Phi for All

Many people dislike the negative ads that only seek to sling mud. I think a large part of getting big business out of politics will be to reform campaign laws to make a more level playing field. Should the candidates be restricted in their mud-slinging?

So is it a violation of the 1st Ammendment to make the candidates focus on their own good traits and stop focusing on the bad traits of their opponents in campaign advertisements?

This is what terrorism is ALL about; getting us to spend billions on something that costs them thousands. That's why it makes no sense to react the way we have. I think a great response would be to announce... no more announcements. Limit the military presence to defensive positions and fund covert operations to deal with terrorism in the way it understands best. Special Forces, SAS, IMF (j/k), whatever it takes. Al Qaeda, you'll never see it coming....

Again, from what I've read, it sounds so devastating to take some killer disease and release it on an unsuspecting population. But in reality, think of the logistics: everyone who works with the virus, purchasing it, transporting it, setting it up in some kind of delivery system, doing the actual delivery, are all exposed and at risk. With ebola, they wouldn't get very far along the process. Even if they are willing to die, it doesn't give them good odds of living long enough to accomplish their task. Trillions of anthrax spores got loose in a Russian city of 1.2 million and killed just over 60 people. It's much more time and cost effective for terrorists to blow up a building to kill a hundred or more.

Beware reading only one source, Douglas. Anthrax truths More on Anthrax Conservative truth about Anthrax Anthrax is usually more deadly to those who are attempting to prepare it than to anyone on which it is used. Hurray for our side!

Take away their funding to run splashy ad campaigns and I think you'll see C-SPAN being revamped in a hurry, maybe even with cheerleaders and prizes. What about the negative campaigns? Can we curb their right to sling mud?

But if they don't have China backing them up, their credibility is much less. We just have to hope they're not crazy enough to start something without their bigger, older brother's help.

ROFL! Unfortunately, I think it's the afterglow of 8000 spent nuclear fuel rods. Doesn't it sound like China is a bit peeved with them lately, or is that just for show?

It was really your idea, Pangloss, and I know everyone appreciates you input. With cable TV so widespread, I'm betting someone could come up with a great format for "the Politics channel" or something. With paid advertisements, they could get out candidate info as well as debates on the issues.

Douglas, we have determined, in other threads, for the purposes of our own arguments, that the only WMDs are nuclear. Chemical and biological agents are used to disperse people. As long as you can leave an area affected by these weapons, they are rarely deadly. Of course, you can use the gasses to make an entrenched enemy move, then gun them down, but the gasses themselves are not WMDs. The other side of the "gassing the kurds" story Chemical & biological weaponry

So far, LuTze has suggested that a cap be put on donations and Pangloss has suggested that companies should not be allowed to contribute to political campaigns at all. It seems to me that this would open the playing field a bit, allowing people to run for office who can't pony up the mega-millions it takes now. How will candidates reach the public without that funding?

The "lowest bidder" system is flawed, similar to the budget system that encourages departments into the use-it-or-lose-it spending mentality. No one wants less next year so they spend all they are allotted and clamor for more.

Ah, but you are talking about ideal conditions, with no idiots around. I think most speed limits are figuring some kind of average traffic circumstances. We all know, for example, you can generally corner faster than the advisory signs tell us (in the US, about 15mph faster), but what if the weather is bad or the traffic is heavy, etc. We always forget there may be some idiot who overreacts or underestimates their own abilities while driving. Where I think this lapse of judgement is most dangerous is in highway driving in moderate to heavy traffic. Here in the States it's not uncommon to see many cars driving 65-70 mph with only 1-2 car-lengths seperating them. Reaction time is sufficient if someone ahead simply slows down, but if they have to really slam on the brakes I can guarantee there will be an accident. I see "accordion" collisions on the news every week, 10+ cars all jammed together.

A good start, but remember that some of these mega-corps have hundreds of subsidiaries. Can they each donate as well?

I agree, and I started a new thread. We're starting to get pretty off topic from Kerry's Purple Hearts!

Imo, capitalism works best with lots of competition, and the bigger businesses get, the less competiton there is. One of their biggest threats is their influence in politics. Any thoughts on how we can curb this unfair influence?

Physicist Michio Kaku warns in his book Hyperspace that it is the small countries with nuclear capabilities we have to worry about if we are to survive our discovery of the properties of uranium. The Russians, the US, the UK and a few others have improved radically in their social growth, but not enough in context with the millionfold increase nuclear weapons provide in terms of mass destruction capability. Small countries who have only had the bomb a short time haven't had the social growth needed to keep their fingers far enough away from the buttons. They may see dwindling resources and fewer opportunities for power and advancement as detrimental to their future and are much more likely to feel that their backs are against the wall, with offensive nuclear weapons as their only recourse. Aggressive superpowers are just going to make it more likely that they feel threatened.

I don't think that was the only reason, but since it is a fact that Bush and many of his administration were adamant about invading Iraq from day one in office, and since Cheney's ties with Halliburton were still strong, I think you'd have to be a bit naive to believe there was no connection between the White House and Halliburton's no-bid contracts. I know you're thinking those contracts were given by the Army Corp of Engineers, but come on.... One of the big explanations for why Halliburton was given the green light was the time factor, the urgency of need required. To quote the GAO Report report to Congress: For example, the Army Corps of Engineers properly awarded a sole-source contract for rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure to the only contractor that was determined to be in a position to provide the services within the required time frame. But if Iraq was the plan from the beginning, why wait until the urgency requires the vice-president's former company to do the work? It's one thing to be opportunistic and take advantage of market circumstances, but creating the urgency that lets only one company do the work, and it just happens to be Cheney's old firm?!? is just too much of a coincidence. Of course they did everything by the book from there on, but it's the delay/foreknowledge that bothers me most about the Cheney/Halliburton deal.

Sometimes they give me a cookie! The Rhyming thread's OK, but we need you over in the Official Jokes section, too. Read them all, memorize them, and then add any new ones you can think of. Things are very serious here, what with the science and the politics and all. We need some funny.

Good luck, blike! Arizona is a dry heat, though, not like that humidity you're used to in Florida after four hurricanes. Use a moisturizer.

You're wrong, believe it because I said so. Why? Because I talk to cucumbers all the time. They're not stupid, they're just seedy. Welcome JohnB, I like your style.