padren

How about we call it a difference of opinion between two chief pony wranglers

You must be joking - and it's not yet noon in Hawaii! Well, it was in the spirit of good fun (and I thought that was just a rule on the science forums, so as long as this is the pseudoscience forums...)

I have strong reservations as to the effectiveness that a private system can get costs under control. The free market is great at making companies more fit in a competition for market share and profit, but the insurance system seems to employ an inverse invisible hand pressure: the less a company can cover a patient upon catastrophic illness the more money it makes. When you read polls regarding people being happy with their coverage, it's usually people who haven't had any serious issues - until I see a poll that covers how happy people are with their providers after being stamped as "unprofitable" due to monthly benefits needed being greater than monthly premiums (due to diabetes, cancer, or other long term debilitating illness) I am uncertain how well the private system can work. There is a financial incentive for providers to find loop holes or reasons why a "trouble patient" should not be covered, and if they are successful they increase their profit, and push the costs off onto families, debt collectors, the tax payer (when ERs are used for non-ER services) and effectively just push their burden onto society. The cost of scanning every instance of expensive use (even after determining the procedure is important via doctors) to determine if they can pass the buck has to be a heavy drag on the system. Honestly to me, our current system makes about as much sense to me as making fifty phone calls to fight to get your police insurance to cover the cost of officers responding to your house being burglarized as they try to make the claim the burglars had a pre-existing intent to rob you from before your policy's start date.

As far as "spend spend spend" goes any tax cut is spending and not "giving people their money back" for as long as the national debt has any balance at all. So when I hear any republican talk about a "tax cut" I hear "stimulus spending" by another name, just a less honest one.

Well perhaps "until the last minute" was a bit of an exaggeration but essentially they were still humming and hawing about who it was before settling on Ellen after her character was already killed off - at least that's what the Frakk'n special seemed to say. I found that to be a pretty big thing to "leave open" and figure out as you go. It added a degree of "timelessness" to her relationship with Tigh which was interesting but I think it muddied other stuff up. Such as how Tigh knocks up Six, then "poof" baby dies Six pouts for a day and they get over it and he and Ellen are just back to normal. To me that seemed like the kind of "under rug clean up" you play when you treat the plot as a giant mad lib game - which to their credit they did play very well. Not everything can be planned out, but I think they played it too close to the edge and it suffered a bit as a result. (And gained in other aspects too sure, I'm not a writer so I can't really criticize too much.)

I will say when the "Last Frakkin Special" came out and it basically let out that Ron still had no idea who the final 5th cylon was until the last minute it made it pretty clear he was really playing it as he went - and that did impact my expectations of the final episode. I still felt it ended well as far as how well it could end - but it did tick me off in a "What? This has just been a glorified game of Mad-Libs all this time??" sort of way.

From that link: Uh, should we just consider a "not sure" as a yes? (Or am I the only one who heard in my head as I read that: "Uh, I dunno, man..."

I suspect they'll get louder, but more localized. It seems to me that it's those who just lost a lot of relevance are generally the loudest - across the political spectrum. There are still politicians who will think they can wrangle the Republican party and play to that base, though I think they'll ultimately fail in that... but there could be some sparks along the way. My best guess is they'll remain busy to try to remain feeling relevant - and at this time it's on the local community/state level where they have saturation levels in some states that can have a pretty large impact. They aren't in as large of a theater but having fallen back they will fortify. [/conjecture]

