Politics

Is this "new" Republican pledge based on ventage ideas, or a ventage pledge based on new ideas? For the sake of this nation, it had beter be neither, but a pledge of ideas compatable to an exponentially changing enviroment. Few of us rationalize it, but the world is changing so rapidly it's literally a daily occurance. And whether Democrats or Republicans decree the mandates running this country, hopefully; the average Americans views will shortly be heard again in the rule making. If not, the fun may have gone out of the game forever. So!, get it together Republicans! "With his help", You've made an ass of Obama these past 2 years. You are in the drivers seat now, and be…

What was the reason given for the arrest of the guy who was self publishing the pedophile book on Amazon? Is there any evidence that he actually molested any children or attempted to? From the product description of the book: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/amazon-removes-pedophilia-book-store/story?id=12119035&tqkw=&tqshow=

I'm sure most of you have heard the phrase that the only people who support marijuana legalization are people who smoke it. While that is in fact true, atleast for the most part, I still don't understand the potheads. Sure, they want it to be legal so they can get their fix, and continue using harmful and illegal substances (which wouldn't be illegal if they had their way). Most people are opposed to legalization of illegal drugs, but I just don't get why some people think it's a good idea to make it legal? People who say "it puts innocent people behind bars" are idiots. Innocent people don't use illegal substances. There is no reason for marijuana, or any other illegal d…

The "lame duck" Congress passed a lot of legislation right at the end, and all the media outlets were talking about it last week. The extending of the Bush tax cuts lead directly to agreement on the repeal of "Don't Ask Don't Tell", ratification of the latest START treaty with Russia, and funding for 9/11 first responders. (Some background here.) I think this is a very positive sign of what we can hope to see in 2011. I believe there will likely be more hurdles, but both sides came out ahead here and important legislation was passed. What do you all think?

Economic recession. Fear of losing jobs and income. Fear of being uninsured. Fear of inconsistent work history. Etc. All of these are fears that push people to do jobs they don't necessarily like or believe in. Social science has noted that such pressures are necessary to ensure a steady supply of labor. Another result is "labor alienation" where workers don't care about or even understand their work and lead meaningless lives as a result. A related question is whether doing things against one's will or better judgment simply makes employees grumpy and causes general unpleasantness in the workplace. What happens when people make the choice to do things agai…

I don't understand all this fuss about the alleged offence. For a start, it has no relevance but, more importantly, I can't see how it will ever come to trial. Here's the basis of the trial Miss X says " I told you to stop when the condom split" Mr A says " No you didn't." End of case. No proof of guilt so he gets found not guilty. Unless they chose to video their activities or something, there is no way that she can win the case. I know that, so do you and so do all the lawyers. Why waste the court's time with it?

Thank god school uniforms don't exist in most schools in America. I realize a couple Catholic/private schools have them. But if they ever hit public schools, there will be an open rebellion against the federal government of United States. A rebellion that will result in massive loss of life. Taking away the right to dress freely in American high schools and junior high schools is the line that we the people of the United States of America draw. Our Founding Fathers gave us the right to bear arms to prevent totalitarianism and rebel against our government if need be. I hope it doesn't come to a rebellion, but we will rebel if necessary. Hopefully things will never come to …

So the results of the 2010 census are in, and the US has officially grown to over 308 million peeps. This has interesting political ramifications. That article goes on at some length about redistricting, and is an interesting read. The big wins by Republicans in the mid-terms have significant ramifications in that arena, but some of the modifiers on that power are interesting as well -- minority populations in certain states, for example, have an influence. Another aspect of this that I thought was interesting was the reduction impact on the northeastern states. A good example of this may be found in the impact on Massachusetts, which was analyzed…

The FCC will take up a key vote on Net Neutrality on Tuesday, considering a proposal that will set regulations aimed at protecting users from corporations bent on raising fees for high-volume sites (or as opponents worry, sites that aren't part of their corporate structures). Currently the Democrats on the panel plan to vote for it, and the Republicans plan to vote against it. The plan also has the support of the Obama administration. CNN has a story covering the basics here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/12/21/fcc.net.neutrality/ But apparently there's an outcry over the lack of enforcement capability in the plan. Timothy Karr (also of HuffPo) …

I am not an American, but like a lot of people outside of America, it is the country besides my own whose politics I am most exposed to in the media. The thing I have noticed, that does not seem to be the case in Australia is the extreme passion with which people devote themselves to a particular party. The 'us and them' thing in American politics seems very strong. Democrats are 'socialist criminals' and Republicans are either corrupt fat cats or brainless hicks. Why is it that in America, people seem so much more willing to pick a political tribe and devote themselves to it and its media advocates SO absolutely on both sides. I mean, I know this happens in other cou…

Okay... Ideas maybe: 1. People with an IQ below 110 shouldn't be allowed to be in politics...I know there are smart people with IQs lower than that but IQ does seem to correlate with intelligence...we don't want idiots in power do we? Power to the people...Are you insane? Last time I checked most of the people don't know anything about politics apart from the obvious. New 1. Stop war. Every country should get rid of it's army. They crazy amounts of money on it. [No point discussing this. It will never happen.] 2. Government should have several 'bank accounts' to store money in for later. They tell us to save up money for when we need it...they should take their own…

Nice pickup by a writer at The Telegraph. Apparently the amount of money the government expects to take in from student tuition in the UK happens to equal the amount of money the UK is spending on an African windmill project. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8196410/Student-fee-savings-will-fund-windmills-in-Africa.html This is a great example of what goes wrong when boom times become lean years. It's not easy to cut spending in a democracy because everyone has a different opinion about what should be spent and what should not. Clear guidelines are needed. If it includes some foreign spending, fine, so long as there's a plan fo…

