as a possibility that is a possibility.
"That explains your obvious affinity for wild conspiracy theories, I guess."
Michael Moore has nothing to do with the fact George Bush was so indiscrete as to say this on camera in front of a bunch of tuxedo clad fat cats, even if it was supposed to be a joke(much truth is said in jest). It was a well known Bush gaffe, one of many, long before Michael Moore used it. I was quoting George W. Bush not Michael Moore it has nothing to do with a "conspiracy", its on video tape.
I understand why you are doing what your are doing. I was just pointing out the irony that you would put forward your career as a ray of hope to a guy that is troubled because he realized he is expendable to his company, partially because they can dump him in a heartbeat and engage in "Business Process Outsourcing", something you facilitate.
You are the problem not the solution, you probably should of refrained from rubbing it in.
About all I can wish upon you is that Tata or some other Indian based "Business Process Outsourcing" company puts you out of business because your salary is excessive for the "Business Process Outsourcing market". Someone in India can outsource business process more cheaply than you so your "redeployment" is inevitable. The pizza delivery business is a fine career, and is immune to outsourcing, though you might be at risk from the other direction, illegal immigrants who will work for less than you(insourcing). I hope you enjoy your new deployment.
"Besides being inaccurate, your observation is just so much 20-20 hindsight."
Actually you are the one who is probably innaccurate though we will never know for sure. NASA was probably under substantial political pressure from the Reagan administration to launch on schedule. Reagan was going to trumpet the "Teacher in Space" in his imminent State of the Union address and they probably wanted he to actually be in space when he made the speech.
If you weren't under some kind of pressure why would you press ahead with a launch on "a bitterly cold day" The launch pad was completely iced up, they had NEVER had a day that cold for a launch. The freezing and the ice created all kind of potential dangers, the brittle O rings was just the one that led to disaster, falling ice damaging the shuttle was the one they were very worried about. If they weren't under pressure why wouldn't you way until a warmer day. If they had the O rings most probably wouldn't have failed. NASA postpones launches for a lot less than the launch pad bering covered in ice and all the components being below typical temperature.
I think outsourcing space exploration would yield all the same benefits its yielding in every other sector of our economy. I'm pretty sure aerospace engineers, especially through pork laden contracts to Boeing and Lockheed are really expensive. Imagine the benefits of tapping dollar an hour Chinese aerospace engineers.
There is irony that NASA more closely resembles a corrupt Soviet or Maoist era socialist bureaucracy than anything you should be seeing in the home of the free and the land of the capitalist. Moving the work to China might be an improvement, though I would favor moving it to Russia's space agency, their labor costs are way below U.S. rates too and they have far more experience than the Chinese. They are a can do group who do way more with way less and they are willing to try innovative concepts like raising cash off well healed space tourists, they are positively entrepreneurial.
If you are dead set against outsourcing to foreigners, well then there is always Burt Rutan and T/Space. Their labor costs are high but would also do a lot more with a lot less than the current NASA politburo.
I guess you'll be OK if I drop over and do some of that stuff to you then. It was most decidely psychological torture, sexual humiliation has a particularly sharp edge in the Arab world, that is a key reason it was being used to soften up Arab prisoners, and I wager people higher up than Sargents figured that fact out:
Maybe you didn't read the testimony of one of the victims:
"What do you think our feelings are? This has never happened to us before. I think I'm going to have an emotional breakdown. I want to kill myself because my friends, my family, all people in my neighborhood knew about this incident. When I get released how would I go and see these people? What's ironic is that the Americans are taking my rights. How would I go out right now and face the public with myself?"
The guy wants to commit suicide. I think you are the one watering down what happened there. Besides which the only torture that has come out of Iraq so far is the torture that someone was foolish enough to take pictures of. You have no clue how bad it might really be in places where no pictures are being taken. Thats the problem with opening this pandora's box, you really dont know how far out of hand its gotten. The only approach a civilized nation should have for abusing prisoners is zero tolerance and the Bush administration has instead repeatedly rationalized it and trivialized it just like you are.
Americans in various places have beaten prisoners to death, and in one case threw prisoners off a bridge. I think there were twenty or so known cases of prisoners killed at the hands of American soldiers between Afghanistan and Iraq back when Abu Graib broke.
NBC has video, which we've managed to forgot so soon, of a Marine walking up to a wounded, prostate and unarmed insurgent and summarily executing him in a Mosque. Americans forgot it and brushed it under the rug but Iraqi's and the Arab world won't.
CNN has footage from the original invasion of Marines shooting an obviously wounded and incapitated insurgent, with no weapon, in the back and finishing him off while they cheered the fine marksmenship.
I think one of the lessons here is if you are going to commit war crimes don't do it in front of a camera, or if you do destroy the film.
It is another one of those Geneva convention things, that American's are so indifferent to, that you provide medical care to the wounded, you don't kill them. You are also supposed to provide medical care to the civilian population. Here is another good interview of an Army medic who served in Iraq and is now speaking against the war. He indicates he was ordered to deny medical care to Iraqis unless it was a matter of life or limb. That is again a violation of the Geneva conventions on treatment of civilians in occupied countries.
All in all I think Americans really aren't a civilized people any more.
"I think all of them would say that its a rewarding type of role."
What exactly is rewarding about "Business Process Outsourcing". If I read that right all you are doing is putting people who have jobs working for a company, possibly loyally for years, out of work and migrating their jobs to a lower cost alternative. I think you are part of the problem the original submitter was talking about, not an example of a solution, though obviously it keeps you gainfully employed.
Its nice how you say "possibly offshore" since if you follow the prime directive in your business, cutting cost, its almost inevitable you will eventually offshore the work because you are going to find people in India and China that will do the work for a fraction of the price of the U.S. or Western Europe.
Your life story is kind of just confirmation of everything the submitter was pointing out is wrong with working in America now. You used to do real, fruitful and productive work, now you just channel work from people with jobs in America to people who will work more for less. Meanwhile America slowly stops doing anything economicly productive, its debts continue to explode and one day America is inevitable going to pay the piper for the trillions in budget and trade deficits, and the for fact America doesn't produce anything anymore.
