623 Posts

That seems a bit cynical. The line of argument was that it would be bad to lose more jobs during a recession. True, but I didn't think it justified the cost personally, or that GM would succeed post bailout. Still, the UAW has been forced to accept cuts to the ridiculously generous contract GM signed with them back in the good days.

I don't think the UAW is quite that influential anyways. The political component is a bit more simple in my opinion. If Obama/congress lets GM fail, then they come across as not caring about the jobs of working Americans, regardless of how true that actually would be.



It gets a little tiring to go through this nonsense every time someone is nominated to the court. A stupid comment, but a judge who believes that his life experience and feelings have no bearing on his rulings is delusional. Likewise, you can bet the people on the courts think their own judgment is better, more correct, or however you want to put it, than that of their detractors. Otherwise they wouldn't support it. Scalia is known for his rants and scathing attacks of those who disagree with him.

Every time someone is nominated the other party brings up all sorts of crap charges.

Robert Bork: Great legal mind, should have been confirmed, was a travesty that he wasn't. I don't agree with most of his interpretations of the law, but he was extremely qualified.

John Roberts: Condemned as a dangerous extremist by the left. Perfectly qualified, good legal thinker, rightfully confirmed.

Sonia Sotomayor: experienced circuit court judge, generally respected by her peers, reasonable choice.

The judicial legislation complaints get a bit ridiculous too, especially in how they are used by conservatives/republicans. Interpreting the law is going to have an effect on what the law is, that's just reality. One could make the argument that the court should never consider anything in a suit outside the explicit claims of the suit, but judges of all alignments routinely choose not to do this. In that respect, Bush v. Gore was major judicial legislation. Other than that, it just comes down to interpretation.



I think his use of executive privilege has too much mirrored that of Bush when he promised to act differently. This worries me a lot more than the usual political talking point crap that goes on.



What do the Czars do? Mainly, they give recommendations to congress and enact already existing regulations. Independent regulatory agencies aren't just willed into existence by the president. He has to at least convince congress to vote for them.

The original stimulus bill failed to pass despite support from the leaders of both parties. Even with the Patriot Act, lawmakers just used the bill being rushed as an excuse to defend themselves against accusations that they didn't read it or debate it. I'd say the real reason was that they were afraid of taking damage from the political environment. One could argue that the president should not have exploited that, but the bailout was different. It was not popular with the masses. That's why the first bill didn't pass, a coalition of ideological opponents and lawmakers who feared for their political hides because their constituents hated it voted it down.

In general, I have been less pleased with Obama's more recent action than with his more promising start several months ago. He has been too hesitant on torture, I thought the GM bailout was not a good idea, and I do not at all like what he has been doing with executive privilege. Still, ultimately he hasn't been in office even a year yet, so we will still have to see.

In Ohio, it is illegal to throw a horseshoe within 1 mile of a public orator on decoration day.

In Pennsylvania, it is illegal to sleep on top of a refrigerator outdoors.

New Mexico has this: Law declares Pluto a PLanet

But these are either unenforced or basically irrelevant, so I don't think they are such a big deal.

I disagree with eminent domain and race based affirmative action, both of which used used nationally and by states throughout the US.

Personally, I love to cook, so I'd want to do a large share of that regardless. In fact, none of the girls I have dated in the past have been cooks at all. We don't generally ship people off to finishing school anymore after all. Most of the girls I know and those I have dated have been interested in their studies and their future careers more than homemaking.

Either way, my plan would be to look at the schedules my wife and I have and base it on that. In general, split the duties, though if one person has to spend more time on work, the other should be able to take on a little extra housework without being bitter.

My family has a cat named Derby. Got her from the humane society and never bothered to change the name they gave her. She had one of the less awful ones though, they had a whole row of cats named after the metalloids on the periodic table.

To both of you guys: my point was that one has to consider whether a fetus should count as a human and get the same protection. Obviously, many of the philosophical traits we use to define humans, such as self-awareness, aren't there yet, but that seems to be true of infants as well. I think conception is the best option, but it is tough because the spectrum of development is a continuum.

Why isn't birth control murder? For the same reason passing up an opportunity to have sex isn't murder: the "building process" of the fetus hasn't been initiated yet. If a kid was planning to build something with legos but I took them all before he could start, saying that I "destroyed his construction" wouldn't really be accurate. The minute he puts two blocks together and I take them apart, then I have destroyed something. In fact, conception is one of the two definitive points where something can be identified as changing pretty much at a point. The other is birth, since the fetus ceases to physically be attached to the mother.