I just had a thought: Even though "The World" apparently supports naming the new NASA module "Colbert" it's pretty obvious that is more representative of a small group that just cares more than others enough to outvote them on an online web poll. The thing is there is a "Colbert Factor" in this online poll, as stated in the article via NORML: The real question I would like to know is - what percent of the "vote ups" came from there? It's hard to evaluate the impact of this campaign, but it could be as strong as it was on the NASA site, or it could have been no more of an influence than the NRA trying to get certain gun questions pushed to the top. It would have been nice if the article at least gave some information on the margins and vote tallies (92,000 means what exactly, and out of what?), and what relevant traffic to NORML has been like for comparison - at least some educated idea of their influence relative to the size of the whole. Honestly the way it reads to me, it almost plays down the validity of the whitehouse.gov votes as "over inflated" by this group, but I am sure many groups rally people to get their causes heard, and it doesn't really present any states to support that (implied) claim of marginalization. I also read some interesting comments regarding how this issue overlaps with prison reform, which I suppose is a separate but related issue. Just a disclaimer: I really don't know much about Senator Jim Webb, and the article reads a bit "less than two sided" for my taste, but it does bring up some interesting points: http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/28/webb/index.html It's really seems to start one the topic of the need for prison reform, citing mostly runaway trends and the large number of "victimless crime laws" then meanders into an interesting bit on how issues either become mainstream or remain on the fringe. I will say where it quotes: ... I can't help but to think the invention of crack and meth may have played a bit of a role, so take it with a grain of salt when evaluating it's stats.

It was his statements that gave me the idea for the "Organized effort" pledge thing. I had a lot of trouble watching that episode due to Mos Def - who had the odd good point but every time he had part of a point he'd go on a tangent restating it several times to get a cheer or two out of the audience. I think Obama's best approach would be to say "People should lobby their representatives, and if they send a bill to him to legalize it, he'll sign it as the will of the people" thereby removing himself from the spotlight, as he's certainly not the right Nixon for that China.

It's come up in discussion before, but isn't a company like Chevron sitting on that battery patent that would make electric cars far more practical? It came up a while back, on a thread about intellectual property and patent law but I don't recall which one. It was considered a fact within the thread though I haven't researched it myself, does anyone remember that?

My pet peeve is when they create scenarios that would allow them to deal with an issue if they were consistent, but don't "think to" and you are left following a blundered story line. Battlestar Galactica plot spoiler, just in case you haven't seen it and want to: [hide] Case in point: I just had this thought the other day - in BSG they tried to spread that disease to the cylons and space em ages earlier in the story, so they'd be reborn and infect the whole population. They died before they could be in range to download, so it failed. But, they still had the virus, they could still infect any captured cylon and retry... but it was just forgotten. Maybe it was moral reservations but it seemed like "this plot line is done, lets forget about it" and it never came up again. [/hide] Then in startrek they'll do something so fantastical that it should revolutionize the fleet, but it never does. They never say "hey, if we do this again we'll be outta harms way in a minute" but instead they freak out and have to come up with a completely different McGuyver save. That said - still loved it!

Oh it will work. If you throw yourself at the ground and miss you will be flying - so it is correct. The only issue is pulling off that "and miss" part.

I'll throw another similarity: Both "underdogs" in that one is a hobbit in the world of big sword wielding warriors, the other is a kid just learning magic at a school. So they both fit the "unlikely hero" paradigm as well.

That really isn't the general base of republican values, those are the issues that hijacked the republican party in an effort to grow a base capable of claiming enough states to win elections. Right now there is a bit of a struggle within the republican party as many wish to return to the core values that when combined with thought through plans actually do appeal to voters - whether enough to get elected without the "bible base" in today's world is yet to be seen. On the flip side, many want to go further into the Huckabee realm... so this struggle is part of their reinvention. Interestingly if they had a mantra other than "tax cuts!" as the fix all it may actually appeal to people, as I know as liberal as I am, I am getting suspicious that the dems are any more thoughtful in just yelling "bailout!" as a fix all. In short, I think while they are guilty of going down the road they did... it's unfair to paint them solely by that brush. I've never really supported republicans but I will withhold judgment until we see what they emerge as.

I think the point is they are not viewed as such in the realm of public opinion, because the law protects us from the evils of marijuana but not from alcohol and tobacco. He is saying the "protect the public from themselves by law" mentality is which causes this irrational prejudice.

