But, you know who the person with the second largest number of ballots cast for him is? Kerry. That means that Bush had the largest number of votes cast *against* him in any presidential election in US history.
Ummm, no, that's wrong. First, since Bush had more votes than Kerry, Kerry had more votes cast against him than were cast against Bush. But let's assume that you meant to say that Bush had the most votes cast against him and still won the election. You'd still be wrong. In 1992, there were almost
60 million votes against Bill Clinton, compared to almost 57 million against Bush in 2004.
It's a basic premise of the US Constitution that the states are more than just local jurisdictions. A lot of that has been whittled away over the years, but certain things remain, because they are very explicit, and a court or a Congress can't just wish them away.
One of these things is the Electoral College. Originally, there was no popular vote. State legislatures selected electors (they also selected Senators) who voted for president on behalf of their states. Over the years, states stopped doing this, and now we have a popular vote that determines which electors go on to cast votes.
It would require a contitutional amendment to alter this, although I seriously doubt that any organization would be created that was responsible to only one branch of the government. Checks and balances are fundamental to the entire Constitition (not that they always work, or work in a timely manner). Having certain powers reserved for the States is part of this.
We've gotten along fairly well with our voting system. 2000 wasn't the first time there was a really close election that perhaps should have gone the other way. Nixon declined to pursue a Gore-like legal campaign in 1960. There was even an election in the 1800s where no one won the electoral college, and the House of Representatives had to select the president.
I agree that the sample size is pretty small, but its the only sample we have, and we'll never be able to prove a negative. But we could certainly reject the null hypothesis that we've failed.
OTOH, there has been at least one major attack on one of our allies (Spain), so I'd argue that we can't fall back to the, "It takes years and years to plan these things," argument entirely.
Well, there'd be nothing new about that. They sided with the Soviets during the cold war. The Pakistanis sided with us (so it's not as though our new major non-NATO ally stance toward Pakistan is really new). Also, as long as Al Qaida remains a threat (or is perceived as one) in Afghanistan, I suspect that Pakistan will have something of a trump card with Washington. Perhaps you should tell the Pakistanis how pacifist India is--they've only had something like 3 or 4 wars with each other in the last 60 years or so.
Besides, you can only kill satellites of countries with space programs, and don't the Indians have one?
I wish the US hadn't done such stupid things to get people so angry at us that they feel their only recourse is to blow up buildings. Do you honestly believe the US never kills "innocents"? Do you buy the whole "War on Terror" rhetoric, as if we can wage war on a word?
Which stupid things are you referring to? Do you honestly believe that the US has, as one of its main goals, "kill innocents?"
Counterterrorism efforts are certainly worthwhile, but to imagine that our best response to terrorist attacks was to launch a $6.7 billion a month war in a country that had nothing to do with any terrorist attacks is insanity. I'd rather have seen such funds thrown at rebuilding the WTC towers as an illustration that the terror tactics didn't work.
I can only assume that you mean Iraq. But if nothing else, how does giving $25K to suicide bombers' families have nothing to do with terrorists? Or giving sanctuary to Abu Nidal? If you'd said, "...that isn't even the biggest supporter of terrorists," I might have agreed.
You do realize that by having a fearful -- nay, terrified -- reaction to these kinds of attacks, we are contributing to their success?
How has their success increased? We haven't gotten rid of all of them, but a bunch of the guys locked up in Cuba are most likely Al Qaida (No, those people are not protected by the Geneva Convention.) There hasn't been a major attack in the US since 2001. We've arrested or killed lots of Al Qaida members. Please explain why this helps them more than us.
Actually, the terrain following part was more for navigation (pre-GPS). Inertial guidance over several hundred miles tends to be inaccurate due to getting pushed off course by wind. So they digitized the terrain, and used radar to correct the missile's location in its navigation.
I think that's why we put chlorine in the water. There's still lots of living stuff in water that you wouldn't want to drink [while it's still alive, anyway]. There are occaisional failures or problems with water treatment today, and people are told to use bottled/boiled for drinking, cooking, dish washing and sometimes bathing.
Americans should see America as a business, but one where THEY are the owners, and not the worker drones.
What does this even mean?
Do you see business owners worrying about how "productive" they are...?
Absolutely. If you own a business (or a part of one) then you're very interested in the value of the business. If you happen to also provide output for the business (there are many employee owned companies out there) then you're also very interested in efficiency, because you see a return on it.
...we should be thinking about how America can be organized so that we have as little work to do as possible.