Of course, that whole line of argument can be made for either side. If someone supports abortion up to birth, then why isn't infanticide acceptable? If someone supports abortion up until week X, then why isn't later week Y acceptable(point out similarities).

That's like me saying France has two left wings: the liberals and the really liberals. Of course, the political systems are a bit different. The parliamentary system makes it easier for a handful of third party MPs to get elected(and even sometimes enough for a coalition government), while the US federal system allows politicians to be a bit more independent of their party by making them less reliant on it.

Still, I've got no problem with private ownership of property, and if that makes the US right wing, so be it.

There definitely are significant policy differences between Obama, Bush, and McCain, even if they all move around in what would pretty much be the right wing in a place like France. To what extent policy goals are realized is always a variable though.

Also, care to elaborate on your "tactical reasons?"

I believe you are confusing Alito and Sotomayor. Bush nominated Alito who is a current justice and has been comfirmed. Sotomayor is Obama's current nominee to the court who has yet to be confirmed.

Honestly it comes down to whether feti should be considered human lives. If yes, as I believe, then clearly abortion is wrong and should not be legal except in cases of danger to the life of the mother. I remember debating this in a very old thread, but I think that feti = or != human has to be at the heart of the debate. People can talk about the rare situation of rape, which is definitely a terrible thing, but the reality is that most abortions are not done in the case of rape or danger to the life of the mother.

You have to account for inflation to get a realistic comparison.



Just so you know, Alito was put on the Court by Bush.



In general, many economists believe that deficit spending is good when the economy is down and can be used to kick start things, but that we should pay down the debt(or at least run below the sustainable deficit) during times of relative economic prosperity. Unfortunately, this never happens since dems spend money like crazy and the GOP cuts taxes regardless of how appropriate it might be.



The TARP? There are certainly arguments against it, but I think claiming that it's a nefarious plot takes it a bit far. There has been some caving in to populist anger, but for the most part, the government hasn't really been trying to manage their acquisition and the plan is to sell back the subprimes at some point.

I think Obama has been a bit timid on certain issues where I think he should be bolder, like Guantanamo and torture and his foreign relations have gone pretty well so far. It will take a while to see what his economic plan accomplishes, if anything.

Fair enough. Then among that group your assertion may very well be true, and as long as it doesn't warrant a blanket statement, I have no problem with it.



Don't you think that sometimes there is just too much information? You have O'Reilly and Olbermann going at it on TV, people yelling on Crossfire, John Stewart trying to lay down the populist hammer, Ann Coulter being a nutcase, liberals shouting at Fox for conservative bias, conservatives shouting at the media in general for being liberally biased, 30 second political spots that present maybe 2% of the relevant information on an issue, debates where politicians get two minutes to speak about hugely complex issues. It's a complete mess out there, and plenty of people will believe most anything they hear. Even if they don't it's quite a task to figure things out.

Attack politics rule, and that makes it hard for politicians to have a nuanced view of an issue. John Kerry got destroyed on his Iraq statements(They were poorly worded and I am not trying to endorse or refute them, I just think they are a good example in this case). The US apparently barely has enough of an attention span to watch a debate in which 5 minutes are allocated to a vital issue like healthcare.

How do we solve this without taking away freedoms? Strict campaign finance laws or voting requirements do infringe on freedoms.

Personally, I think that citizens would be more willing to invest time and effort if they had more faith in the government. I know Fpod, that you will mention that the government has not displayed enough competence in recent times, and that is true to some degree, but I also think this has been affected by populist campaigns against the government. Voters are taught to hate the insiders and government, vote in new people, and then hate them and vote in different people a few years later. Nothing changes.

Government can improve life, in some things by action, in some things by inaction. Voters can hold politicians accountable by not re-electing them. It happens all the time, just often for the wrong reasons: the airwaves being flooded with negative ads. The political viability of ideas affects even the president. Newspapers and analysts talk about it all the time.

Studies have shown that Americans used to believe in the government more in the past. Years of being force-fed negativity by opportunists looking to take power have eroded that. They tell us that it's not our fault, the greedy Washington insides who understand nothing about us have ruined us all. But that's a load of crap.

Maybe you can blame politicians for doing this stuff, but it is the collective fault of the people for buying into it and allowing it to work. Our problems are our fault. We voted in the people who screwed stuff up, and in many cases, even re-elected them while they were screwing stuff up. Maybe I'm overly idealistic, but I believe that if we can convince people of this and that they do have the power to hold politicians accountable for the right reasons if they put in the effort, then people will be more willing to become informed voters.