I know it's not entirely on topic but I want to say I really wonder how much of the "drag" on our legal system is a result of this very point. I don't know how many people fully share this view, but I definitely thing the state should be concerned with legislating "what is within one's liberties" and not "what is safe" and I won't say we are entirely there but it does seem like we've been on a slide towards that, drugs perhaps being the most visible factor. We do still allow many things that are not safe: cigs, alcohol, (in places) gambling, etc - even dare devils can jump ravines and such. Maybe it deserves it's own thread but: if we held to the standard that a law is only constitutional if harm to others can be demonstrated (thus, impinge on liberties only to protect liberties) and removed the assumption that the law "protects" us by only allowing us smart decisions - how many of the messes would be far easier to clean up? Case in point: "Why were they allowed to offer us this mortgage if it was so bad?" is something we hear a lot of these days. Caveat Emptor exists in complete dissonance to the idea that the government keeps us safe from bad people with bad deals. The subtly that is missing of course, is that if a bad deal is presented and actually does tell you up front why it's a bad deal and you go for it without understanding it - it's not fraud and you end up hosed. In the case of drug laws, we wouldn't even have a war on drugs. We may have stiffer social assistance laws (requiring passing a drug test as, if you have a habit that keeps you from paying your rent, you have a problem and need treatment and shouldn't be the state's problem) but we'd also have a public that knows you have to look over your shoulder and stay sharp, because even if something is legal it could still ruin your life. I really do how much of our social legal-drag is caused by this. Note: I don't mean to derail the thread so please feel free to split it as "Role of Legal System" or some such thing.

The main reason I see against the legalization of almost all drugs is the failings of caveat emptor and the targeting of ill prepared youth and such. All our drug education is about as educational to the negative effects of drug use as "Abstinence Only" is to the ways to protect yourself from STDs and unwanted pregnancies. Combine that with the logical impacts of youth targeted advertising and the general nature of any addiction based industry I wonder if it can be kept honest enough. That aside, ideologically I do think a person should have the right to do what they want to their own body. They don't owe the state or economy any kind of productivity rate above the baseline of caring for their own expenses. In my view the state has no business imposing an ideological social experiment on individuals that is liable to consume the better part of their own lifetimes or more - if it fails, it's not like we can get our wasted years back and even if it works in the eyes of some does a majority even have the right to impose their idea of "success" on those that disagree? But that is all just the rantings of a social libertarian, not really reflective of the current political climate. As to the literal impacts of legalizing MJ, what are the productivity impacts and other health impacts of the drug policies in Holland? A friend of mine lives there and according to him it's pretty minor - his indulgences simply revolve around what does or does not get in the way of the things he wants to accomplish and he's pretty "a matter of fact" about it. I see the possibility that it would take time to adjust to a shift in our society, but I don't think the end result would take too long to achieve, and would be that different than the way the Dutch see drug use, and it doesn't seem to hurt them very much. (Though feel free to post information to the contrary) Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedI just had a thought: If people really want MJ legalized and feel that they are a large, unrepresented ignored segment of the population dismissed as a bunch of slackers, maybe it would work to setup a website where individuals could pledge to vote for third party candidates in 2002 (and a third party in 2004 if still unaddressed) if Obama does not address the issue seriously, with each pledge requiring a minimum $50 donation that goes to legal representation for people busted on MJ charges. The legal fund would have to have the stipulation that the charge would not include any other drugs in possession or system - can't test positive for meth and still get access to the fund for legal defense. I would be curious (a) what kind of numbers that would draw and (b) if it would have a chance of actually getting the issue taken seriously.

I actually really like Doctor Who, but I consider it science fiction in the way that Red Dwarf is science fiction. Red Dwarf takes place on a spaceship and all that - but when film developing solution "gets messed up" and turns the photos into "windows in time" where the cast can step back into history... it's not supposed to be hard science fiction. As such it will always fail when viewed from that criteria. Douglas Adams would rewire physics through creating wording: "Anyone can fly, they just have to throw themselves at the ground and miss!" I used to cringe, but now I only cringe when a show purports to have an established set of physical laws to work within and fails miserably. Otherwise I judge it on it's other merits such as characters, plot, humor, creativity, thought provoking ideas, etc.