We already do. Some people work more, some people less. Those people who work more don't have to. But for whatever reason, the rewards are enough to do this (they want more cars, vacations, enjoy their work, etc).
He didn't say anything about 'conflict.' He's just pointing out that you really need both (civil liberties and private property) for a robust wealth generator. I suspect that the property is much more important. But societies with one tend to have the other, since they're basically related.
Well, TFA says that you'd perhaps have a disposable container about the size of a D battery filled with diesel fuel. Diesel fuel is really efficient, but it's not really explosive. It might smell worse than the battery acid if it leaked in your pocket, and it might ruin your pants, but it would almost certainly be a lot safer.
I fail to see how any of that is a back door draft. It's just allowing the size to grow larger, and possibly not kicking people out quite as early if they don't get promoted in time.
I certainly won't try to outline any of Kerry's plans (if he can't, why should I?), but increasing the size of the military isn't exactly rocket science. The size of the forces is set by congress. The services tell us that they haven't had any problems recruiting, so once the limits were raised (and the money to pay the troops appropriated) it shouldn't be a big deal. They might do something like change the mandatory retirement rules, so that you don't end up with 40,000 E-1s and can keep some of the experience of your veterans.
Kerry said basically what all challengers say, "If we didn't spend like maniacs, like my opponent does, and just showed a little bit of restraint, it'll all work itself out." Unfortunately, everyone knows that there's no way that will ever happen. It's just not the nature of government. The best chance for coming close is to have the goverment divided, so that they're all too busy fighting with each other to cooperate in snatching everyone else's wallet.
Whatever we do, there's going to be some serious problems at some point when the bill comes due. It only makes sense to let people start bailing themselves out a la 401k-style accounts. I don't see any way to get rid of the ridiculous social security system short of catastrophe, but we should at least have something in place for afterwards.
No. The plain fact is there are no Bush supporters - only people who hate Kerry are voting for Bush. Of course, only Bush-haters are voting for Kerry, so the rest of us - those that don't hate - are just screwed.
Insightful? Sounded more funny to me, since there are Bush supporters, but most Kerry 'supporters' really just want to get rid of Bush. The only Democrat with any enthusiastic supporters was Dean. Kerry seemed to win because people thought he was less crazy than Dean, and could actually win in the general election.
Yeah, overall I thought it was a good post, and enjoyed it. I guess it just hit a button after all the crap about the "Assault Weapons Ban" expiration--it's OK to be for the Ban (I think you'd be wrong) but so many people, including family members of victims of the DC snipers have been making so many totally false statements ("Now they can have automatic weapons") that you hit a nerve.
Also, you forgot Minesweeper, you insensitive clod!
Of course, if non-US citizens could vote, it's pretty clear what the result would be...
Yes, but I think you should also take into account this other poll which found that, "58 per cent of Europeans hold that strong US leadership is undesirable." So apparently they agree with Republicans who say that Kerry wouldn't be a strong leader.
For instance, on further Nuclear weapons, he was straight to the point. I paraphrase, "We will discontinue research for next-generation Nuclear weapons, they are not needed."
The research that's being done right now is to determine whether we really need the weapons. No one is actually building them. It's unclear how Kerry can know that we don't need them, unless he comes from the Dan Rather school of evidence. It would seem that Bush's position (lets study this to see if we really need these things or not) is the more scientific in this case.
I also wonder why he's so consistent in referring to 'John Edwards and I'.
I thought this was funny, too. I think it's probably because Edwards has so much more charisma than Kerry (at least if you listen to those who have seen the two in public).
...it will be interesting to see if he (and John Edwards) stick to his (their) guns if Kerry does become the next president.
You mean like how he has consistent positions on things like the war in Iraq?
1) Robin Hood would have made a good Democrat and a great economist. To tax the rich to support the commoners (Welfare, Healthcare, decent Unemployment benefits, Social Security, etc.) forces money to "flow".
Of course, this ignores the fact that in Robin's day, the rich were the government, so he was basically giving the people a tax cut. He gave money to Friar Tuck, too, so does that make him a Compassionate Conservative?:)
Ever wonder why VC's are being so stingie these days? Their money is much safer, today, from taxation. The most important factor in converting a stagnant economy (as found in so many 3rd world countries) into a bristling one is simply to get one's currency to flow!