Everyone working person is looking over their shoulder waiting for the day some exec realizes he can cut his costs in half, calls you up, and moves his tech or accounting department to India. No arguement Accenture and Mackenzie are making a fortune in "Business Process Outsourcing", it is a booming market, but they are destroying hundreds of thousands of careers in the process, careers of peoples whose main failing is they live in a country with a high cost of living and high benefit costs, especially health insurance costs, so they simply can't compete before you even start talking about their skills or their work ethic. Skills don't enter in to it most of the time, its purely bottomline. Sure if you have some totally unique skills and experience that is in demand and no one else can do you are OK, but that doesn't describe the skill set you need for "Business Process Outsourcing".
Slashdot Mirror
"I disagree with that point. You are free to work to thwart my efforts, but carrying on this fight is exactly what I should be doing."
I'm not going to lift a finger to thwart your efforts. Its a free country as long as you don't hurt anyone but yourself. I'm justing pointing out you are engaged in an exercise in futility just as much as the people on the other side of the issue.
Only thing I pointed out when this B.S. started is that you managed to help elect and inflict an incompetent President on the rest of us, and the rest of the world, because you are so obsessed with two issues you didn't do your civic duty and weigh all the issues. The Republicans are playing you like a fiddle, sucker, and for helping subject us to 8 years of that nitwit you truly should burn in hell.
"Firearms were more lethal in the past."
Excepting of course you couldn't put them in to semiautomatic or automatic mode and squeeze of 20 rounds in a few seconds. Your lethality arguement is absurd. How long does it take to reload a muzzle loading rifle with one shot versus changing a 20 round magazine on an assault rifle. You can kill a whole lot more people with an assault rifle than you ever will a muzzle loader. I'm pretty sure the main gun on an M1 tank far exceeds a muzzle loader in lethality and it is just a big gun right, or is there some magic dividing line you do recognize that would suggest a private citizen probably shouldn't own a 120 mm tank gun with high explosive shells.
"I guess that you miss the irony of that statement. You are attempting to inflict your beliefs of what issues are important on people who try to inflict their beliefs on others."
No I'm just pointing out that you and those like you on both sides of both these issues are NEVER going to win, if your side wins on abortion, the other half of the country is just going to start a never ending battle to win it back. Bottomline is whether there is or isn't abortion in this country doesn't have anything to do with whether we have jobs, or can make a good living, or are being sent in to a war to kill and be killed. Maybe if you and those like you were voting on economic issues you might have a better paying job.
I'm also at a loss how you can be so completely obsessed with the killing of a less than completely sentient fetus, and not care in the least about a war in Iraq that is killing and maiming fully sentient human beings everyday.
But at this point its time to say later dude. Its an age old rule, never argue with a fanatic about abortion, whether they are for or against. Its a complete waste of time because they will never change their mind or even admit their obsession with the subject is less than healthy.
"It's called a principle. We believe that they are killing children."
Here is the part you are missing. It is YOUR principle and YOUR belief. Half the country doesn't share your belief system. The whole point is you should stop trying to inflict your belief system on them while in the case of abortion they aren't even trying to inflict there belief system on you. All grant on gun control I think you should be able to own all the guns you want and fact is you probably already do. Just dont shoot anyone else with them. If you want to use them on yourself go ahead.
"Aside from it being our right, I don't have to give any explanation."
Didn't think you could explain why you think its everyones right to own a machine gun.
I think at the time that amendment was written guns tended to be breech loaders with ball and powder and they were pretty essential for hunting and putting food on the table. Times have changed and unfortunately guns are both far more lethal and far more abused in committing crimes though you are not gonna change. There is nothing stopping you from buying a hunting rifle if you need it to put food on the table which you probably don't.
Where exactly do you draw the line. By your argument I'm assuming you think you should be able to own a howitzer or maybe an Abrams tank. After all they are just guns.
But all in all the key point here is it is completely pointless to argue about gun control or abortion. People simply DON'T change their opinions on the subject and the country is pretty much evenly divided on both. All I wish is the people trying to inflict their belief system on people who don't share it would stop and focus on issues that matter like wars and the economy, how about you can own all the guns you want as long as you stop trying to prevent a woman you don't know from ending an unwanted pregnancy. In other words everyone leave everone else alone.
It appears its a lost cause and this country is going to spiral in to a very deep hole while it sits and argues wedge issues, and elects incompetent leaders solely based on issues which are never going to be resolved. Meanwhile things that do matter like the deficit and the value of the dollar go to hell and pretty soon we will deeply regret our stupidity.
Sorry I lost track of which issues were the two you cared about in this context, there were four at various times, guns, gays, taxes and abortion.
"I was asking why the Democrats won't give in on the issues that I (and millions of others) vote on"
Because there are people exactly like you who are just as stupid as you are except in the opposite direction. It makes pretty much no sense to have a nation self destruct over a wedge issue, abortion, which neither side is going to give in on. As far as gun control goes what is there for the Democrats to give in on. Unless they filibuster the Republicans can do what ever they want on gun control and have, they let the assault weapon ban lapse, though I doubt you can give me any rational explanation as to why the average American needs an assault rifle, its going to do noting but harm.
As I recall you don't care what I or anyone else does to get an orgasm. Why exactly is it any more your business if a woman you don't know chooses to not spend 9 hard months bringing to term an unwanted product of that orgasm, and then either puts the kid up for adoption, or raises him when she can't support him, and maybe doesn't want him, and maybe in a life of poverty. This world really isn't short of people, overpopulation is going to eventually destroy this planet. Religious fundamentalists like you are just helping to hasten the demise of our planet and species everytime you oppose birth control in whatever form. What exactly is the rational for the Pope refusing to endorse the use of condoms, and instead helping encourage AIDS to spread like wildfire around the globe, because he wants more Catholics to make his flock bigger. Thats why all religions at their root oppose all forms of birth control because winning in the relgion game is determined by how many warm bodies you can claim.
Where there is an issue where people are evenly divided and dead set the only solution is you live your life and stop telling other people how to live theirs. Its NONE of your business to compel a women you don't know to have a child she doesn't want. Its been tried and women use coat hangers or go down dark allys and lots of them die along with the fetus. If you are opposed to abortion, fine don't abort any of your children. If you do odds are you will eventually outbreed the liberals and you win, or maybe you already have.