One reason I liked Obama is because he sometimes talked about this. I wish he would be more bold about it, but change doesn't come overnight. I'm not ready to label his term a success or failure yet, and that type of analysis is for a different thread, but if he can get a significant number of people to believe in voting as a responsibility that can both create success and problems, that will be a significant achievement in my mind.

And you claim to be unbiased in your political views Jericho? I'm sorry, but you have now stated two things bordering on ridiculous that are also the obvious statements of supporters of the right. Your overly simplistic and incomplete assertion that democrats caused the financial crisis by trying to put poor people in homes is a topic for another thread. If you want to create one and debate it, I'm up for that.

Still the other, that most of the people who voted for Obama are idiots while most of those who voted for McCain are of the more enlightened variety, is far worse. What is your sample? People you happen to know and talk to? I personally know of both intelligent and unreasonable people who voted both ways. What are these BS reasons you refer to? I think scientific polling has pretty clearly shown that people do vote on issues, but they often have what I think is limited understanding(Your statement is also undermined by the fact that Obama won among voters with college degrees, at least if education and knowledge are your criteria). And it is hard to sort through all the information: political ads, op-eds, campaign sites, canvasing, sound-byte news reporting. And there are people who vote for candidates for truly stupid reasons, like people who voted for Obama because McCain was really supposed to be a war criminal or the people who voted for McCain because Obama was really born in Kenya, forged his birth certificate, and had his grandmother killed to keep it all quiet, but these people aren't that large in number.

Still, any sort of test is a terrible idea. It goes against pretty much every historical voting tradition(except attempts to stop african-americans from voting post Civil War with bogus tests, other exclusive traditions have generally focused on money, status, or land), not to mention that introducing this test means the burden of creating a test that can be agreed upon as fair, and introduces political influence in the shaping of the test as well opportunity for corruption in the grading of the test.

Of course, the worst part is that this pretty much goes against the entire history of the US with regard to voting and most other rights: namely, they have expanded over time, and I consider this a positive thing. In fact, it is one of the things that makes me most proud of my country.

I love the US because we value freedom and individuality so highly. This means allowing people to be idiots, bigots, conspiracy theorists, and whatever else without taking away their rights. Freedom of speech and thought is the most important liberty, and punishing people for believing ridiculous or incorrect things by taking away their voting rights is an affront to this right.

I didn't mention the founding fathers and I am referring to the entire current constitution, post Bill of Rights amendments and all. The founding fathers were great thinkers, but they didn't get everything right, and the constitution has to be a living document. Trying to apply the thinking of the founding fathers to today's situations is limited in its usefulness, as some thing are very different, and it's hard to guess what they would think today. It is not something we should completely base our government off of. I don't care what the founding fathers thought of democracy, I don't believe it is right to deny someone the right to vote for being uneducated(which would eventually move into having particular views anyways). I have no problem with directly electing senators(since senators weren't directly elected until the 17th amendment in 1913, but rather were elected by state legislatures). I don't see any reasonable way to force the electoral college to return to its trustee model.

The electoral college was a failed idea, and only worked for a very short period of time. Now it is a relic that shapes campaign strategies, which may or may not have some usefulness in itself, but comes nothing close to the vision of the founding fathers. Even the "trustee" type politicians have become rarer and rarer as media and information become more rapidly accessible.

People have a right to be stupid, have idiotic ideas, and vote for whomever they want, even supporters of idiotic ideas. The Courts help limit the damage that way out there ideas can do, but there simply cannot be a required test for voting.

Kobe wins the MVP of course, but how about Pau Gasol? His numbers aren't as gaudy as Kobe's, but with the exception of game 4, he was ridiculously efficient. He isn't a super dominant rebounder or defender(even though he had 5 blocks tonight), but he defended pretty well in the finals, is amazing in the post, has great finesse, doesn't take idiotic shots, and still manages to find enough good scoring chances to put up 20 a game. Kobe racked up the points but came dangerously close to killing his team in a few of games.. 11-31 in game 4 for 32 points is pretty bad actually. Anyways, I'm not denying that Kobe isn't a great player and he is clearly the leader of the Lakers team, just showing some love for Gasol, who I think is majorly underrated(probably the 3rd or 4th best center in the league after Superman, Yao, and maybe Big Al. I classify him as a center because I think he plays like one: always in the post, a lot of back to the basket play, can't guard players like Rashard Lewis). No way the Lakers come anywhere close to the finals without Gasol.

Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza played well all series as well.