So welfare, healthcare, unemployment benefits and social security are the best ways to get the money to flow? VC's aren't out to hoard the money they currently have, they're out to turn that hoard into a bigger hoard. They do that by investing. When they invest, companies can do things like expand their businesses and hire more people. If anything, lower tax rates are reason to invest more, since you get a greater post-tax return on any investment that makes money. You don't pay taxes on money that doesn't do anything. (OK, you might cite property taxes on real estate, but then this isn't a fed issue, and property taxes seem to be going up lately in most places, after the states grew their budgets to ridiculous levels during the 90s.) Where the hell did you come up with this idea?
Easy to think the resession was "inherited". But economic policies have very real, fast-acting consequences. If you don't believe it, then you haven't watched the reactions on Wall Street on the days when Allen Greenspan speaks.
So which of Bush's economic policies caused the recession that began in early 2001 (and exacerbated by things like guys driving airplanes into buildings)? You certainly can't blame Bush for anything Greenspan has done. He's gotta be the least partisan guy in town (been there since Bush Sr and through Clinton).
...any move by the US would be met with decimation of the South Korean capital
Except that this doesn't make any sense. The whole point of nK fighting a war would be for reunification. He wants the rest of the peninsula, or probably at least Seoul (and the 14-15 million people who live in and around it). Why would he level the city when he'd just have to pay to rebuild it later? More likely, he'd try to quickly get in and take as much as he could, then sue for peace. His ancient vehicles might not make it much farther than that, anyway. I also suspect that Combined Forces Command would take exception to your 1-3 month prediction.
Times are changing in the ROK, though. It used to be that we were there more to keep the south from invading the north, rather than the other way round. Now the Korean War generation is getting old and dying off, and the younger generation is much more interested in negotiating with the north. No one wants to have another Korean War, but I don't think you can just let nK do whatever they want. On top of the WMDs there, you have what is probably the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world right now.
Re:A Conservative is a Liberal who got 0wned
on
Is IP Property?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Actually, I think it's something like 17th biggest in terms of GDP. I brought that up because you originally stated that it was the biggest. And I agree that it's irresponsible to reduce taxes without reducing spending. As I alluded earlier, I'm against a lot of the recent spending increases. But I wouldn't say it's meaningless.
You give one analysis of foreign policy, but I see it a bit differently. Getting rid of regimes like Sadam or the Taliban does help protect the homeland. Your logic would have also kept us out of Europe during the Cold War, since why would we want to keep other people's freedom from a tyrant. I'd rather take the fight to our enemies than let them choose the place and time of battle, like we did until 9/11.
Yeah, his record on trade is very mixed. I think he should have used some vetos and not gone along with all the spending proposals. I'm not sure where the 'sanctity of the constitution' part comes in here (unless we're arguing over the definition of national security?). I can't quite see how the 'endless war on terrorism' plays here either, unless you're proposing to elect someone willing to surrender. Should we have never occupied Germany or Japan? If we don't take the fight to the terrorists and their allies, how would you propose to fight them?
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It's a basic premise of the US Constitution that the states are more than just local jurisdictions. A lot of that has been whittled away over the years, but certain things remain, because they are very explicit, and a court or a Congress can't just wish them away.
One of these things is the Electoral College. Originally, there was no popular vote. State legislatures selected electors (they also selected Senators) who voted for president on behalf of their states. Over the years, states stopped doing this, and now we have a popular vote that determines which electors go on to cast votes.
It would require a contitutional amendment to alter this, although I seriously doubt that any organization would be created that was responsible to only one branch of the government. Checks and balances are fundamental to the entire Constitition (not that they always work, or work in a timely manner). Having certain powers reserved for the States is part of this.
We've gotten along fairly well with our voting system. 2000 wasn't the first time there was a really close election that perhaps should have gone the other way. Nixon declined to pursue a Gore-like legal campaign in 1960. There was even an election in the 1800s where no one won the electoral college, and the House of Representatives had to select the president.
Most of them won't be classified as prisoners of war because the captured soldier must have conducted operations according to the laws and customs of war, e.g. be part of a chain of command, wear a uniform and bear arms openly.
I agree that the sample size is pretty small, but its the only sample we have, and we'll never be able to prove a negative. But we could certainly reject the null hypothesis that we've failed.
OTOH, there has been at least one major attack on one of our allies (Spain), so I'd argue that we can't fall back to the, "It takes years and years to plan these things," argument entirely.
Well, there'd be nothing new about that. They sided with the Soviets during the cold war. The Pakistanis sided with us (so it's not as though our new major non-NATO ally stance toward Pakistan is really new). Also, as long as Al Qaida remains a threat (or is perceived as one) in Afghanistan, I suspect that Pakistan will have something of a trump card with Washington. Perhaps you should tell the Pakistanis how pacifist India is--they've only had something like 3 or 4 wars with each other in the last 60 years or so.