I was quite surprised to read the following news article (from which the text below is a quote). I wanted to know if, especially according to Americans, there is any fundamental difference between: 1. Taxing everyone, then using the money for everyone's benefit 2. Forcing everyone to spend money on something that will benefit everyone To me, the 2nd point sounds just like the 1st, with the only exception that they took out the middle man (the government's tax office in this case). How about this one: In summary: I think that it's just a flawed argument to make people think that this is somehow fundamentally different from other things paid with tax …

On July 16, Defence Minister Peter MacKay stood in front a life-size model of a fighter plane and announced the biggest military purchase in Canada's history. "The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the best aircraft we can provide our men and women in uniform to face and defeat the challenges of the 21st century," he said. Canada had signed a multi-billion-dollar deal for 65 planes. The announcement unfolded as planned. Inside National Defence headquarters, analysts compiled a report on the 263 articles and 94 editorials produced on the subject. Initial coverage was considered positive. Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Selling+C…

The president and Republicans came to terms on a deal this afternoon. All tax cuts will be extended, even those for the wealthiest earners. Some details can be found here: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-07/obama-agrees-to-two-year-tax-cut-extension-lower-payroll-taxes.html I think this is an excellent step forward. The plan isn't perfect, but I think what's important here is that common ground was found on a number of issues and a path forward was found. It was either this or complete stagnation, and apparently nobody wanted that. That's encouraging. I know many on the left will be disappointed, and indeed the impact on the bottom line is sig…

Some guy in Michigan wrote this editorial and I happened to pick it up. What are your thoughts? http://www.examiner.com/christianity-culture-in-fort-worth/what-has-america-become-by-ken-huber-of-tawas-city

What with the issue of Wikileaks now in the news, the issue of government transparency is now in the public eye. Do we need more transparency? If so, how could we go about increasing transparency?

Some have suggested that the United States government, via increased taxes on the present population, should pay reparations to the descendants of slaves kept in the U.S. up to 1865 for all the injury caused to them by this inhumane treatment. There are some problems with this suggestion, however. First, many of those now living in the U.S. are in no way implicated in the wrongs of slavery, since their ancesters came with the vast waves of immigrants who poured into the U.S. after the end of the Civil War. It would seem unfair for Kurdish refugees from Saddam Hussei's attacks, for example, to be confronted with a bill for U.S. slavery on coming to the U.S. Sec…

Do you think they deserve special treatment when they commit a crime?

I referenced this earlier in a thread but I don't think I ever started a full topic on it. Things are a bit slow so what the heck. This is from a Politico/George Washington University poll back in September: The question: "I am going to read you a list of some of these people. For each one, please tell me if you think this person has a positive impact or a negative impact on political debate in this country. If you do not recognize the name, just say so. Here is the first one …" The results: Positive Impact: Bill O’Reilly 49% Glenn Beck 38% Rush Limbaugh 36% Sean Hannity 35% Jon Stewart 34% Keith Olbermann 23% RachelMaddow 18% Ed Schultz 11% Neg…

The problem with term limits is that they "kick out the baby with the bathwater". Good politicians get axed right alongside bad ones -- the choice is no longer with the people, where it belongs. What alternatives might there be? I'll start the ball rolling with this oddball idea just off the top of my head: You cannot vote for a specific party in a specific national race more than twice in a row. So if you vote for a Democrat for your House of Representatives district, and then the same Democrat two years later, you're disallowed from voting for a Democrat at the +4-year mark. You can abstain or vote in an "objection" slot, clearing your "bias category"…

This post was inspired by comments at Collide-a-scape. I think that it is now obvious to all but the hopelessly optimistic that major CO2 reduction plans (carbon taxes and cap and trade, etc.) are dead in the water. Nor is it likely that they will become politically possible in the near future. Russia doesn't care, China and India are not going to sacrifice the immediate development and well being of their respective peoples for some far off possible disaster. A carbon tax is not possible in Australia and I doubt that the US will move anywhere near one in the next few years. Face it, the game of "CO2 reduction" is lost for the forseeable future. Why is it lost…

I hear about long wait times in the ER and long wait times to find a doctor where by people have to go to the ER or medical clinic do to they cannot find a doctor or long wait time.And the ER is very busy. The only thing I can dig up on this topic is this. Severe doctors' shortage predicted in Canada. http://www.caribbeanmedicine.com/article7.htm I hear the UK is worse than Canada.

Whether there is dangerous global warming caused by human activities or not, the main question has to be: What shall we do about it now given the competing arguments? If we do institute violent measures to deconstruct the fossil-fuel-based economy at enormous costs to productivity, the poorest people will be the hardest hit, and not only will poverty worsen in the developed world, but starvation may even result in the Third World. On the other hand, if we don't do immediate and enormous damage to the existing economy now in order to diminish greenhouse gas emissions and the human-caused global warming predictions are correct, then it will be too late to stop the spirali…

Former football player Eric Cantona wants to bring down the banks. He suggested that people all withdraw their money on the same day (link to BBC). Such a bank run would bring down the banks... The Dutch minister of finances now wants to ban such messages (link in Dutch). In an official letter to the parliament, he suggested that it should be an offence to call for such action. The possibility of such a ban is also being investigated by the ministry of justicy (another link in Dutch). Today, these kinds of messages are still within the freedom of speech. You can call for a revolution if you like. However, some time ago, someone in the Netherlands called for a ba…