ParanoiA

Probably isn't smart to have only one source of energy anyway, but I've always been drawn to solar since it's the one form of energy that, to my layman sensibilities, isn't dependent on our home world. Correct me if I'm wrong, but we can buzz around this whole universe if we master turning star light into energy on big scales, right?

Well my last post just stated as much. I thought I made it clear that I suspected caricature, I just wanted to be sure. And I'm a little trigger happy anyway since I fully expect this to eventually happen. As soon as the economy shows a rebound, folks will praise the stimulus, whether it had a damn thing to do with it, whether it happened in spite of it, or not. But that's not what I took you to task for. I took you to task for this: Again...who's guilty of this double-standard you speak of? And I'm only doing this because I regularly see folks on here ridicule the O'rielly's, the Hannity's, the conservative pundits, of the same tactics; making strong, obvious arguments out of contentions that don't exist. I'm trying to save you man! Friends don't let friends resemble talk radio. <runs and hides from the flying poo....>

I'll admit there's no scientific basis to validate iNow's statement about how "marriage" would be, and is, used colloquially, but I've got a lot of anecdotal evidence to support it. As much as I argue against redefining marriage using the judicial branch, that is not an argument against the nature of the word today. I believe the definition of the word is changing - it's in the process; we're in transition. Inching closer to majority opinion. And that, to me, is the point. It's changing because it never meant that before. That's why I don't believe it is right and respectful to our system to retroactively apply our modern "changing" definition to older laws. The word is being overhauled and since it's not precise enough for legalease, let alone it's uncomfortable relationship with religion, we should not use it in any of our laws for any arrangement, sexual, racial, plural or otherwise. Outside of formal legal speak, allow the word to evolve and change however the public wants. We'll all being calling it marriage in no time.

No, not the double-standard that Obama doesn't get any credit by those same folks for the DOW's increase in response to his policies. That has not happened....yet. Although it's not as if I'd bet any money that it won't happen eventually.

I think it's a two hour finale too. I sure hope they wrap this up without it feeling too rushed. I too, was yawning a bit last night, but the Caprica stuff was kind of interesting.

Who is practicing this double-standard you speak of? This looks like a Rush Limbaugh argument - making believe that this contention exists. I don't see anyone not giving him credit, except for me, implicit in my question to bascule - hell it wasn't part of the thread until post # 87, and this is # 92. And I never said the DOW was an accurate measure of Obama's policies either. So, who's doing this? I was poking on bascule just to be sure he was trying to make that point, I wasn't entirely clear. If he wasn't, then I was going to use all of his arguments against him. But he's smarter than that, I'm pretty sure he was trying to make a point about the DOW being tied 100% to Obama's policies.

I sure hope you're joking...

Yeah, I think I'm confused, sorry. I've typed three different paragraphs now trying to explain what I'm thinking only to delete them as they make no sense. Never mind me. Carry on.

I like the idea. It would be really great if they could impart a sense of honor and statesmanship so that it could be used constructively and perhaps even serve as an example of proper political discourse. I'm afraid it would more than likely just turn into another "show" for campaigning in which the incumbent president suffers even more disadvantage. But I still like the idea enough to try it out.

Firstly, it DOES have to do with intelligence because he's talking about "due process" in the US and it is a requirement, albeit subjective, that laws be written so a common man of common intelligence can understand them. That's why waitforufo is phrasing the questions within that context. That's the framework of his post. It's really more of a guideline since there's no objective way to distinguish when a law has failed this requirement. I don't think so. I think it will roughly be a 50/50 split depending on who you ask and what area of the country. If you asked me either of those questions, I would respond by answering "wife or husband" to both questions. I may be wrong, but that's my guess. Hmm, I think you're definitely right that your questions above would have been answered such that supports the definition of marriage between a man and woman and therefore would support the implications of this law as well. But in a modern context, I don't believe those questions above would be answered that way, as I posted. So, with that in mind, I don't agree that this law clears anything up at all.

Indeed. Can't really argue with that one.

Not in our republic. In our country your peers cannot deny you rights simply because they outnumber you. Unless of course you're considering our repubic as the social contract. In that case, I'd argue that the philosophical methodology is that your rights are inalienable, and that government's job is to protect them. I admit, I frequently violate that association when I get caught up in discussion. But ecoli is right on the money.

Sure that would be downright painful, and not practical. You're right, she'll say she's getting married. And same-sex couples will say the same thing. And neither will have any legal leverage over the other. They'll have to persuade each other, or leave it be. Personally, I'll never look back. I could care less.