Get it. I'm sure you don't. Bottomline for right and left wingers. Butt out of other peoples lives unless they are stepping on yours.
"If they don't count for much, why then won't the Democrats give in on them?"
Kind of shows how clueless you are about politics. The Democrats have backed everyone of the tax cuts for people in your income bracket and then some. The only tax cuts they oppose are for the people in the top income bracket because that is where the lion's share of the money is going, and where the deficits are coming from, and its to people that don't need the money, while people in your bracket do.
Someone ought to give you and all Americans like you a Politics 101. The Republican's are the party of employers, shareholders and the wealthy. They are indifferent to or openly hostile to working people and always have been.
They've just hit on strategy where they can sucker working people like you in to voting for them using wedge issues like abortion, gun control, gays and race. Like dutiful little dumbasses millions of working Americans do vote for Republicans solely on these issues which in there day to day lives count for anything. You are voting against their own economic interest. You are voting for the party that 100% of the time favors your employer over you.
Can't say that the Democrats are going to take much better care of you since they've been pulled so far to the center but at least you aren't voting against your own economic interest which is what you are doing now. Exactly how does it matter to you if someone you don't know gets an abortion. If you are opposed to it fine, then don't get one, oh wait its not even your decision to make its your wife's. Exactly how important is it to your day to day life that you are or aren't allowed to own an assault rifle. Its unlikely the Republicans are going to succeed in outlawing abortion or the Democrats are going succeed in outlawing hand guns and hunting rifles.
Wake up and get a clue. Start voting on issues that actually matter.
"See, I got separated in 2000."
My compliments on your wife's common sense and good taste. Wonder if she couldn't stand being married to someone stupid enough to vote for a President solely on the basis of two wedge issues that, compared to waging wars based on lies and screwing up the economy don't count for much. Coincidence you separated in 2000, I think not.
You are the Republican's wet dream and there are millions of you. They can COUNT on you to vote for them because of these two wedge issues. They can completely screw you, the nation, and the world on every other front and you will STILL vote for them.
I hate to break it to you but they gave you chump change in tax cuts and you are grateful for the peanuts. They don't give a rats ass about anyone in your income bracket. All they want out of you is that you be stupid enough to vote for them while they either offshore your job to China or drive down your wages until you starve.
"I never once saw nor heard President Bush bash gays."
... let me see...
He got elected for doing it rhetoricly whether you choose to admit it or not. You yourself said
"advantage of society's revulsion at that."
In most people's book applying the word "revulsion" to their sexual preference would be considered bashing. Could you just admit it, you and George are bigots. I'm not sure George W. is a bigot on the subject at heart, Cheney sure isn't, but they sure exploited bigotry to get elected and than is maybe worse. At least you are honest and open that you hate gays.
"Democrats. This is the kind of thing I was talking about."
Uh, I'm not a Democrat so where does that leave your stereotype. Perhaps prick was a bad choice of words, I think "intolerant" sure does fit you and George. What noun would you suggest for people who vote based on their intolerance and with disregard for issues that count.
"You can lose a security clearance..."
Interesting how you focused on this and glossed over the fact that they were either going to imprison him, or chemicly castrate him simply for being gay, and in the process drove him to suicide. Don't think the security clearance was really central to the issue, sorry I brought it up, nice duck though.
"The Democrats are "pro choice" and pro gun control. I can never vote for any candidate who is against me on those two issues."
So you are saying as long as a candidate is pro life and anti gun control he can completely screw up the country and screw you on every other issue and you will still vote for him. Well once again you have explained to the world why America voted for an incompetent President. As long as he is prolife and progun you could careless if he is competent for the job and I'm sure you are not alone which is why we are in the predicament we are in.
"Tax cuts never have to be "paid for"
Bingo, we understand why you can vote for a President who is running half trillion deficits. Its true they don't have to be paid for, but the government DOES eventually have to pay its bills, so you if you are going to cut taxes you have to cut spending to match, or pray for Reaganomics to kick in and make up the difference with revenue which so far it hasn't and isn't likely to.
I'm all for tax cuts, I'd be delighted if I didn't have to pay any. The only catch is the government is going to have to stop spending too. That is where you and George W. are so full of shit it just boggles the mind. George W. has increased spending by 25% in 3 years while cutting taxes. It is setting the foundation for an economic disaster some time down the road, unfortunately probably after he is out of office so he wont get blamed for what he has wrought. Though at the rate the dollar is tanking it may well be during his term and if it happens I really hope you regret your, "I vote on two issue stupidity".
"He kept the promises that were important to me. Moreover, the two issues that are most important to me are not taken seriously by the opposition."
Just curious what two issues are those just so we we can better understand the mind of a Bush supporter who apparently disregarded everyting he's done wrong in the last 4 years. I'm guessing one is you hate gays but you haven't had the guts to actually say it.
Whats the other, tax cuts? You must be rich then because if you re middle class they are so small as to be irrelevant.
I sure hope I'm wrong about George W. for America's sake. My hunch is if he continues down the same road he took in the previous 4 years he is going to lay the foundation for devastating the U.S. economy and push the U.S. into complete isolation in foreign affairs.
The U.S. simply can't sustain the staggering trade and budget deficits without something giving way and it appears the dollar is that something and it is probably already going.
If he keeps shooting first, and not asking questions later its a matter of time before the EU, China, India, Russia and every civilized nation on the globe unites in an alliance against the U.S. Wouldn't there just be so much irony if the world were to impose economic sanctions on the U.S.?
Not wanting to delve in to the hypocrisy of SUN, but I think it is entirely a company's prerogative to decide what platforms they support with their software. It costs money to do ports, but worse it costs a lot of money to test and support a platform, every release, and its pretty much impossible to support every little niche platform under the Sun, heh, so every software developer makes their choices on what platforms are worth it them.
If your platform's market share is dwindling and isn't perceived as having a future, and is viewed as a competitor by the software developer, I don't think ranting about it in public, is exactly what a grown up would do. If you don't like it the one and only option you have in a free market is to develop your own software that does the same thing.