They are certainly heading that way. Here's a question - we can't let AIG die because then they'd default on payouts to a ton of other wall street companies, and we don't want that to happen, so... What if we let them die, but proposed to "honor in some percentage" those payouts, so instead of money going to AIG to pay out their losses (you know, however much actually makes it there), those holding those contracts could get 'micro-bailouts' thereby surgically removing AIG's tentacles in the whole mess? The biggest issue I recall is that AIG offered "insurance" against specific securities dropping in value, and since they did drop it's not like any money we throw at AIG is going to be recovered in that department anyway.

That may be your opinion but it is not one that I suspect many people share. I'll give you again the example of abortion. Many people feel that the fetus should have constitutional rights, even if the Supreme Court rules otherwise. They continue to voice their opinion that the SC is wrong and abortion is unconstitutional, as is their right. The Supreme Court has no control over what is and is not constitutional. They only make rules as to what they believe is constitutional, open to revision down the road should they have gotten it wrong. It is entirely possible for the supreme court to rule SSM is not constitutionally protected and for me to agree with their ruling. All that would take is for their arguments to be solid enough to demonstrate to me that they are correct. I wouldn't bet on that happening, but I am not closed minded on the topic, I just need to see a good argument that makes more sense than my current stance. ...as I stated in my post was your stance. Why are you acting like I was saying something different - where did I get your stance wrong? I said you said exactly what you just said. I think you accidentally did a double negative there, but I know what you mean. Again, as I stated earlier, we are not talking about whether something would meet terminal resistance, just whether something is right or wrong. Whether it's constitutional or not. Practical obstacles and majority opinion aren't factors in deciding what is just or unjust. Once you have established whether something is right or wrong, discriminatory or not, you can choose to ignore that finding due to the political climate - but it doesn't mean you shouldn't examine the issue just because the political climate would make it difficult to act on. We disagree on what the LGBT crowd wants and deserves, so naturally we won't agree on "how they want to go about it." Fact: It does not interfere with a single heterosexual's life whether they are CUed or married. The definition of liberty: freedom from arbitrary or despotic government or control. I don't know if you have ever been in love or married, but you take everything you felt with that person, and consider two people of the same sex with that depth of feeling and commitment. How is that fit the definition of marriage less than two drunk fools on a dare in Las Vegas? How is it that a legal definition of marriage should allow the second party but not the first and it not be arbitrary? Okay: You say it's an issue of pride and opinion on both sides. So, if that was the case: 1) which ruling would exert more control over people's lives? 2) how could enacting a control based on pride or opinion not be arbitrary? 3) If the definition of liberty is to be free of arbitrarily imposed controls, how can the liberty of gay people not be infringed upon by DOMA style rulings? And please read before answering: By "Imposed control" I don't mean they don't have access to the same legal rights in general as I know you support those rights via DPs. I mean they by law they'd have to check a box on their tax forms that reads "DP" instead of the one that reads "Married" and failure to do so would be illegal. Whether you think that is a major infringement or a "very small price to pay to get all their rights" or so small it's barely worth mentioning it is still an arbitrarily imposed control. Please take that into account when you read the word "controls" in question #3.