Besides, you can only kill satellites of countries with space programs, and don't the Indians have one?
Which stupid things are you referring to? Do you honestly believe that the US has, as one of its main goals, "kill innocents?"
I can only assume that you mean Iraq. But if nothing else, how does giving $25K to suicide bombers' families have nothing to do with terrorists? Or giving sanctuary to Abu Nidal? If you'd said, "...that isn't even the biggest supporter of terrorists," I might have agreed.
How has their success increased? We haven't gotten rid of all of them, but a bunch of the guys locked up in Cuba are most likely Al Qaida (No, those people are not protected by the Geneva Convention.) There hasn't been a major attack in the US since 2001. We've arrested or killed lots of Al Qaida members. Please explain why this helps them more than us.
No, it wouldn't be wrong for the Washington Post to do it, but I wouldn't be surprised if Britons had a lowered opinion of the paper afterwards.
I think 60 Minutes has a story about this for Sunday.
Actually, the terrain following part was more for navigation (pre-GPS). Inertial guidance over several hundred miles tends to be inaccurate due to getting pushed off course by wind. So they digitized the terrain, and used radar to correct the missile's location in its navigation.
This is SO true. The greatest predictor of my success during any game is how disciplined and patient I can stay.
I think that's why we put chlorine in the water. There's still lots of living stuff in water that you wouldn't want to drink [while it's still alive, anyway]. There are occaisional failures or problems with water treatment today, and people are told to use bottled/boiled for drinking, cooking, dish washing and sometimes bathing.
Americans should see America as a business, but one where THEY are the owners, and not the worker drones.
What does this even mean?
Do you see business owners worrying about how "productive" they are...?
Absolutely. If you own a business (or a part of one) then you're very interested in the value of the business. If you happen to also provide output for the business (there are many employee owned companies out there) then you're also very interested in efficiency, because you see a return on it.
...we should be thinking about how America can be organized so that we have as little work to do as possible.
We already do. Some people work more, some people less. Those people who work more don't have to. But for whatever reason, the rewards are enough to do this (they want more cars, vacations, enjoy their work, etc).He didn't say anything about 'conflict.' He's just pointing out that you really need both (civil liberties and private property) for a robust wealth generator. I suspect that the property is much more important. But societies with one tend to have the other, since they're basically related.
Well, TFA says that you'd perhaps have a disposable container about the size of a D battery filled with diesel fuel. Diesel fuel is really efficient, but it's not really explosive. It might smell worse than the battery acid if it leaked in your pocket, and it might ruin your pants, but it would almost certainly be a lot safer.
I fail to see how any of that is a back door draft. It's just allowing the size to grow larger, and possibly not kicking people out quite as early if they don't get promoted in time.
I certainly won't try to outline any of Kerry's plans (if he can't, why should I?), but increasing the size of the military isn't exactly rocket science. The size of the forces is set by congress. The services tell us that they haven't had any problems recruiting, so once the limits were raised (and the money to pay the troops appropriated) it shouldn't be a big deal. They might do something like change the mandatory retirement rules, so that you don't end up with 40,000 E-1s and can keep some of the experience of your veterans.
Kerry said basically what all challengers say, "If we didn't spend like maniacs, like my opponent does, and just showed a little bit of restraint, it'll all work itself out." Unfortunately, everyone knows that there's no way that will ever happen. It's just not the nature of government. The best chance for coming close is to have the goverment divided, so that they're all too busy fighting with each other to cooperate in snatching everyone else's wallet.
Whatever we do, there's going to be some serious problems at some point when the bill comes due. It only makes sense to let people start bailing themselves out a la 401k-style accounts. I don't see any way to get rid of the ridiculous social security system short of catastrophe, but we should at least have something in place for afterwards.
Insightful? Sounded more funny to me, since there are Bush supporters, but most Kerry 'supporters' really just want to get rid of Bush. The only Democrat with any enthusiastic supporters was Dean. Kerry seemed to win because people thought he was less crazy than Dean, and could actually win in the general election.
Yeah, overall I thought it was a good post, and enjoyed it. I guess it just hit a button after all the crap about the "Assault Weapons Ban" expiration--it's OK to be for the Ban (I think you'd be wrong) but so many people, including family members of victims of the DC snipers have been making so many totally false statements ("Now they can have automatic weapons") that you hit a nerve.
Also, you forgot Minesweeper, you insensitive clod! ...with my now-legal assault weapons, fully automatic and fully loaded...