I liked some of the stuff Jonathan said when he first became SUN's new mouth, but lately most of what he says tends to indicate that he has no clue about the realities of running a large corporation in a competitive environment, hint the dynamics are not the same as those for an open source fan in a share and share a like world.
One of IBM's long running goals is, no doubt, to put SUN out of business, not to help them succeed, maybe someone should brief Jonathan.
"Democrats were beating the drum of "gay rights" and the Republicans took advantage of society's revulsion at that."
Since it appears you were one of the millions of American's who voted for Bush at least in part because he was willing to bash gays, and apparently didn't vote based on issues that count, I'm thinking I should share a little anecdote with you. I should also say I sure hope you aren't in the computer field, because there are a lot of gays in the computer business and they shouldn't be subjected to working with intolerant pricks. Me I'm not gay but I'm of the live and let live school, and believe that people should be able to choose their own way life as long as they don't hurt someone else. I am in the computer business and most of us geeks do march to a different drummer in one way or another so the enlightened among us at least, reject intolerance and prejudice because most of us experience it one way or another because we are different. That is a reason why places like Massachusetts and San Francisco trend both liberal and tolerant of homosexuality, lots of highly educated, high technology workers who are enlightened and tolerant. They aren't the ones, for the most part, who are putting the Republicans in power. Those tend to be rural Americans and Southerner's who aren't enlightened, are intolerant and unfortunately vote with their sexual insecurity instead of their brain.
I'm thinking every gay basher in the computer business should probably pick up a biography of Alan Turing. You see he is the closest thing we have to a founding father of computing. He wrote some of the first and seminal papers in the field especially on the concept of the Turing Machine and also helped pioneer the field of AI.
He was also pivotal to the Allied code breaking efforts in World War II, especially in applying electronic computing to code breaking. Its hard to weigh these things but its likely the Allies wouldn't have broken some of the German and Japanese codes they did in World War II without his work. If they hadn't its also quite possible World War II might have turned out differently. The victory at Midway was almost entirely due to electronic code breaking, depriving the Japanese of the element of surprise. Again its impossible to judge the contribution of one man in a World War but its certainly a possibility the Allies might not have won the war were it not for his contributions. Its a certainty he saved many Allied lives by helping locate German U boats and revealing war plans.
How did Great Britain reward him, for his contribution to the war effort, for saving Allied lives, and for his contribution to computing? They arrested him for being a homosexual when he reported a burglary by a friend of a lover. They revoked his security clearance and forced him to choose between chemical castration (injections with estrogen) or prison. He choose chemical castration. The humiliation and the effects of the castration pushed him to commit suicide at the age of 41. You have to wonder how many more papers he would have written or breakthroughs in computing he might have pioneered if he lived a full life. Well he didn't because of intolerant pricks in government.
So next time you think its OK to vote for politicians to bash gays,a nd be intolerant pricks, just stop and think about Alan Turing and the millions like him who make priceless contributions to our world, and are rewarded by intolerant pricks who put them in prison, fire them, kill them or castrate them for being different.
"No. I didn't watch either convention. My decision was made in 2000. When Bush won the 2000 election, I knew I'd be voting for him again in 2004."
That sure makes sense. You obviously haven't been paying attention to his rhetoric or his record for 4 years, and I can see how that would be about the only way you COULD justify voting for him again. The plurality of Americans, in a fit of ignorance is bliss, reelected an incompetent President apparently for the same reason, they haven't been paying attention. Unless you DO pay attention and you watch your candidates convention speeches, laced with scare mongering that they were, you really shouldn't be voting. You aren't doing your civic duty if you vote against the Democrats and fail to assess the actual performance of the person you are voting for.
"After vilifying Bush's tax cut for 3 years, they couldn't then claim to want tax cuts."
Uh, the Democrats are the ones that compelled Bush and Co. to dole out the insignificant tax cuts to the middle class. The Democrats aren't opposed to tax cuts they are just opposed to huge tax to the richest people who need them the least, and which the Federal government can't pay for.
You see true political conservatives do favor tax cuts, but they also insist that they be PAID FOR, by cutting spending to match. The fact that Bush INCREASED spending by 25% over three years while cutting taxes is a key reason we have a half trillion a year deficit, and the dollar is tanking and I read yesterday more central banks around the world are starting another round of dumping dollars for Euro's that will push it even lower. Its just a matter of time before OPEC nations dump the dollar for the Euro which will push the dollar even lower and push up oil prices in the U.S. It is fiscal insanity and it is entirely thanks to your ignorant hero. I just hope when the U.S. economy craters from this fiscal insanity you just stop and remember that why you voted for the guy, because he was willing to bash gays and he knew he could get ignorant people to vote for him if he did.
"rest of their platform is so repugnant to me that I can never support them in a presidential election."
How do you know? You apparently stopped paying attention in 2000. Its ridiculous to assert that the Democratic party has move to the left. If there is a group thats been abandoned in this country its progressives. The Democrats completely shun them in reality. Kerry pandered to the left some to get the nomination but, the Democrats always rush to the center as soon as they get the nomination or are in office.
You might recall all of Bush's rhetoric about uniter, not a divider and compassionate conservative. He sure implied he would rule from the center in 200. Did he? No he is further right socially and militarily than any President in memory. I'll agree that he isn't even remotely politicly conservative. Outside of tax cuts, unpaid for, he hasn't got a politicly conservative bone in his body. As nearly as I can tell he is an authoritarian socialist which on the 2D chart of politics puts him squarely in the Fascist corner.
Your assertion that the Republican's welcome the center is ridiculous. They SCARE the center in to voting for them and then once they get elected return to authoritarian socialism (a.k.a. Fascism).
Why don't you read the post before you starting running off at the mouth. If you read the post you might see the section where it says there is a whole section in the Geneva conventions, to which the U.S. is a signatory, on treatment of the civilian population in an occupied country. That is exactly what Iraq is and occupied country because the U.S. invaded it. This section has nothing to do with combatants uniformed or otherwise. It explicitly forbids degrading and humiliating civilians. Most of the people held in Abu Ghraib were civilians, being held on civil crimes, looting in particular and were not combatants uniformed or not. They were entitled to all the protections of the Geneva conventions on civilians in occupied countries.