1) I understand your opinion about that a DP should be a constitutionally appropriate solution for granting gays the same rights as married people. That is understood, it's just disagreed with. 2) I understand you feel it's just a matter of pride that some people fell that constitutionally, the legal definition of marriage should be open to same sex couples. I also feel that assertion is unsupported. 3) I understand you feel that a Supreme Court ruling makes something constitutional or not and apparently you feel that to disagree with a Supreme Court decision is hypocritical, though I have the hardest time understanding this. So in distilled responses to the above: 1) I respect your opinion, I am just going to continue to challenge that opinion, and ask you to defend it. It's not a personal attack. Every opinion is based on something. Some opinions are based on something: sometimes it's based on a solid understanding of constitutional law, sometimes on a flawed understanding of constitutional law, sometimes on pure emotion - but they are always based on something. I have simply been trying to deconstruct your opinions as I feel the basis of this opinion is based on flawed logic. I feel there are considerations you have not taken into account. Of course, you are more than welcome in defending the basis of your opinions and counter-argue. That's one aspect of how a debate works. 2) You have continually asked "where's the harm?" and treated it as if both sides are equally "prideful" on the issue, and that either has a case for changing anything thus it should remain with the status quo of marriage being between a man and woman. I've tried to demonstrate numerous times that: A) Fighting to keep marriage limited runs against the overall nature of our society where we regularly allow differing positions on a term to co-exist by requiring the legal position on that term to be inclusive to both views. That way no one gets cut out, both are simply let in. B) I have also demonstrated that narrowing the scope of a term that inhibits a group's freedoms is a very bad precedent to set, and does our society harm. I have not read any examples from you to counter this argument - just a re-iteration of your feelings on the matter. 3) Again, this appears to logic on your part that is faulty and thus easily attacked. We have always held as a society that the Rule of Law is to be upheld as to what limits our actions - yet never acquiesced to the idea that those decisions are infallible or even right, and that we should somehow stop voicing our opinions when we feel they are wrong. We still have the right to disagree vocally with any decision by any aspect of our legal system or government. As such I have no idea what you are basing this "hypocritical" thing on, only that you are repeating it without stating a case for your position. If you find people are getting "tetchy" in this debate it has nothing to do with your opinions or what side they fall on. It's those instances where you repeat positions without countering the counter-positions people have taken the time to argue. It's when you make a brief statement as to something being hypocritical or prideful or "just your opinion" without countering or challenging a single thing in their argument and instead dismiss it all outright with a one line decree. When you do that people feel disrespected and bugged at you, and it's quite understandable when they get short. This is a very easy thing to break down and understand - it is not in any way "they disagree so they disrespect you" or such. Just so you know.

If I recall, you're the guy that wrote all those really fuzzy posts when I was drink'n. WB Gutz.

Okay, but honestly I think this is an example of how exactly not to go about it. I do understand the need to inhibit freedoms somewhat in order to reduce our impact but this just seems really suspect and heavy handed. If we give up the freedom to paint our cars black, why do we have the right to drive SUVs or even drive at all for recreation? People who like black have their color of choice taken away, yet people who happen to like SUVs continue to create far larger impacts than paint color ever could? It seems knee-jerk and ad hoc when we need real solutions. It reminds me of what Pangloss happened to say in the stimulus bill thread: Throwing a few billion at a program and saying "it can't help but create some jobs somewhere so it can only help" isn't the right way to go about stimulating the economy, especially when it can be abused. Really, I think we need to be more energy aware and culturally sensitive to our impacts - not implementing random bans on various colors. If it's only in the 90s, throw on a t shirt and roll down the window instead of using the AC. Let your comfort zone expand a bit. Get a smaller car. Walk to the corner store if you can. Do we need to ban quick trips to the store if they are in walking distance, or ration how many someone can take in a week? Awareness and incentives seem to be much more in line with our culture than outright bans. As an aside, if this did happen would it cause economic shifts in raw material demands, and would cause secondary shifts - would people be driving around looking for new jobs? Does white paint require more primer than black paint or primers that are less carbon neutral? We put lead in white paint for a reason - it's very tough to get white to cover. I am not sure what we use now but I know you can still get lead paint in art supply stores because it does such a good job, so I would suspect the alternatives are more production expensive than primers needed for black paint. How much energy is going to be spent putting this bill into motion, and how many cop cars will be idling next to idling pulled over car that were illegally painted black - where both would never have stopped if black was legal? How much energy goes into processing those tickets? How many elderly people will just say "Rubbish" and keep driving their old black boats to the corner store and get pulled over? How much energy will be spent just assessing the amount of energy that will be spent to enact this policy? I am just very skeptical that this has been thoroughly thought out - it strikes me more as a way to feel self important and as if one is taking control of a situation which honestly is a delusion we cannot afford. We need a comprehensive plan to deal with global warming, energy consumption, and sustainable growth... sporadic knee-jerk laws only give us a momentary feeling of smug confidence that we are at least doing something and making some sacrifices, but only distracts from the reality we need a comprehensive plan.

I wonder how reflective that is of actual paid taxes, after deductions and such, as well as how reflective of the actual taxes paid per person on average, including those that do not earn enough to pay and those that just don't file. It does seem like something is off based on that chart.