I voted yes, but I resent the implication that it's to use a "less controversial" word, rather it's to use a more clinically accurate word.

The way this reads....Every husband married to a husband or wife living, or wife married to a husband or wife living, is therefore guilty of bigamy. See, they're not qualifying "person". I think I know what they meant, but it's no more conclusive than the definition debate. We're still left to infer intents from obscure language.

You're not understanding. If they didn't conceive or denounce it, then they did not intend it either. Laws are to be interpreted by their intent. The reason is because the meaning of words change, brand new ideas surface after laws were created, societies change, values change - the culture changes constantly while the document of our laws does not. We did that on purpose too. The value of the constitution is in it's "record"; the static nature of recording principles. That way, as society evolves, it ADDS to the constitution, thoughtfully and completely using the legislative branch. That's the design. An example would be if I legalized smoking faggots. Back in the 1800's that may not be an issue, but I'll bet it wouldn't fly for me to burn homosexuals alive and citing that the modern definition of "faggot" includes the disparaging label given to homosexual citizens. That kind of law may not conceive or denounce such behavior either. No, we must go back to when that law was written and interpret what that word meant back when it was written. And it didn't mean burning people for their sexual orientations. So if someone wants to start smoking gay people, they must write new legislation to do it. They must cause a majority of the congress to agree it's a good idea - not one guy behind a bench. Remember, the value of the republic is in the majority concept - as opposed to individual rule. That's why it's so important to keep solo performances from establishing laws. I think you're absolutely right. Which is why I'm trying to get away from all of it, because EVEN IF I was to agree that marriage was never meant to exclude same-sex unions, it's still a "charged" word. That's why this whole debate has so much traction, because we're all allowing the obscure nature of the word "marriage" to hijack the point. There are valid arguments for each side. Maybe we could agree that we have a poorly worded law on the books that is causing an inequality. Rather than redefine the poorly chosen words to make then suddenly 'clear', and fight endlessly about it, it would seem more appropriate to use the right freaking words to begin with. That's why I keep settling on "Civil Unions" for legal purposes - and let them call themselves whatever the hell they want without any legal standing.

Right, it's a risk assessment. We depend on them to be bias in assessing risk. In fact, the whole notion of NOT being biased about what you invest in is how you get malinvestment and is precisely why we are having a recession - purging bad investment. It's mechanics involve bankruptcies, opportunist acquisitions, job losses - the side effects you get when you make an inefficient process efficient. Malinvestment is ineffecieny with capital. You're accusing an abritrary slice of a minority group for our recession? Interesting, I haven't heard that theory. I have heard tons of nonsense about "oversight", the democrat equivalent of the republican "tax cut" mantra. Or did you have a different mess in mind? If you can't 'trust their judgement' then why have a centrally planned economic structure? You must be able to predict behavior to people-manage an economy, but by your own admission they have no ability to do navigate their investment choices between good and bad, so how are you to predict their behavior? No need to answer because that's ridiculous. The market is made up of people that suck at assessing risk. The poor = suck at managing risk and money. That's why they're poor. Middle class = suck a little less at managing risk and money. That's why they're middle class. Rich = good at managing risk and money. That's why they're rich. So, if this arbitrary slice actually represents the "elite rich", which it doesn't, then we could depend on their risk assessment more than anyone else. They have the results to back them up. Unless of course, you're of the opinion that every dollar a rich man makes came from a poor man's pocket, and through unfair advantage. To the OP though...I don't think it's a referendum on Obama policy alone, it's just indicative of investor confidence. They just don't have a lot of faith, and Obama's policies play into that, but Obama can't make the economy come back. Even if he followed every republican idea and outright abandoned his party, he still wouldn't achieve any more confidence. Just my opinion.