Even if they weren't protected it just basic human decency to not torture and humiliate people for sport.
It just amazes me how ignorant Americans are or how desperate they are to engage in denial that their country does bad things and it isn't the towering pillar of perfection they think it is. Grow up.
The filibuster isn't an explicit constitutional check or balance. But it is a long running historical tradition in the Senate. As I've read it tonight the Senate orginally allowed a single senator to filibuster and there was no way to stop it until Rule XXII was passed in 1917 that allowed a supermajority to vote cloture and stop a filibuster which sure seems reasonable to me.
Though it wasn't a constitutionally created check and balance the filibuster become a priceless defacto check and balance which is no doubt why wiser Senators than the ones we have today kept it, though the moderated it.
You have to look no further than the House to see that what you get when you have a body where a simple majority rules, the minority party is powerless as long as the majority party can hold a party line vote. There is really very little reason for them to even show up today. The Republican largely exclude them from conference committees on important legislation. They are powerless except on baubles.
If you allow a simple majority to vote cloture and end a filibuster the Senate will end up exactly like the House, the Republicans will dominate everything as long as they hold their party in line. As it is now the Republicans have to at least be civil to the Democrats and it induces some moderation. With the filibuster the Senate retains at least a little civility and cooperation versus the open rancor that is Tom DeLay's house.
Unfortunately the Constitution is hopelessly weak in a situation where the White House, the House and the Senate are controlled by one party and it gets even worse if that party holds power long enough to pack the courts. At that point the checks and balances are mostly erased. It was bad when the Democrats dominated all branches its even worse now that the Republicans dominate all branches.
The filibuster is the one saving grace. As nearly as I can tell the Senate has had it all our history. It started out there was no cloture, then it was 2/3rds and now its 60%. If the Republicans press ahead with changing cloture to a simple majority our nation will be in a place its never been, where a party with a simple majority can dictate the passage of laws and the appointment of judges while the minority party is powerless to stop it.
To me that makes the filibuster and the current Rule XXII on cloture our most precious check and balance whether its in the constitution or not. The problem is its not in the constitution which is why the Republicans can destroy it.
If you will recall in 2000 the majority of the American people voted for the Democrat. The Senate was dead even and swung one way and then the other based on the decision of one independent.
It was only by several cruel twists of fate, the electoral college, and an aggressive Republican strategy, with the help of the Presiden'ts brother, to block a recount in Florida that they siezed the White House. Subsequent studies indicate Florida was a dead heat, 4-5 recount methodologies went to Gore, 4-5 went to Bush. In a state with a dead heat, and an electoral deadlock, I'd say the tie breaker should go to the winner of the popular vote.
You didn't have "huge numbers" then, don't think you have them now.
Fast forward to 2004, well Bush did win by 3 million votes but he won by what, 60-100 thousand votes in Ohio, with numeerous irregularities, or he would have lost. The Democrats were trounced in the House and Senate granted.
But there were two things that happened that had nothing to do with the Democrats embracing or not embracing the people on the center/right.
One was 9/11. The Republicans played this issue to the hilt, they mercilessly exploited a tragedy at every turn to paint themselves as America's only competent defenders and the Democrats as weak and defenseless. It has nothing to do with people embracing the Republicans. They scared the pants off of everyone gullible enough to fall for it. Lots of people did. Remember the rhetoric at the Republican convention.
The other was gay marriage. Again it was an issue ruthlessly exploited by the Republicans to paint a picture that if the Democrats had their way gays would be wedding across the nation. What was the reality, Democrats mostly favored civil uniions to give gay couples basic legal protections and that states should decide the issue otherwise so liberal states could decide one way and conservative another. Bush demanded a constitutional amendment banning it across the nation and made it it in to a life or death wedge issue. Whats happened since, Bush has largely dropped the issue, the Republicans and Democrats are in fact pretty much at the same place, favoring civil unions and letting states decide. You see the election is over and Bush doesn't need this wedge issue any more to drive voters in to his column. It worked great last year when he need it though. By getting it on the ballot in 11-12 states they also drove large numbers of socially conservative voters out to vote and they probably voted Republican after they voted no on Gay Marriage. It was a brilliant strategy.
I really doubt the elections had anything to do with the realities of the electoral landscape, of the center and right turning on the lefties. It was an exercise in ruthless, brilliant campaigners crushing an inept Democratic party.
Oh and the other factor is, the Democratic party is just fielding really bad candidates with really bad strategy backing them up. Dean was the only candidate with a strategy and he both stuck his foot in his mouth a couple times and was destroyed by the media. Wont really get me to defend the Democrats, they are pathetic and getting more so everyday.
The Democrats helped approve 204 of Bush's nominations last year. They blocked 10. Bush appointed the worst, Thomas Pickering, temporarily using a recess appointment. The Republicans blocked 60 of Clinton's nominees over eight years. The Republicans have no moral high ground to stand on here though they sure act like they do.
Here and Here are a pretty good reference on the threat by the Republican's to change the rules on filibustering judicial nominees, or Here.
This is Senate Rule XXII.
Senator Hatch, right wing extremist that he is and former chair of the Judiciary is the one whose been pushing the "Nuclear Option" which is for the Senate to change this rule so judicial nominees can't be filibustered, or actually so that a filibuster could be ended with a cloture vote requiring a simple majority instead of the current 60%.
According to one reference there is a window at the start of the year where this rule can be voted out with a straight majority vote. For a party to do it they need to control the White House (Check), and have a majority in the Senate(Check). The VP, Dick Cheney, can "rule that filibustering violates the body's constitutional duty of advice and consent to judicial nominations.". Then he gets a majority vote and the rule is history. I'm not sure that the Republican's couldn't use various other tacks to strike it down at any time with a majority vote and let the courts work it out though.
Rule XXII on cloture was enacted in 1917. As nearly as I can tell prior to its enactment any senator could fillibuster the Senate single handedly. It created a rule that 2/3rds initially and now 60% of the Senate can block a fillibuster by voting cloture. I'm not sure but I don't think the Senate has, ever in its history, allowed a simple majority to vote cloture. It would destroy the very fabric of the Senate as a moderator on extremism and unchecked majority.