Now-legal? What changed?Of course, if non-US citizens could vote, it's pretty clear what the result would be...
Yes, but I think you should also take into account this other poll which found that, "58 per cent of Europeans hold that strong US leadership is undesirable." So apparently they agree with Republicans who say that Kerry wouldn't be a strong leader.For instance, on further Nuclear weapons, he was straight to the point. I paraphrase, "We will discontinue research for next-generation Nuclear weapons, they are not needed."
The research that's being done right now is to determine whether we really need the weapons. No one is actually building them. It's unclear how Kerry can know that we don't need them, unless he comes from the Dan Rather school of evidence. It would seem that Bush's position (lets study this to see if we really need these things or not) is the more scientific in this case.
I also wonder why he's so consistent in referring to 'John Edwards and I'.
I thought this was funny, too. I think it's probably because Edwards has so much more charisma than Kerry (at least if you listen to those who have seen the two in public).
...it will be interesting to see if he (and John Edwards) stick to his (their) guns if Kerry does become the next president.
You mean like how he has consistent positions on things like the war in Iraq?1) Robin Hood would have made a good Democrat and a great economist. To tax the rich to support the commoners (Welfare, Healthcare, decent Unemployment benefits, Social Security, etc.) forces money to "flow".
Of course, this ignores the fact that in Robin's day, the rich were the government, so he was basically giving the people a tax cut. He gave money to Friar Tuck, too, so does that make him a Compassionate Conservative? :)
Ever wonder why VC's are being so stingie these days? Their money is much safer, today, from taxation. The most important factor in converting a stagnant economy (as found in so many 3rd world countries) into a bristling one is simply to get one's currency to flow!
So welfare, healthcare, unemployment benefits and social security are the best ways to get the money to flow? VC's aren't out to hoard the money they currently have, they're out to turn that hoard into a bigger hoard. They do that by investing. When they invest, companies can do things like expand their businesses and hire more people. If anything, lower tax rates are reason to invest more, since you get a greater post-tax return on any investment that makes money. You don't pay taxes on money that doesn't do anything. (OK, you might cite property taxes on real estate, but then this isn't a fed issue, and property taxes seem to be going up lately in most places, after the states grew their budgets to ridiculous levels during the 90s.) Where the hell did you come up with this idea?
Easy to think the resession was "inherited". But economic policies have very real, fast-acting consequences. If you don't believe it, then you haven't watched the reactions on Wall Street on the days when Allen Greenspan speaks.
So which of Bush's economic policies caused the recession that began in early 2001 (and exacerbated by things like guys driving airplanes into buildings)? You certainly can't blame Bush for anything Greenspan has done. He's gotta be the least partisan guy in town (been there since Bush Sr and through Clinton).Except that this doesn't make any sense. The whole point of nK fighting a war would be for reunification. He wants the rest of the peninsula, or probably at least Seoul (and the 14-15 million people who live in and around it). Why would he level the city when he'd just have to pay to rebuild it later? More likely, he'd try to quickly get in and take as much as he could, then sue for peace. His ancient vehicles might not make it much farther than that, anyway. I also suspect that Combined Forces Command would take exception to your 1-3 month prediction.
Times are changing in the ROK, though. It used to be that we were there more to keep the south from invading the north, rather than the other way round. Now the Korean War generation is getting old and dying off, and the younger generation is much more interested in negotiating with the north. No one wants to have another Korean War, but I don't think you can just let nK do whatever they want. On top of the WMDs there, you have what is probably the greatest humanitarian crisis in the world right now.Actually, I think it's something like 17th biggest in terms of GDP. I brought that up because you originally stated that it was the biggest. And I agree that it's irresponsible to reduce taxes without reducing spending. As I alluded earlier, I'm against a lot of the recent spending increases. But I wouldn't say it's meaningless.
You give one analysis of foreign policy, but I see it a bit differently. Getting rid of regimes like Sadam or the Taliban does help protect the homeland. Your logic would have also kept us out of Europe during the Cold War, since why would we want to keep other people's freedom from a tyrant. I'd rather take the fight to our enemies than let them choose the place and time of battle, like we did until 9/11.
Yeah, his record on trade is very mixed. I think he should have used some vetos and not gone along with all the spending proposals. I'm not sure where the 'sanctity of the constitution' part comes in here (unless we're arguing over the definition of national security?). I can't quite see how the 'endless war on terrorism' plays here either, unless you're proposing to elect someone willing to surrender. Should we have never occupied Germany or Japan? If we don't take the fight to the terrorists and their allies, how would you propose to fight them?