I'm not following the logic on how their rights uniquely would be infringed by defining a word they happen to use - a word they do not own, and do not use exclusively. The secularist has just as much right to the word. And just to be clear, the rights being infringed by retroactively redefining the word, are infringed for all, not just them. Prior to the emancipation proclamation slaves never had rights either, yet I would never presume they weren't being denied such rights. I don't think that's the semantic argument you or anybody else might think it is. Rights are inalienable, even if they aren't recognized by us and our constitution and that's the basis for therefore including them in the constitution. I believe that's the premise of the Declaration of Independence - to reconcile the principle of inalienable rights. It should not matter when we realize our disparity, only that we correct it upon discovery. Of course, don't confuse this to mean it should be perfectly ok to subvert the constitutional process of legislating rights and privilege. I just don't agree with the notion that rights aren't being denied if you've never had them. True. And I may achieve marijuana legalization if we called it aspirin. Principle is worth fighting for and they believe in the principle of their inclusion in the definition of "marriage". I don't. But they do, and I appreciate the reverence for principle in the face of shrinking support. Fight for what's right, not what's popular. That's what you and I are doing here also. We don't care if the forum is against us, we don't agree with the method being used to reconcile an inequality. What I'm not sure about is whether or not you personally see an inequality issue here. That's separate from logistical function of our government - it's personal opinion. In plain speak, do you see an inequality in denying homosexual unions the same rights and privilege as heterosexual marriages? (definition of "marriage" notwithstanding). This, of course, we agree on. This is the only sound argument, in my opinion. And it's important. And it's the point I think everyone in this thread is not critically considering. Granting rights and privilege should always be a deliberate, thoughtful act charged with the obligation to define ALL potential dynamics, issues, concerns and etc. That doesn't happen in court - if the court retroactively redefines a word or law, the consequences can just as easily be out and out chaos - because the court is not invested with any power to "manage" law, only to interpret it. The legislative branch does manage our rights. That's their job. They don't just say, "yep, free speech for all with no restrictions". Instead, they say "free speech, with the exception that you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theatre causing death and injury". Only the legislative branch can thoughtfully include that restriction upon allocation of the right to free speech. The court would not be able to include that restriction if that right were attained by the court's new interpretation thus the "new" right to free speech would also give everyone the right to cause death and injury in any crowded gathering. This is the reason why it's so important for rights and privilege to be deliberately written out, with all of the dynamics defined, restricted, liberated, as appropriate per thoughtful debate - in other words, that's the point and purpose of the legislative branch. I was following your etymology battle and it's meaningless. All words in our language have historic tradition. In fact, we depend on that tradition to stick so we can continue using the communication medium accurately. Here, an appeal to tradition is actually useful and logical. And practical. However, that doesn't matter much anyway because the obligations on our courts is to interpet the intent of the law, and then mark it constitutional or not. The intent of the law is found in the language as defined at the time it was written, otherwise, they would have used more specific language ( a further supporting argument for the legislature in charge of allocating our rights, part of their job is to write laws clearly, whether or not they fulfill that obligation to our expectation...but that should be the presumption in the design ). In other words, if we were establishing the institution of marriage today, I don't believe we would use the word marriage. We would likely use "civil union" or some such term, and we would be clear on same-sex unions by spelling it out - NOT by depending on the definition of "union" to stay static in our courts, regardless of such expectation. I believe if same-sex unions were part of the intent of marriage laws, it would have been made clear. I do not believe they simply felt no need to specify, depending on the word "marriage" to cover same-sex unions. Any lawyer worth minimum wage could see the overt obscurity in that word. To me, this is because marriage laws were drafted at a time when the notion of homosexual unions were not realistically conceivable. Therefore, not the intent of the law. It's obvious that marriage is a derivative of union. It's a type of union. So is the hetero union. This is the clinically accurate title of these institutions. All other language associated with these unions should be left to the public to use and define at their whim. Legally, civil union is the only logically accurate and emotionally disarmed term for people who wed, no matter their sexual identities. That's the constitutionally correct method to right this wrong. Pass legislation; write laws that resolve this inequality legally, and leave the definition games to those who want to haggle over it. If one is to argue on principle, which everyone in here is doing, then there's no reason to dismiss the principle of "civil unions" and chunking every reference to "marriage" in our laws. Marriage should be replaced by civil unions. And we need to do this now. Don't pass this mess on to our kids - step up and do it now. Let's be better than those we ridicule in our history books for being gutless hypocrites. As for Prop 8...I find it interesting that the arguments used to deny the claim on marriage for same-sex couples also serves against the need for Prop 8 to begin with. How do you ban something you say doesn't exist? Prop 8 should be struck down because it's a useless law. I'm finding more distaste on defining the word marriage every day. It's a hole in our legal structure that needs repairing. And that doesn't include repairing it by redefining words, but rather by using the correct ones to begin with. None of them are the word "marriage".