Senator Frist, the Republican Majority leader, has asfar as I can tell declined to change the rule to date but he us still both waffling and threatening. I assume some Republicans are realizing that if they make this change it will appear like they are attempting a power grab and are demuring.
If you hear on the news that the Repulicans have overturned Senate Rule XXII on cloture be aware that this means the Republicans have rendered the Democrats completely powerless, have essentially siezed power and you are for all intents and purposes in a one party state as long as one party has control of the White House and has simple majorities in the House and Senate. I think it would be unprecedented in American history.
"The have to get laws passed"
Not a problem at a Federal level if they dismantle the Senate filibuster as is their plan. Or if they gain a few more Senate seats in 2 years. The Democrats are in such a state of collapse they may well have a fillibuster proof majority in two years. They are already completely powerless in the House, I dont know why they even show up.
They Republicans have already taken to disappearing in to Republican only conference committees with Dick Cheney where they rewrite legislation to suit them and throw aside every compromise reached on the floor of the senate and house, then they shove the legislation through on a party line vote usually before anyone has actually read it. They are intentionally rushing through legislation authored in secret before anyone can read it or opposition can build. Writing the laws has already been largely hijacked by the New Republican Party.
A sterling example is someone snuck in a clause in the intelligence bill giving several Republican committee chairs unrestrained power to look at the tax records of anyone they choose, which has been used in the past to dredge up dirt on political opponents and dissidents, most recently in the Nixon administration. It was caught at the last minute and I think it was never discovered who put it in the bill. Is that how you think laws should be written in a Democracy?
"They need the support of juries (that is the population"
There aren't any juries in the appealate and Supreme Court where the decisions that ultimately count are decided.
The White House has already bestowed upon itself the right to arrest American citizens and citizens of any nation, without charge and without trial which, means without judge and jury, and deny them access to a lawyer or their families indefinitely. Jose Padilla is the most visible case of an American citizen, there are prisons around the globe filled with detainees from many nations who have no prayer of every seeing a jury. The Supreme court gutlessly punted the Padilla case on a technicality when it reached them last year. Once again if you have 4 extremists on the court they may well bless this shredding of the Constitution and the destuctions of the rule of law in America and around the world. You wont need juries after that. Maybe they can drum up a military tribunal for you for show and still be confident of the outcome.
"They need the support of judges"
As I said, this is at the top of the New Republican party's agenda for the next four years. A check and balance is that Federal judges have life terms so its hard to pack them in 4 or 8 years. The problem is ultimate power rests with the Supreme court. Even if the Bush administration loses in a lower court they can push most issues to the Supreme court especially if they have a sympathetic court.
The Supreme court has a reasonably healthy balance at the moment but its expected 3 moderates will retire in Bush's second term. Scalia or Thomas, the two rabid young right wingers may well get Chief Justice this year when Rehnquist steps down due to the thyroid cancer.
After Rehnquist Bush just needs to replace one more of the left to moderate justices and he will have a very right leaning court. One more after that which is likely in Bush's term and the have the court that counts packed. If the Senate has changed the rules on the filibuster of judicial nominees, Bush can appoint any extremist he feels like, as long as he holds his party together in the Senate.
"The American system is really well designed to stop dictatorship."
Yes it is, in particular because the founding fathers thouroughly expected it to happen, and as I recall many of them expected it to happen despite their best efforts. The one thing they couldn't do anything about is that the American people would shirk their civic duty and allow it happen, or in fact vote it in which they seem to be doing. Americans have for the most part abandoned their sense of civic duty, t
It is sad that the right wing, fundementalist Christian, fanatics in power have stolen and trashed the conservative label since they quite obviously don't have the first clue what political conservatism stands for, balanced budgets, small government, no intrusion in our private lives, no trade deficits, no foreign adventures, etc. Government spending under the Bush regime has exploded by 25% in the last three years, not to mention half trillion budget and trade deficits, optional wars abroad, the Patriot Act, etc.
I assure you the Bush administration and the new Republican party has noticed this little problem with these politicly conservative judges blocking government intrusion and invasion of our lives and they are going to fix it in the next four years.
You can be sure judges nominated by the Bush administration are going to be right wing, social conservatives, not political conservatives, and probably fundementalist Christian to boot, as their litmus test. The other litmust test will be their willingness to allow the state to use law to impose its view of morality and security by force, at the expense of the Constitution and our civil liberties.
Of course our great nation of laws was designed for the possibility that an extremist party might gain power and attempt to stack the courts with extremist judges. Thats why their is a filibuster in the Senate so a supermajority is required to approve controversial laws or judges. It prevents a majority party in power from going off the deep end, in law or judicial appointments, and is a critical element of checks and balances.
Unfortunately the Republican's are already talking about changing the Senate rules this year to do away with the filibuster on judicial nominees and require only a simple majority. If that happens they can nominate truly extreme judges, including to the Supreme Court, and as long as they can hold a party line vote they will be be approved. An essential check and balance, the filibuster, will be gone and another will be in imminent danger.
If the Republican's succeed in this rule change it is time to start marching in the streets because it means these extremists will have stolen your government from you. After four years of packing the courts, especially the Supreme court, they will have erased one more of the crucial checks and balances. The courts are an essential check on an extremist legislature and President who seek to pass laws in contravention of the Constitution and our precious civil liberties, civil liberties we have taken for granted and are about to lose.
If the New Republican Party succeeds in eliminating the filibuster for judicial nominations its just a matter of time before they eliminate it in the Senate all together. At that point the Democrats may as well not even bother showing up because they will be impotent and powerless. We will be effectively living in a one party state, and one party states are synonymous with dictatorship. The Republican's will be able to pass any law they can hold a party line vote on, and if they've packed the courts it wont be overturned in the courts.