It will be interesting to see where the teams go from here, especially Orlando. Hedo is going to opt out of his contract and will want a big payday(he has been really good these playoffs, but he probably is worth more to the Magic than anyone else because he fits their style of play so well), Gortat will want more money and the Knicks are interested in him, the team will have to decide what to do with Jameer Nelson and Rafer Alston(Alston is one of those players who has too much of an ego to be a backup). They already have Howard and Rashard with huge contracts, and I think whether or not they can keep Turkoglu will be key.

The Lakers have Odom and Ariza coming up on free agency, but Odom is kind of crazy, and basically said he doesn't want to leave. I'm not sure how much money is going to be able to lure him away. The team also has to figure out what to do about point guards. Fisher had some clutch plays in the finals, but he had been killing the team most of the year. Brown and Farmar haven't improved as much as hoped. I think Fisher could remain valuable for his experience and leadership coming off the bench, but they could use an upgrade at starter.

Voters have to decide to invest effort, learn about issues, and hold politicians accountable via their votes. There are plenty of countries that do have much larger numbers of parties, and they still have a lot of the same problems.

The current system for electing a president also isn't equipped to deal with a large number of viable parties, since a majority of electoral votes is required to win. Otherwise, we have congress electing the president. We could theoretically switch to a parliamentary system, but I wouldn't want that personally, and it would probably require calling a constitutional convention(see Article V for details on this is interested).

These problem can't be "fixed" by firing all the greedy bastard politicians, dismantling the government, or any of the other political system ideas I have heard. Each person can fix it in their own mind by being willing to tolerate politicians with nuanced views, being willing to research issues, etc. But then again, a lot of people have to spend every waking hour working, or couldn't afford much education or whatever.

Some suggest requiring knowledge or intelligence to vote, but frankly that goes against the whole point of the freedoms that the US constitution specifies, as well as one of the things I love about the US.

I think societies need codes of laws/ethics to function, and I think people need to find a motivation to follow the code. Religion is that motivation for some people, but there are other reasons as well: practicality(as trading the ability to murder others without impunity for protection from murder by others with impunity), fear of legal punishment, personal pride, nonreligious tradition, etc.

Religions have also had varying moral codes over times, some of which I think have been or still are fairly divergent from each other or from the morals encoded in US law, and ones which I would consider seriously deficient.

I do think that institutions in general have a profound effect on codes of ethics, mainly because of their ability create unified thinking among a large number of people and spread beliefs. But then again, this really shouldn't come as a surprise, as the organized have always been powerful.

So, I don't think religion is necessary for morals, but institutions are at least very important to unified morals.

That was just the icing on the cake. Shard was nonexistent. Hedo missed 4 FTs in the 4th quarter. Howard bricked his FTs to pretty much ice the game. The Magic played very well in the first half. They were a little careless with turnovers, but generally, they played solid defense, got ball movement, and took decent shots. In the second half, it just fell apart.

Now they're down 3-1 and don't look like they have what it takes to win the series.

I'm not a fan of either side in this match, but that collapse is just the kind of painful play that you don't want to see, frankly, some depressing stuff.

I think you are a year behind schedule with this one.

How do the Magic shoot 63% from the field and only win by 4 points? It's great that they got their first finals win in franchise history, but SVG has to be worried. The game three performance probably isn't repeatable. Shooting 63% takes a combination of good offensive execution, poor defense by the other side, and luck. Pretty much every Magic shooter had a hot hand. And the fact that this game still came down to the wire shows that the Magic, besides their hot shooting, didn't play a great game otherwise. They didn't play good defense, turned it over too often, and rebounded worse than expected, especially considering the Lakers have been opting mostly to run back for defense rather than crash the boards.

The Magic need the next two games, and if they want to win, they are really going to have to step up their defense and avoid dumb turnovers. On some nights, you just have your shot going and can't lose, but on those that you don't, defense, rebounding, and execution are what will keep you around and give you a chance to pull out the tough win.

This guy says it well: http://www.orlandomagicdaily.com/?p=416&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

On another note, Kobe really failed to come through in the 4th quarter, shooting poorly and missing several free throws. I'm sure he is not happy with his performance and that he's going to work his ass off to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

Phil Jackson will also surely prod his team to up their defensive effort.

Encouraging sign for the Magic: Rafer Alston is alive after all!

Encouraging sign for the Lakers: Lamar Odom continues to play well.

If we're going to go with obnoxious guesses, I'll say Germany's little brother, Austria(yes I have been there a number of times and realize that this is a high insult in Austria).

For platforms, I have a ps3. I'm happy with it, like many of the games, and I can't afford a PC with the proper specs for today's games.