Yeah, this whole business on wishing others to fail and that somehow earning "news" status is just one of the dumbest wastes of time I've seen in a while. But, hey, no one is going to be able to stop partisan hacks from pretending like there's an issue there. Rush is going to wish Obama to fail whether he says it or not. Democrats wanted Bush to fail, whether they say it or not. How do I know? Because it's freaking insane to believe in the opposition's ideas moreso than your own, otherwise why are you in oppostion? I feel compelled to toss out a big fat elementary "Duh!!" here. Next they're going to make news out of Tom Coughlin's hope that the Patriots fail in their superbowl running. ("Oh my...he wants the NFL to fail??" No, dummy, he's on a different team...) Yes, believe it or not, democrats believe most republican ideas are bad. And as controversial as that may be, republicans believe most democrat ideas are bad. Yep, no kidding. Hey, in fact, this MAY have something to do with why they are two separate parties to begin with...but I don't want to jump to conclusions.

If the existing laws were written fine, we wouldn't be having this discussion. I don't see much disagreement about the ends, only the means. If I believed the supreme court could rule on the definition of "marriage" and end the debate, I'd certainly be with you. And you know why that is happening? Because of the insistence on legally redefining the word marriage, through the courts ala "reinterpretation retroapplication" maneuvers on the constitution, a position that does not enjoy majority support. And that's got them all charged up and motivated. Rather than to instead, make your own charge and focus efforts on establishing the "civil union" as the government recognized institution through federal law, whereas traditional hetero "marriage" is merely one form that meets the qualifications. Others would include same-sex unions, and they could call them marriage all day long, what law would exist that cares what it calls itself? I would think that would stand a better chance of majority support.

As usual, emotion is clouding reason. iNow, the freaking word "unorthodox" means breaking with convention or tradition. And isn't that a subsequent point of that dynamic? Allowing our traditions to define what's acceptable rather than our modern reason? Yes, the gay lifestyle is not "traditional", but it is not therefore wrong because of that. Or maybe there's a decent argument as to when it becomes "traditional". I would say we're defining new ones. Are you kidding? You called Skeptic a jackass and repeatedly appealed to his argument as ****ing stupid and now you're going to pause from your unchecked abusive verbal ad hom indulgence to pretense a self sacrifice? Fascinating. Skeptic has earned respect, you can do better than that. Which is the problem with these discussions since that's the issue - the definition of marriage. The definition of that word is the issue since that's how we interpret our laws. We must interpret the laws as they were written with respect to the usage of the terms at the time they were written. If marriage meant two yokes pissing on a rock when the law was written, then that's how we must interpret it today. Now, after we interpret the meaning of the law, we must then decide if it's constitutional or not. If it's not, then we strike down the law. Then your arguments on what is relevant and what is not, and most of the emotive ramblings in this thread, will become useful as new laws are written in response to the previous step...at least on our side of the pond, which is the subject of the thread. That just seems simple to me. I don't understand what's so difficult. The majority agrees gay folks should be able to hook-up like hetero folks, with all the bells and whistles, but we're all bottle necked over the implications of the fight on the definition of marriage. We agree on the ends, yet we fear the means. Seems to me we could get the result we want much quicker if we could get past the emotive component and approach our constitution in a logical, rational manner.

I'm assuming this is directed at me, but correct me if I'm wrong. I certainly never said he isn't the de facto leader, I think he is and I spent post #14 detailing why. They're definitely afraid of crossing him right now, and they haven't in the past, ever, and that's indicative of the state of affairs. They don't hold the constituency, Rush does. I keep saying, the conservative base never wanted the bipartisanship, moderate angle and I think this is proof of that. The republican leadership lost their supporters as they clamored to resemble democrats with the bipartisan-moderate message. Good article there by Frum by the way. I think he describes this pretty well and I agree with the Jesse Jackson comparison of the 80's. Rush will be sidelined when they get their constituency back.

So we agree then. Cool.

Isn't that what is happening when the government writes laws to keep us from shopping outside of the country? I guess I'm more interested in the potential cause and effect of removing such laws and forcing Big Pharma to compete like everyone else. Their business model will have to adjust to gain the efficiency to continue to compete, like any other industry. So, will that then cause more problems than it solves? Will total R&D by the industry drop such that quality and breakthrough research suffers?

Oh please, that was a funny bit but give me a break. Are we really going to pretend there isn't class contention? The DOW represents confidence by investors, while Obama's approval rating isn't exclusive to investors, which are people with money investing to make more money - they're business minded. And no, 401K doesn't count. Technically it does, obviously, but us 401K champions aren't "businessmen", we're worker bees that chose a life of mediocrity in trade for the security of steady paychecks. That said, I still don't think the DOW's low balling is a direct response to Obama's plans alone, but we'd be fools to think his socialistic ideas aren't going to make waves in the stock market.