There is irony when the right wing talks so much about all the blood that's been shed by soldiers over the last two centuries, blood shed protecting our freedom and civil liberties. The irony is they appear to be the ones seeking to dismantle those same freedoms through subterfuge and political trickery. The burning question, are their any great patriots still alive today willing to stand up and defend the world's first great experiment in Democracy in the hour of its greatest peril. These patriots will have a far harder job than their forefathers did when they joined an Army and carried a gun in to a war. They will have a job as hard as the founding fathers did when they stood up in rebellion against a tyrannical King. They will have to stand against their own government, their own neighbors and risk being branded as a traitor. They will face prison where the rule of law can apparently no longer can be counted upon, and torture has become acceptable practice. Are their any people left in this once great nation with the fortitude, and the greatness, to save it from itself?
My sig isn't one of "Moore's lies". Its a verbatim quote of George W. Bush from video tape. Your only defense is its out of context and that is a weak defense.
When you are a President, of a supposed Democracy, with a reputation for pandering to the rich saying it, even if its supposed to be a joke, is the height of bad taste and is just pouring gasoline on a fire.
Its right up there with his other attempt at comedy where he showed pictures of himself looking under a table in the oval office for the "missing WMD's" in Iraq. When you've lied a country in to a war thats killed thousands of people, destroyed what was left of America's reputation around the world, and is going to cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars, making a joke out of it indicates kinda poor judgement.
Or when he said "Bring 'em on" to the insurgents in Iraq, they did, and there are American soliders dying every day because they did "Bring 'em on" is kinda bad judgement.
Want me to go on? If you want to do a head to head between lies and stupid stuff Bush says and lies and stupid stuff Moore says Bush wins hands down. Michael Moore is an insignificant buffoon grabbing his 15 minutes of fame every couple of years. He isn't running the world's most powerful country. What Bush says matters, especially when he is lieing, what Moore says doesn't. Bush's lastest lie, telling everyone Social Security is in imminent danger of bankruptcy. It will never be bankrupt, the worse thats going to happen is benefit cuts or tax hikes and those wont be necessary until the middle of the century. If Bush gets his private accounts he is in fact going to make the short fall worse and sooner, he's not fixing anything. Medicare is going to go bankrupt long before Social Security due to out of control health care costs and profiteering by big drug and health care companies
Michael Moore bashing doesn't even enter in to this, except as a tactic, a tried and true, right wing tactic, to deflect attention from their fearless leaders gaffes by launching a frontal assault on someone else.
"The final investigation found that a combination of the faulty SRB design and wind shear conditions more violent than any ever experienced were direct causes of the SRB failure. It wasn't just the ice/cold temperature that caused the loss of Challenger."
The key point you are glossing over is the O rings were made of rubber, or some synthetic equivalent, and they hardened the colder they got. The harder and colder they got the more likely they were to fail and not seal. Some of the engineers who were aware of the O-ring blow by defect, which had happened in previous missions, also knew that the risk of their failure increased the colder the rings got.
The cold weather was a definite contributor to the failure of the O ring that caused the disaster. Nor sure I understand why you are trying to dismiss it other than you are trying to salvage your position, since you've realized you can't prove the White House, fed up with previous delays, wasn't pressuring NASA to launch in time for the State of the Union speech so know you are trying to rationalize that it was OK to launch in temperatures far below the norm, and with a defect that was known to worsen in the cold.
"in some cases even smacking into the Shuttle's brittle control surfaces (as we are finding out in the Columbia investigation)."
Just to clarify another statement you are making that is at least misleading. It wasn't ice that fatally damaged Columbia, it was a piece of the foam insulation designed to prevent the ice, because yes falling ice is dangerous during a launch, always has been, always will be. The obvious point being that yes its dangerous on the ET, and they tried to prevent it with insulation, and ice is also dangerous if its shrouding the launch pad which it only did on that very cold day, it was falling all over the place. But, falling ice obviously wasn't the issue with the actual disaster, it was just something that should have caused NASA to exercise caution and postpone if they weren't under pressure to launch. Again having known defective O rings that were more likely to fail in cold weather was a known danger NASA chose to overlook much to their demise.
"Silly wabbit - you brought it up first. Which means that it is incumbent on you to back it up."
That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. As long as you say something you can't support, FIRST, you don't have to prove it. Heh. Later dude, with that satement you've established you aren't worth the time.
"Both Apollo 1 (using unsafe pure oxygen during a ground test)"
That wasn't exactly "go fever", that was a fundamental flaw in their design, though perhaps they were rushing when they made it long before, just like the O rings were. Its not the same thing as using some discretion and postponing a launch until the launch pad isn't covered in ice and everything thaws out.
"Apollo 12 (launching in a thunderstorm with lightning)"
Thunderstorms are a daily occurrence in Florida. They are a constant risk and you have to learn to launch with them in the neighborhood, or you don't launch, though obviously its desirable to not launch through them. Having large quantities of explosives sticking up in the air, at risk of a lightening strike, is a risk you have to accept having a launch pad in Florida. To put it another way, waiting for a clear day in Florida is nearly an exercise in futility. On the other hand postponing a launch due to ice on the launch pad is something you will have to do once in a blue moon in Florida so you probably should.
"Again, you've provided no proof that there was political pressure of any kind involved in the decision to launch."
And you CAN'T prove there wasn't. I was mostly objecting to the fact that you were stating it as fact there was no pressure, which you can't prove either. At least I was couching my counterpoint as a possibility, not as a fact which was your mistake. Circumstantial evidence suggests something was pushing NASA to launch on a day they shouldn't have. Pressure from the White House is one possibility. Unless you get the people in NASA who made the launch decision on a lie detector you will probably never know.
So why don't you stop stating as fact something you can't prove and slamming me for stating something as a possibility that is a possibility.
"That explains your obvious affinity for wild conspiracy theories, I guess."
Michael Moore has nothing to do with the fact George Bush was so indiscrete as to say this on camera in front of a bunch of tuxedo clad fat cats, even if it was supposed to be a joke(much truth is said in jest). It was a well known Bush gaffe, one of many, long before Michael Moore used it. I was quoting George W. Bush not Michael Moore it has nothing to do with a "conspiracy", its on video tape.
I understand why you are doing what your are doing. I was just pointing out the irony that you would put forward your career as a ray of hope to a guy that is troubled because he realized he is expendable to his company, partially because they can dump him in a heartbeat and engage in "Business Process Outsourcing", something you facilitate.
You are the problem not the solution, you probably should of refrained from rubbing it in.
About all I can wish upon you is that Tata or some other Indian based "Business Process Outsourcing" company puts you out of business because your salary is excessive for the "Business Process Outsourcing market". Someone in India can outsource business process more cheaply than you so your "redeployment" is inevitable. The pizza delivery business is a fine career, and is immune to outsourcing, though you might be at risk from the other direction, illegal immigrants who will work for less than you(insourcing). I hope you enjoy your new deployment.
"Besides being inaccurate, your observation is just so much 20-20 hindsight."
Actually you are the one who is probably innaccurate though we will never know for sure. NASA was probably under substantial political pressure from the Reagan administration to launch on schedule. Reagan was going to trumpet the "Teacher in Space" in his imminent State of the Union address and they probably wanted he to actually be in space when he made the speech.
If you weren't under some kind of pressure why would you press ahead with a launch on "a bitterly cold day" The launch pad was completely iced up, they had NEVER had a day that cold for a launch. The freezing and the ice created all kind of potential dangers, the brittle O rings was just the one that led to disaster, falling ice damaging the shuttle was the one they were very worried about. If they weren't under pressure why wouldn't you way until a warmer day. If they had the O rings most probably wouldn't have failed. NASA postpones launches for a lot less than the launch pad bering covered in ice and all the components being below typical temperature.
I think outsourcing space exploration would yield all the same benefits its yielding in every other sector of our economy. I'm pretty sure aerospace engineers, especially through pork laden contracts to Boeing and Lockheed are really expensive. Imagine the benefits of tapping dollar an hour Chinese aerospace engineers.
There is irony that NASA more closely resembles a corrupt Soviet or Maoist era socialist bureaucracy than anything you should be seeing in the home of the free and the land of the capitalist. Moving the work to China might be an improvement, though I would favor moving it to Russia's space agency, their labor costs are way below U.S. rates too and they have far more experience than the Chinese. They are a can do group who do way more with way less and they are willing to try innovative concepts like raising cash off well healed space tourists, they are positively entrepreneurial.
If you are dead set against outsourcing to foreigners, well then there is always Burt Rutan and T/Space. Their labor costs are high but would also do a lot more with a lot less than the current NASA politburo.
I guess you'll be OK if I drop over and do some of that stuff to you then. It was most decidely psychological torture, sexual humiliation has a particularly sharp edge in the Arab world, that is a key reason it was being used to soften up Arab prisoners, and I wager people higher up than Sargents figured that fact out:
Maybe you didn't read the testimony of one of the victims:
"What do you think our feelings are? This has never happened to us before. I think I'm going to have an emotional breakdown. I want to kill myself because my friends, my family, all people in my neighborhood knew about this incident. When I get released how would I go and see these people? What's ironic is that the Americans are taking my rights. How would I go out right now and face the public with myself?"
The guy wants to commit suicide. I think you are the one watering down what happened there. Besides which the only torture that has come out of Iraq so far is the torture that someone was foolish enough to take pictures of. You have no clue how bad it might really be in places where no pictures are being taken. Thats the problem with opening this pandora's box, you really dont know how far out of hand its gotten. The only approach a civilized nation should have for abusing prisoners is zero tolerance and the Bush administration has instead repeatedly rationalized it and trivialized it just like you are.
Americans in various places have beaten prisoners to death, and in one case threw prisoners off a bridge. I think there were twenty or so known cases of prisoners killed at the hands of American soldiers between Afghanistan and Iraq back when Abu Graib broke.
NBC has video, which we've managed to forgot so soon, of a Marine walking up to a wounded, prostate and unarmed insurgent and summarily executing him in a Mosque. Americans forgot it and brushed it under the rug but Iraqi's and the Arab world won't.
CNN has footage from the original invasion of Marines shooting an obviously wounded and incapitated insurgent, with no weapon, in the back and finishing him off while they cheered the fine marksmenship.
I think one of the lessons here is if you are going to commit war crimes don't do it in front of a camera, or if you do destroy the film.
It is another one of those Geneva convention things, that American's are so indifferent to, that you provide medical care to the wounded, you don't kill them. You are also supposed to provide medical care to the civilian population. Here is another good interview of an Army medic who served in Iraq and is now speaking against the war. He indicates he was ordered to deny medical care to Iraqis unless it was a matter of life or limb. That is again a violation of the Geneva conventions on treatment of civilians in occupied countries.
All in all I think Americans really aren't a civilized people any more.
"I think all of them would say that its a rewarding type of role."
What exactly is rewarding about "Business Process Outsourcing". If I read that right all you are doing is putting people who have jobs working for a company, possibly loyally for years, out of work and migrating their jobs to a lower cost alternative. I think you are part of the problem the original submitter was talking about, not an example of a solution, though obviously it keeps you gainfully employed.
Its nice how you say "possibly offshore" since if you follow the prime directive in your business, cutting cost, its almost inevitable you will eventually offshore the work because you are going to find people in India and China that will do the work for a fraction of the price of the U.S. or Western Europe.
Your life story is kind of just confirmation of everything the submitter was pointing out is wrong with working in America now. You used to do real, fruitful and productive work, now you just channel work from people with jobs in America to people who will work more for less. Meanwhile America slowly stops doing anything economicly productive, its debts continue to explode and one day America is inevitable going to pay the piper for the trillions in budget and trade deficits, and the for fact America doesn't produce anything anymore.
Everyone working person is looking over their shoulder waiting for the day some exec realizes he can cut his costs in half, calls you up, and moves his tech or accounting department to India. No arguement Accenture and Mackenzie are making a fortune in "Business Process Outsourcing", it is a booming market, but they are destroying hundreds of thousands of careers in the process, careers of peoples whose main failing is they live in a country with a high cost of living and high benefit costs, especially health insurance costs, so they simply can't compete before you even start talking about their skills or their work ethic. Skills don't enter in to it most of the time, its purely bottomline. Sure if you have some totally unique skills and experience that is in demand and no one else can do you are OK, but that doesn't describe the skill set you need for "Business Process Outsourcing".